[SonyFan121]

Thanks for your answer.

Yeah, I already have.

I have played with the screws a little bit, but it doesn't change anything. I even took one of the driver out because I thought that the wood earcup might cause the issue, but nope, I still get the problem.

However covering the hole behind the driver almost totally fixes the issue. (This hole here, it's not my picture though : https://i.gyazo.com/8200d806f6a2b2dd394a05bb34feea7b.png )
But then obviously it sounds awful in the bass area since it's sealed and there is no longer air going through.

So whatever this issue is, it's from the driver itself.

But from what I've seen the issue might be this : a warped diaphragm. https://www.head-fi.org/threads/fos...nd-measurements.618659/page-132#post-12124146

I would take the driver appart to try to fix the issue myself but since it's still covered by the warranty I don't want to mess with it for now.

Now I'm trying to find a way to contact Fostex but I'm not even sure this is possible. On their website they say that you have to directly contact the distributor where you bought the headphones from...

Huh, If I had knew, I would have never bought this damn thing. This is so frustrating.

Sorry to hear about this, I hope you can get the issue sorted.

 

[MetalChameau]

> Artyouth
Yeah, I have done that already. I suspected that since the wires were touching the driver it might cause a buzzing noise.

I held the positive and the negative wires connected to the driver tightly so it would not move while the driver was out.
At the same time I was running this at 40hz : http://www.szynalski.com/tone-generator/

But it didn't change anything, I was still getting the rattle.

I just tried to listen to the same thing with my 650s and it's super clean at a very loud volume.

> SonyFan121
Thx :c

 

[raoultrifan]

[...]
However covering the hole behind the driver almost totally fixes the issue. (This hole here, it's not my picture though : https://i.gyazo.com/8200d806f6a2b2dd394a05bb34feea7b.png )
But then obviously it sounds awful in the bass area since it's sealed and there is no longer air going through.

So whatever this issue is, it's from the driver itself.

But from what I've seen the issue might be this : a warped diaphragm. https://www.head-fi.org/threads/fos...nd-measurements.618659/page-132#post-12124146

I would take the driver appart to try to fix the issue myself but since it's still covered by the warranty I don't want to mess with it for now.

Now I'm trying to find a way to contact Fostex but I'm not even sure this is possible. On their website they say that you have to directly contact the distributor where you bought the headphones from...

Huh, If I had knew, I would have never bought this damn thing. This is so frustrating.

I wonder if @bluemonkeyflyer might help us out with some detailed pictures here. AFAIK T50RPmk3 and T60RP are sharing the same drivers, hence diaphragms are identical. Thanks in advance!

 

[Artyouth]

> Artyouth
Yeah, I have done that already. I suspected that since the wires were touching the driver it might cause a buzzing noise.

I held the positive and the negative wires connected to the driver tightly so it would not move while the driver was out.
At the same time I was running this at 40hz : http://www.szynalski.com/tone-generator/

But it didn't change anything, I was still getting the rattle.

I just tried to listen to the same thing with my 650s and it's super clean at a very loud volume.

> SonyFan121
Thx :c

As you said cover the driver top hole can solve the problem (both driver act the same?). Did you try cover it by some kind of very low density stuff like a thin layer of cotton which will not affact sound signature too much.
If this method can't solve. Obviously the problem was come from the driver side (driver to baffle this section) and it affected by the driver internal pressure. Check this section carefully to find any loose parts can cause vibration, from easy to difficult: baffle vents, baffle ring, screws, finally the driver to find out the problem source. Good luck!

 

[MetalChameau]

Artyouth >

Yupe, both drivers have the exact same issue, sadly.

I tried to cover the hole with some very thin tape, and most of the rattling went away. But there was still some rattling, and ofc it sounded awful, so that didn't help.
Partially covering the hole also didn't help. It needed to be fully sealed in order for most of the rattle to go away.

I also tried to close the holes in the earcup itself with tape but it didn't work either.

Here is a little video that shows the rattle at 40hz (Sorry about the horrible quality lol) :

I'm at 70% on the volume knob with the Lakepeople g93 on high gain. It's pretty clean with the HE-500, there is no rattle at all. I can even increase the volume to 75-80% with these headphones and they are totally fine.
Same thing with the HD650. 70% on the knob is pretty loud for these headphones, and yet they still can take it without any distortion or buzzing.

In the other hand the t60rp sound like garbage. The only way to get rid of this rattling noise it to lower the volume knob to 30%. And obviously the t60rp are harder to drive than 650s, so it's pretty clear that there is an issue there.
I mean hell, even my 32ohms 770 can go up to almost 60% on the knob without any rattling noise or distortion.

But I just contacted Fostex so maybe they will fix this issue. I don't really want to mess with the drivers for now since it still being covered by the warranty, so now I need to wait for an answer from them x)

And thanks again for trying to help guys, that's cool !

 

[Artyouth]

Artyouth >

Yupe, both drivers have the exact same issue, sadly.

I tried to cover the hole with some very thin tape, and most of the rattling went away. But there was still some rattling, and ofc it sounded awful, so that didn't help.
Partially covering the hole also didn't help. It needed to be fully sealed in order for most of the rattle to go away.

I also tried to close the holes in the earcup itself with tape but it didn't work either.

Here is a little video that shows the rattle at 40hz (Sorry about the horrible quality lol) :

I'm at 70% on the volume knob with the Lakepeople g93 on high gain. It's pretty clean with the HE-500, there is no rattle at all. I can even increase the volume to 75-80% with these headphones and they are totally fine.
Same thing with the HD650. 70% on the knob is pretty loud for these headphones, and yet they still can take it without any distortion or buzzing.

In the other hand the t60rp sound like garbage. The only way to get rid of this rattling noise it to lower the volume knob to 30%. And obviously the t60rp are harder to drive than 650s, so it's pretty clear that there is an issue there.
I mean hell, even my 32ohms 770 can go up to almost 60% on the knob without any rattling noise or distortion.

But I just contacted Fostex so maybe they will fix this issue. I don't really want to mess with the drivers for now since it still being covered by the warranty, so now I need to wait for an answer from them x)

And thanks again for trying to help guys, that's cool !

I had a sub bass nosie problem on one of my T20rp left ear. After I checked all parts and sure the noise was from driver. I disassembled the driver and add double side tape on the below photo purple area (both side top and bottom). Problem solved however you may 90% break the red circle leg (there are 4) easy when disassembling.

 

[kintsaki]

I guess it's from your headphones.

I'm curious about my T60RP...still waiting for my friend from CBG, UK to make a trip to IAS, RO to bring my cans. Somehow, I'm kinda sure I'll have same issue.

@kintsaki, wondering if the drivers need to be taken apart (dismantle the membrane parts as well) to fix this issue or it's enough to separate them from the wooden back-case with some foam/sponge to minimize the vibrations (sort of back-dumping)? I had this issue with my brand new HE-560 and I was unable to put back the affected driver (contact resistance between the two membranes was very high):https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hif...cussion-thread.711824/page-1339#post-14429325. Thank you!

Sorry I can't help. I have not tried it and even though I have really abused them a lot with other things I tried ( my diaphragm in two of my pairs is not even tied down properly after the abuse it was subjected to under my tinkering) I never had this issue with any of the 6 pars I have.

I plaid the song in question and although it is not the type of thing I would expect an RP to do an excellent job on it I was able to play it loud with no noticeable distortion. It definitely is a driver problem and the fact that both drivers exhibit it is odd and alarming.

I would send it for repair/replacement but then again for me money is no object.

We must find a way to make Fostex aware of this problem. It does not make any sense to me to have a dozen people on this thread and suddenly one fourth or one third of them to have these issues with a product as reliable as this.

 

[MetalChameau]

I had a sub bass nosie problem on one of my T20rp left ear. After I checked all parts and sure the noise was from driver. I disassembled the driver and add double side tape on the below photo purple area (both side top and bottom). Problem solved however you may 90% break the red circle leg (there are 4) easy when disassembling.

Damn
Could it be that the purple surface of the diaphragm is a little bit loose which causes rattling in very low frequencies ?
If so then adding double side tape makes sense. I guess that I must have a similar problem then...
But since it's still being covered by the warranty I won't take the driver apart from now, hopefully Fostex will respond soon.

raoultrifan >
Hopefully your headphones won't have a similar issue too.

kintsaki >
It's definitely a shame for Fostex. I don't know how they perform their quality control but this kind of thing should not happen at such a large scale. Too many people seem to have this issue, and it seems that it's been going on for years now...

 

[Artyouth]

and it seems that it's been going on for years now...

No, 3 pairs of T--RP I owned just one driver have this problem. And this noise was not out of the box. That was happened after I enjoy the Interstellar - Mountains at 110db up many times...
To be fair, I soldem to see people feedback this subbass noise on the other Fostex threads in the past years. Just these months, especially on this T60 thread.

 

[kintsaki]

No, 3 pairs of T--RP I owned just one driver have this problem. And this noise was not out of the box. That was happened after I enjoy the Interstellar - Mountains at 110db up many times...
To be fair, I soldem to see people feedback this subbass noise on the other Fostex threads in the past years. Just these months, especially on this T60 thread.

That is exactly right.
The problem is on the T60 and in the recent units
RP's are studio pro reference headphones used by professionals for decades and reliable as workhorses.

This is why I think that Fostex is not even aware of this and we need to find a way to let them know so they can look into it, fix and issue a recall.
Bear in mind that the T60 is an audiophile product as opposed to the T 2/4/5 which is a professional studio monitor and as such it may be of lower volume sales
and perhaps not under a severe scrutiny.

I just sent an invitation to a discussion over LinkedIn to Hiroaki Kawahata in Fostex and informed him of an unusually high DOA rate on the T60 over the last few months as seen by the members of Headfi in the T60 thread, and gave him my personal email to contact me. I told him I own many tx0 RP's and their variations by Smeggy, ZMF and Mayflower and that despite my heavy use and abuse I never had any reliability issues.

 

[Oneminde]

kintsaki: How can the 60 express issues the 20/40/50 does not, it is after all the same driver. I know you might not have the answer here, anyway, following with interest and it would be nice to have Hiroaki Kawahata appear in the thread.

 

[kintsaki]

"Interstellar Mountains" in YouTube is definitely not a "loudness wars" track. I watched it carefully from beginning to end and the input never reached 0 db. As you can see the limiter (for speaker protection) is turned off and the frequency equalization for the T60 as measured by Sonarworks's SytemWide Reference 4 with full Linear Phase correction applied to produce a ruler flat Frequency and Phase response (red line) to correct the inherent response shown by the solid black line is quite drastic. All software volume controls were at max and the nearly 300 Watt into 8 Ohms power amp gain at max and the ifi Micro Black Edition in Turbo mode at 1 o'clock. Piece of cake for the T60, natural organic at 110+ db clean as a whistle no sign of any distortion was asking and could take much more.

By the way this System Wide Reference is really something really else (works wonders) turn it on and bass is up there where we all want it to be treble hot spot vanishes and mids come live and are liquid sweet honey but most important of all the Phase correction works miracles you never heard such natural organic presentation. Look it up and download the 21 trial and thank me later.

 

[MetalChameau]

Well idk, but from what I've seen a lot of people seemed to have this rattling issue on the older units as well.

Here are some posts about this rattling issue that are from 2014-2015-2016.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/fos...mk3-and-t20rpmk3.763009/page-87#post-12703877
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/fos...and-measurements.618659/page-62#post-10301571
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/fos...nd-measurements.618659/page-130#post-12013292
https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/4k8ni7/t50rp_bass_imbalance/d3diotd/
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/fos...nd-measurements.618659/page-132#post-12124146

But if you guys have found that apparently more people are having issues with the t60rp then it's even worse for Fostex. It just means that whatever they did, they didn't fix anything, since everything seems to have gotten worse.

Still, I have not doubt about the fact that rp drivers are pretty reliable... when they work.

 

[kintsaki]

kintsaki: How can the 60 express issues the 20/40/50 does not, it is after all the same driver. I know you might not have the answer here, anyway, following with interest and it would be nice to have Hiroaki Kawahata appear in the thread.

Truly I was not aware of all these posts that you and @MetalChameau has listed below,
I am glad you all took the time to document them so we can show them to Fostex people
to resolve the problem because as he indicated when it works it shines.

I was thinking about all this and I am wondering...

Thessaloniki in Greece has a dealer/distributor store as well as Athens, which is pretty odd as you definitely can't find any audiophile stores for most of the other brands. Prices at the store are same as list prices and no shipping is cost is added naturally. You can test the item before you buy. So are you all guys away from dealer? I mean is there not a dealer nearby you? So as to avoid DOA's and seek service and support locally?

 

[Artyouth]

Umm....to be fair again. I just think if use a keyword "rattle" to search. There will be a chance to give several results on many popular planar thread.
Anyway. The most interesting is, all I see the problem side was LEFT.