[c61746961]

Are you assuming closed vents or open? Will it work either way? At the moment I'm still trying to figure out which way I prefer it. It's quite balanced anyway and I'm not feeling the boost to basses people say closing the vents should do. Prolly the ceramic fiber inside smoothens that effect. 

I was assuming open (T20) or damped (T50) vents. Closing the vents will result in less bass. If the filter material is damping the whole driver back and is dense enough, then poking a hole will increase bass regardless of open or closed cup vents. I tune my fostex mods with a slight bass bump, I think it sounds more correct than (measured) flat bass because the driver displaces relatively little air, the bass sensation is more realistic with a lift there.

 

[bluemonkeyflyer]

  Few days later.....
 
So I needed some "opening" and all I imagined to do was get rid of that white cover on the back of the speakers 
 

 
 
I have never been able to get good SQ after removing the stock white damping material on the rear side of the drivers. The bass bloat after removing it has always been overpowering and uncontrolled, requiring all kinds of modifications to get back to the way it was... I'm glad it worked for you, though!

 

[nick n]

I always wanted to try ceramic wool. There are some absorption coefficient graphs for it around on some soundproofing sites. Though that is for stray sound absorption, it says little to it's sonic effects  like adding dimensionality or anything of that nature.
What do you notice about it in particular?
 
The idea to punch some holes or a hole in it to allow the driver the fly a little " looser " and breathe a bit more is a great one.
 
 
What level of vent blockage do you have?
I find in my config leaving one free and 3 blocked works a nice perfect balance.
if the missing material on the driver rear is compensated with a direct damping of something dense like the ceramic wool it might be fine.
 
I removed 2 squares of white over 2 grids and due to what was immediately on top it remained fine, whereas others trying that said it got boomy ( not using my damping of course ).
 
Who knows what ceramic wool is like for that

 

[wild bill]

I have never been able to get good SQ after removing the stock white damping material on the rear side of the drivers. The bass bloat after removing it has always been overpowering and uncontrolled, requiring all kinds of modifications to get back to the way it was... I'm glad it worked for you, though!

 
 
Is genuine Blu Tack still the best stuff to use in the areas shown in this pic on a mk3 or is there a better putty nowadays?
 
 

 

[bluemonkeyflyer]

   
 
Is genuine Blu Tack still the best stuff to use in the areas shown in this pic on a mk3 or is there a better putty nowadays?
 
 

 
Newplast from England or make your own DIY Tungsten putty...both better than Blue Tac.
 
http://qualia.webs.com/newdampingfactors.htm
 

visco elastics and soft foams
material	frequency	damping factor
blutack (white)	15	0.166
closed pore foam		0.151
expanded polyethylene		0.167
foam for glass bricks		0.288
foam board (paper)	94	0.030
polyurethane foam	120	0.054
polyurethane foam block	141	0.109
above, reconstituted	82	0.149
Plasticine'	77	0.304
'Newplast'	160	0.635
rho C' [polyurethane]		0.287
smart putty'		0.134
sorbothane		0.197
tungsten loaded putty	80	0.725
Wickes' 'lead' flashing		0.161

 

[wild bill]

   
Newplast from England or make your own DIY Tungsten putty...both better than Blue Tac.
 

 
 
 
 
oh great - there would have to be two competing Newplasts, just to confuse things.....ugh!
 
both from UK - which was the one tested for dampening?
 
Newplast from Lewis
 
Newplast from Newclay
 
 

 
 

 

[bluemonkeyflyer]

   
 
 
 
oh great - their would have to be two competing Newplasts, just to confuse things.....ugh!
 
both from UK - which was the one tested for dampening?
 
Newplast from Lewis
 
Newplast from Newclay
 
 

 
 

 
Get the Newplast from Lewis because it does not dry out. Newclay dries out and you don't want it crumbling away inside the cups.
 
Also, stay away from Bake to Dry clay because it will melt your ABS cups and baffles.

 

[Johnnystuff]

I have never been able to get good SQ after removing the stock white damping material on the rear side of the drivers. The bass bloat after removing it has always been overpowering and uncontrolled, requiring all kinds of modifications to get back to the way it was... I'm glad it worked for you, though!

Wat? Bass bloat? If there's one thing I'm still missing after all the tweakings are the basses. As for the white dampening material, removing it has been the moment in which my cans were basically born. Before that all I could hear was messy muddy sounds. Good thing I guess is that sounds perception and tastes are like assh0les, everyone has to deal with his own

 

[bluemonkeyflyer]

Are you assuming closed vents or open? Will it work either way? At the moment I'm still trying to figure out which way I prefer it. It's quite balanced anyway and I'm not feeling the boost to basses people say closing the vents should do. Prolly the ceramic fiber inside smoothens that effect. 

Closing the cup vents won't increase the bass. It will tighten the bass.

 

[Johnnystuff]

  I always wanted to try ceramic wool. There are some absorption coefficient graphs for it around on some soundproofing sites. Though that is for stray sound absorption, it says little to it's sonic effects  like adding dimensionality or anything of that nature.
What do you notice about it in particular?
 
The idea to punch some holes or a hole in it to allow the driver the fly a little " looser " and breathe a bit more is a great one.
 
 
What level of vent blockage do you have?
I find in my config leaving one free and 3 blocked works a nice perfect balance.
if the material on the driver rear is compensated with a direct amping of something dense like the ceramic wool it might be fine.
 
I removed 2 squares of white over 2 grids and due to what was immediately on top it remained fine, whereas others trying that said it got boomy ( not using my damping of course ).
 
Who knows what ceramic wool is like for that

As for the sonic effects of the ceramic wool it's hard to say because I don't have much to compare it to. What I can say it's that it gave a huge "balance effect" or probably I should say of separation and normalization (the good one, not the bad/flattening one).
 
In my mind I figured out the situation like me hearing music that was played inside an empty can, closed can (like a beer can so to speak). It's exagerated but not even that much. The first impression after few hours with the new headphones was very simple: muddy deep waters. Distant sounds, partially mixed together, close to no separation, vastly unbalanced towards the trebles. I was also still burning in my DX80 so that may have had part in all that. Anyway: adding the ballast (oenological mastic ftw!) was like separating the dirt from the water, no more muddyness, better, much better separation but now probably too unbalanced towards mids and vocals in particular but still that "inside the can" mark. Removing the white dampening thingy was like cutting the can wide open, all the sounds popped out and it was really odd, quite powerful but kinda wrong at the same time. Adding the ceramic wool was like taking all the sounds outside of the can and letting them play on stage where they were supposed to be. I didn't feel any boost in anything in particular, just a balance and again a better separation and a lot of clarity all around. I guess you can call that "spaciality" so yep, it did that.
 
But I've been tweaking it a bit more today. First I added another thin layer of wool in order to cover all the inner pad. Basically I cut an oval 1-2 mm thick and overlapped it to the squared piece that was against the driver. It didn't change a lot, but the fact that now the wool from the inside was pushing harder against the vents made it so that there was basically no difference with open or closed gaps. Btw, I removed the black square of velcro that "closes" the vents from the inside too.
 
So I did one last thing: as wild bill suggested I pinched a hole with a screw in the wool. That was the last piece of something that was missing. Again, a great opening and widening of the sounds, probably basses more than others since they were the least audible but it made everything more "airy". So yes I'd suggest not to cram too much wool against the back of the driver, you risk to have a flattening effect on all the frequencies but especially basses. 
 
Anyway, long story short: these cans still have their signature, which is a bit dry on the negative side but one could say very clear and crisp on the bright side. It's not bassy even if it's pretty darn good for electonic music (good ol Portished, Gotan Project and Massive Attack are quite a blast) but more suited for guitars, vocals and live music (have that "bring you there" effect). I listen to a lot of rock, acousting and indie music (Calexico, Wilco, Pavement, dEUS...... Sigur Ros) and it's awesome for that. It's hard to say if there is a genre I don't like on these headphones. Probably hip-hop if I even had a single EP Maybe classic music too because they miss some clicks on the warmth-meter but who cares..... I'm braingasming like a braingasmed muda****a

 

[wild bill]

I think I am

   
Get the Newplast from Lewis because it does not dry out. Newclay dries out and you don't want it crumbling away inside the cups.
 
Also, stay away from Bake to Dry clay because it will melt your ABS cups and baffles.

 
The Lewis NewPlast is quite expensive to get shipped to USA, for that kind of money, I can get 50g (2 cans) of something really interesting for a splurge

 

[bluemonkeyflyer]

I think I am

The Lewis NewPlast is quite expensive to get shipped to USA, for that kind of money, I can get 50g (2 cans) of something really interesting for a splurge

Yes, I once bought 10 bars to make it economical considering the high cost of shipping. Cool find on the dark matter. PM me if you want to try Newplast.

 

[maul]

  Unbiased mini-review
 
I bought a pair of mrspeakers' Alpha Pads and Dog Pads to try with my DBV #3 modded T50RP's. My impressions and opinions may differ from yours.
 
I have not yet tried the Dog Pads. Here are my initial impressions of the Alpha Pads:
 
Build Quality: Excellent..."Period."  Professional appearance. Beautiful lamb skin. Nicely angled. Super comfortable...much more so than Shure 840 pads and FA-003 pads. The extra depth and angled configuration moves the drivers off the ears. 
 
Sound Quality: Very good. The extra depth widens the sound stage more so than Shure and Fischer pads. This quality is a much appreciated benefit from using Alpha Pads. Bass and mid-range sound identical to Shure 840's, to me, YMMV. Treble rolls off a little sooner than Shure 840's, probably due to the larger internal pad volume. This could be easily "fixed" with minor tuning tweaks to suit personal preferences and audio chain if a bit more top end is desired. For others, they may be perfect.
 
Priceerformance: I think Dan hit the "sweet spot" with these pads. They look great, sound great, and the cost is fair and reasonable, IMO.
 
Suggested changes: The pad flaps are pleather or plastic material. I've installed and uninstalled them twice. The pleather flaps are stretched out a bit. They *may* revert to their original shape. I wonder if the Alpha Pads could be manufactured with flaps made of a more resilient material like rubber inner tubes? If so, they'd likely be more durable and more forgiving for those of us who like to tweak and compare.
 
Dan is "The Man!"

 
Found this while searching around - I'm surprised that BMF found the alphas to be lacking a bit in treble, I wish that was the case for me. Here I am about 3 months after getting mine and I've been unsuccessful in removing the harshness/sibilance of the alpha pads after many mods. 
 
The only way I've found to reduce it to acceptable listening levels (for me) is to entirely cover up the middle square of the earside driver with something like sticky felt (similar to a blue monkey dot, but completely sealed), or to remove a bunch of interior mods / no treble reflector / no strips. Even though my ear found it more controlled, the measurements continued to show large treble spikes no matter what I did. This is the alpha pads with nothing on the driver and only a very thin layer of insulation (7-8 kHz drop is a measurement artifact): 
 

 
840 pads as a comparison with all of the interior mods (7-8 kHz drop is a measurement artifact): 
 

 
I bought some of these foam dampening pads to put between the driver and the pad hoping it would simulate the dampening of the 840s, and even 2 would not fully dampen the treble and made everything else sound muddy. Really unfortunate as I love everything about the alphas accept for that aspect. Anyway, I think I've given up - I have the materials on the way and I'm going to be trying them on my 400i instead, curious about the hype regarding that. 
 
I have some HM5 angled velours and HM5 hybrids on the way as well. The 840s are getting too sticky and I definitely prefer velour for comfort so I'm hoping they will work out. I also love the concept of the 400i focus pads / having the best of both worlds of pleather/velour, so I'm really leaning towards the hybrids. Will post results...
 
Edit: I forgot to mention that I tried using wool on the back of the driver as well, just like what's in the Mad Dogs as seen below. This actually helped more than I expected, but I found it lacked detail compared to my 840 strip mod. Unfortunately I don't think I have measurements for this, I may or may not try it again.
 
Mad Dogs:
 

 

[c61746961]

Try the cosmetic pad mod, it's the 'nick n' mod, you don't need to be very meticulous to get good results, try varying amounts of perforations in the cosmetic pad to tune the bass.

 

[MF Kitten]

I am working on having something very very cool made... Custom baffles to mount T50RP drivers in a Beyerdynamic headphone!

I'm wondering if you guys can help me with this. I ca figure out the dimensions of the Beyerdynamic baffle, but the t50rp is not at my place yet, and the guy making me the baffles is in a different country. So I'm wondering if anyone here has a spare baffle from a t50rp that we can look at?