[LazyH]

Hey, first post on the head-fi forums so far and beginning a project I've been considering for a while. I've done modding on a bunch of different headphones before, I just love taking things apart, seeing how they work, and just tinkering with the different parts of them, like turning a pair of $10 circumaural headphones from menards into open back to give a more open, clear sound, or modding the grill on my friends sony headset to give greater detail and treble clarity, but now I want to start completely from scratch, turn a pair of drivers and raw materials into a custom-tuned headset.
 
I'm starting with the drivers from a set of phillips headphones that my friend gave me, though I don't know what model. He's had a lot of hearing damage and said he liked them for the clarity, the only problem is that with the enclosures they have now, the volume must be nearly deafening to provide that detail. I removed the obstructive grill on the front of each driver though and that's opened up the sound quite a bit, giving it more detail at lower volume. From what I can tell of the sound of the drivers, I'm aiming for a circumaural design with a chamber on both sides of the driver to provide a bit more resonance and reduce that muffled feeling, though with the muddy bass response and hollow sound with the current closed back design I'd like to make them open back but with sound deadening material to tighten up the bass, I did get a bit tighter sound by stuffing some fabric behind the drivers in their current enclosure after drilling some holes in the back as a proof of concept.
 
This won't be a really high end set of phones, mostly to get an idea of what I need to set up and tune the entire auditory system in a set of headphones, though I might try another with some better quality drivers if this project goes well. The material I'm planning on using is some cheap mahogany I had left over from a project I had a while ago, along with cheap radio shack speaker wire and plugs, maybe some paracord sheathing. I'm debating whether I want a removable cord but I don't want to make the project too complicated for my first try.
 
Unfortunately I have no memory card for my camera right now, but as soon as I get one I'll start posting some pictures of the parts and materials I have and an idea of where I want this project to go.

 

[LazyH]

I'm modeling the cup of my headphones off of the design of a violin, I want to be able to experiment a bit with the different dimensions , thickness of wood, height of the ribs, to produce the best sound for the drivers I'm using, I'm also going to see if the headphones work better undamped to provide resonance, or if the resonance colors the sound too much what kind of sound deadening materials clean up the sound the best and if the shape I use can still contribute to the overall sound.