[znev777]

Just sliced up an old beat-up zmf pilot pad for what I think is memory foam on the inside. Cut it into large squares and stuck em in my t50's cups, and with some difficulty smooshed them down and screwed them in. That's what I love about modding, just stuffing random stuff into headphones and having a good listen. I've tried to pack cotton in there before, but it just never wowed me. The foam must be doing a decent job of absorbing some sound waves, the sound is a little less loose, and a little more fun and dynamic. I think the soundstage is smaller, but imaging seems better. When I cracked open my zmf Ori's a while ago for a peek, there was an awful lot of foam in there, so more foam must equal better sound. I am now eyeing my memory foam pillow, nothing is safe now.

The real lesson? Start slicing open stuff around your home, couches, stuffed animals, pillows, blankets, etc. You'll never know true audio bliss until you are ready to sacrifice all your other earthly goods to the modding gods.

 

[Balazar]

Just sliced up an old beat-up zmf pilot pad for what I think is memory foam on the inside. Cut it into large squares and stuck em in my t50's cups, and with some difficulty smooshed them down and screwed them in. That's what I love about modding, just stuffing random stuff into headphones and having a good listen. I've tried to pack cotton in there before, but it just never wowed me. The foam must be doing a decent job of absorbing some sound waves, the sound is a little less loose, and a little more fun and dynamic. I think the soundstage is smaller, but imaging seems better. When I cracked open my zmf Ori's a while ago for a peek, there was an awful lot of foam in there, so more foam must equal better sound. I am now eyeing my memory foam pillow, nothing is safe now.

The real lesson? Start slicing open stuff around your home, couches, stuffed animals, pillows, blankets, etc. You'll never know true audio bliss until you are ready to sacrifice all your other earthly goods to the modding gods.

lol, screw repeatability! the stuffing my dog pulled out of her chew toy beats the hell out of wool roving or X brand of cotton gauze.

 

[dnalekaw]

Thanks for shedding some light on this. On the ZMF are you saying that they add material to the diaphragm? or that material is added to the frame to mass load / attenuate somehow? I just had a full set (4) of the zgliszcz Pi 10 waveguides made and I'm experimenting with them now. I'm really tempted to open up the driver but I'm not sure what exactly I would do. Has anyone tested the strength of the magnets to tinker with the idea of swapping them out?

I'm still not exactly sure what magic Zach performs. You can kind of see see the white-ish material sandwiched between the diaphragm and the driver housing in one of Zach's video (top right corner):

My guess is that it allows a more uniform grip on the diaphragm, allowing the subtleties in its movement to be more easily expressed - decreasing distortion and increasing detail. It may also block the small vents in the actual driver housing - maybe improving sub bass extension???

 

[omegaorgun]

Always wanted the T60RP back and now it has some wood to contend with. I like them both, the T60 are more narrow but tighter and the vibro is wider and more relaxed even with narrower pads. If you put wide pads on the vibro it's borderline ludicrous.

 

[omegaorgun]

lol, screw repeatability! the stuffing my dog pulled out of her chew toy beats the hell out of wool roving or X brand of cotton gauze.

I'm still not exactly sure what magic Zach performs. You can kind of see see the white-ish material sandwiched between the diaphragm and the driver housing in one of Zach's video (top right corner):

My guess is that it allows a more uniform grip on the diaphragm, allowing the subtleties in its movement to be more easily expressed - decreasing distortion and increasing detail. It may also block the small vents in the actual driver housing - maybe improving sub bass extension???

The Ori has a lot of foam almost like from a kitchen scrub, Magic IMO is in the circular cups and it being semi open as I get a similar sound with the vibrolab but I get some more weight on my bass which I am currently going to do a retune on.

I hope Vibrolabs develop the product, it's potentially the best T50 or top 3 with right tuning.

 

[dnalekaw]

The Ori has a lot of foam almost like from a kitchen scrub, Magic IMO is in the circular cups and it being semi open as I get a similar sound with the vibrolab but I get some more weight on my bass which I am currently going to do a retune on.

The 'magic' is also in the Blackwood which are about as closed of a mod as you can get. Something about what is done really makes a difference between a stock driver and one modded by Zach. One can still get pretty far though without opening the housing up.

Edit: Was the kitchen scrub material in the Ori white?

 

[omegaorgun]

The 'magic' is also in the Blackwood which are about as closed of a mod as you can get. Something about what is done really makes a difference between a stock driver and one modded by Zach. One can still get pretty far though without opening the housing up.

Edit: Was the kitchen scrub material in the Ori white?

Mine was green i think. He could have changed the material over time but tuned it to be the same or similar. My one gripe with Ori is that the cups did not fully rotate.

 

[dnalekaw]

Mine was green i think. He could have changed the material over time but tuned it to be the same or similar. My one gripe with Ori is that the cups did not fully rotate.

Interesting! He always seems to use rather obscure materials not designed for acoustical applications. Was thinking it could be melamine foam like the vibro mk 1 but maybe not. I'll have to sneak a peak when my Oris arrive...

 

[znev777]

Interesting! He always seems to use rather obscure materials not designed for acoustical applications. Was thinking it could be melamine foam like the vibro mk 1 but maybe not. I'll have to sneak a peak when my Oris arrive...

When I cracked mine open there was some pieces of melamine foam (at least I think it was melamine), forming sort of a hoop around a mound of some sort of softish density grey foam, and on top of the grey foam was an even softer salmon colored foam. The cup was lined with some sort of denser white adhesive backed foam. So it seems like the softest foam is touching the driver, and then you get denser and denser foam the further away from the driver you get. I wonder if that's how you eek out a superior soundstage, most t50 mods seem to do something similar, cotton or something like that, and then you have the foam/felt in the cups, and then the cups themselves. Soft to hard

 

[dnalekaw]

When I cracked mine open there was some pieces of melamine foam (at least I think it was melamine), forming sort of a hoop around a mound of some sort of softish density grey foam, and on top of the grey foam was an even softer salmon colored foam. The cup was lined with some sort of denser white adhesive backed foam. So it seems like the softest foam is touching the driver, and then you get denser and denser foam the further away from the driver you get. I wonder if that's how you eek out a superior soundstage, most t50 mods seem to do something similar, cotton or something like that, and then you have the foam/felt in the cups, and then the cups themselves. Soft to hard

Wow! Certainly very inventive. Thanks for the detailed description.

Did you manage to grasp what was going on with the driver backing by any chance?

 

[omegaorgun]

Wow! Certainly very inventive. Thanks for the detailed description.

Did you manage to grasp what was going on with the driver backing by any chance?

I think mine had some felt added, to back it had come off a little so I was able to tidy it up. I had to repair the plastic cap. I had to carefully cut the material lining the cup and then got a screw driver through.

 

[dnalekaw]

I think mine had some felt added, to back it had come off a little so I was able to tidy it up.

Thanks. Sounds very similar to the ZMF Classic then.

 

[znev777]

Wow! Certainly very inventive. Thanks for the detailed description.

Did you manage to grasp what was going on with the driver backing by any chance?

Like firelion's mine had some felt too. There were a number of small felt dots over the back of the driver, and then a square piece of felt placed over those. The dots sort of pitched up the felt square, like tiny little columns so most of the felt square didn't touch the back of the driver directly.

 

[omegaorgun]

Have a MK2 walnut Vibrolab in the works and will be adding a balanced venus audio grado cable.
I hand on heart think if Vibrolabs modded the cup to have a removable connector and added a suspension strap they potentially would have the best T50RP mod on the market.
Def top 3 no question with the right tuning. It's also more enjoyable than an Ether C Flow and LCD-XC.

 

[muths66]

So many argon versions. Which one is the best?