[SonicFade]

I went down the special edition white version rabbit hole already and it seems like they have less bass.
I don’t know that I’m a bass head. Maybe I’m in denial

 

[478423]

As someone with the sapphire version (same as the white's tuning), the tuning difference is minor but noticeable. The most noticeable thing was the mids being bumped up by a couple of decibels. I also had the reds as a comparison. Honestly unless you owned both in the past, it would be extremely difficult to tell the 2 apart by sound.

Also thanks to this thread, I've been getting more into metal.

 

[ksorota]

I went down the special edition white version rabbit hole already and it seems like they have less bass.
I don’t know that I’m a bass head. Maybe I’m in denial

Just comes down to tuning. Same driver in both...Fostex just changed a few things I guess between the damping in the red versus the special edition colors.

 

[zolkis]

I have never tried them stock, but my modified versions (white TH900s) are just about perfect and have become a favorite.

Can drive these from most anything and they sound great.


What treble spike!?!?

Both the modded and original plots look excellent. Any chance for a CSD, impulse, distortion and spectrogram?

The modded one looks like endgame (if the driver is the same as with the Urushi version) - and if the bass doesn't mask the mids. I would probably take a middle ground between the mod and the original. My modded D7200 plot looks very much like this, but the TH900 driver is better than the one in the D7200.

I am curious what causes the change, what wood are the cups made of, do the headphones have a different damper (foam ring), different loading (holes in the back of the driver and driver plate), front metallic grill, ear pads etc.

FWIW I am intend to keep my modded Urushi TH900 for its bass impact and my modded D9200 for most music genres. After a few years my TH900 settled well, no issue in the treble.
But I never thought a TH900 plot can look this good.

 

[ksorota]

Both the modded and original plots look excellent. Any chance for a CSD, impulse, distortion and spectrogram?

The modded one looks like endgame (if the driver is the same as with the Urushi version) - and if the bass doesn't mask the mids. I would probably take a middle ground between the mod and the original. My modded D7200 plot looks very much like this, but the TH900 driver is better than the one in the D7200.

I am curious what causes the change, what wood are the cups made of, do the headphones have a different damper (foam ring), different loading (holes in the back of the driver and driver plate), front metallic grill, ear pads etc.

FWIW I am intend to keep my modded Urushi TH900 for its bass impact and my modded D9200 for most music genres. After a few years my TH900 settled well, no issue in the treble.
But I never thought a TH900 plot can look this good.

I did not do the mods, so do not know all the minor details, of which I know their are many. I am not sure what wood the Pearl white cups use, but that is what I currently have installed. I am waiting for some new wood cups that i can swap on at some point in the future.

Changes made include:
New cup dampening (dynomat and foam)
Earpad mounting ring dampening/mass weighting
Custom baffle changes on the cup side and earpad side
Custom front foam from
driver dampening/foam/felt additions
new earpads (at ap2000 i think)

The frequency response is clear and dynamic and retains all that amazing bass thump. The bass does not interfere with the mids in my experience, and vocals come through amazingly well. The midbass can get a little confused under really busy/bassy tracks, but generally speaking, you have to look for issues with the sound sig. They are never fatiguing, which is amazing, and make my PMx2s sound very flat (which they are). The headphones are more efficient after the mod, and really can sound good on any source!

The PMx2s were supposed to be my all day work headphones, but the modded TH900 has supplanted them as more engaging while also being solid long term listening headphones...and I can travel with them!

 

[zolkis]

I would not bother changing the cups. This is the best measuring Fostex family member that I've ever seen, including new and old Denons, and my mods (except perhaps the D7200). Well, better measurements don't always mean better sound (I remember the well measuring but comparatively dead sounding Ebony cups). IME the light wood cups sounded more musical (Urushi, bamboo, cedar, etc). Just be happy with the Pearls and don't look back. And don't be tempted by the other Fostex family members, either.

Compared to these everything else might sound flat, except the best e-stats and some planars. The D9200 has better bass structure, definition and layering, at similar resolution, but less impact (yet more sub-bass impact, with my mods). Somehow the TH900 sounds fuller and more colorful in the bass, preferable with many genres to the dryer, more reference-level D9200. Like a tube amp (cj or ARC) vs a Krell or Spectral. Voices, wind instruments, piano, violins are better on the D9200, though, than on my own TH900. Yours seem to have no issues there (but I'd need to see the impulse response and CSD to form a rough comparison).

A lot of mods BTW, including some very tricky ones (especially the damping ring, I have 50+ damper rings here that I made and tried). I am not using the mounting ring, with every pad it sounded better without them, directly attaching the pads to the housing with double-sided adhesive. Good tip on the earpads, are they original AT or 3rd party (Brainwavz, Wesper, etc)?

One thing I noticed that the cups settled in about 2 years, so I could take out all damping and they measured without ringing. The sound is more clear and more immediate.
IME the less damping and stuffing (with maintaining good measurements), the better. Same applies to the speakers I've built. Of course with headphones you are more constrained for the form factor and volume, so it's more of a black art than speakers, but in both cases the "room", i.e. the space between the drivers and ears is the hardest to get right or tune to listenable.

 

[ksorota]

I would not bother changing the cups. This is the best measuring Fostex family member that I've ever seen, including new and old Denons, and my mods (except perhaps the D7200). Well, better measurements don't always mean better sound (I remember the well measuring but comparatively dead sounding Ebony cups). IME the light wood cups sounded more musical (Urushi, bamboo, cedar, etc). Just be happy with the Pearls and don't look back. And don't be tempted by the other Fostex family members, either.

Compared to these everything else might sound flat, except the best e-stats and some planars. The D9200 has better bass structure, definition and layering, at similar resolution, but less impact (yet more sub-bass impact, with my mods). Somehow the TH900 sounds fuller and more colorful in the bass, preferable with many genres to the dryer, more reference-level D9200. Like a tube amp (cj or ARC) vs a Krell or Spectral. Voices, wind instruments, piano, violins are better on the D9200, though, than on my own TH900. Yours seem to have no issues there (but I'd need to see the impulse response and CSD to form a rough comparison).

A lot of mods BTW, including some very tricky ones (especially the damping ring, I have 50+ damper rings here that I made and tried). I am not using the mounting ring, with every pad it sounded better without them, directly attaching the pads to the housing with double-sided adhesive. Good tip on the earpads, are they original AT or 3rd party (Brainwavz, Wesper, etc)?

One thing I noticed that the cups settled in about 2 years, so I could take out all damping and they measured without ringing. The sound is more clear and more immediate.
IME the less damping and stuffing (with maintaining good measurements), the better. Same applies to the speakers I've built. Of course with headphones you are more constrained for the form factor tes and volume, so it's more of a black art than speakers, but in both cases the "room", i.e. the space between the drivers and ears is the hardest to get right or tune to listenable.

I think i might try this! Thanks for the tip.

The pads are stock and are odd in that they taper in thickness along the vertical axis. So thicker at the bottom than the top...makes for a nice seal on the ear. I need to get another set since I have a couple of perforations (4 total per cup) that really suck out the bass. I have them covered, but want to replace the pads before I mount them with adhesive. Maybe I will start with a bluetak ring, and then go more permanent once the new pads arrive.

I am very happy with the response, and dont really want to change the cups for any other reasons than to change the look at some point. I am happy with the tuning and do not want to change it at this point. Interesting point about the 2 year break in of the cups...I do not have any test gear to make waterfalls or other graphs, but here is one of another similar modded set, but with Ebony cups.

 

[zolkis]

This CSD is more like mine, but very little ridge, looks clean. Bass a bit blooming, but it's a feature .

Pads thicker at the bottom, behind the ear make sense, it's quite natural. Stax also used this with some of the Lambdas and the SR-Omega, keeping the rest rather thin, which is a good thing in my opinion. Unfortunately the angled-pad-craze eclipsed it (as it's easier to make it angled).

 

[SonicFade]

As I get closer to purchasing these puppies, can someone reference a song for me on them?



Ignore the vocals if metal isn’t your thing. What I’m looking for a tight wallop at the guitarsparticularly in the decay/quick stops. It should have the resonance that makes it feel like the walls are shaking. This is most likely between 150 and 200hz peak?

Also, this song is dark (for metal) so you should be able to get the volume up without the treble killing your ears

thanks

 

[Nostoi]

As I get closer to purchasing these puppies, can someone reference a song for me on them?



Ignore the vocals if metal isn’t your thing. What I’m looking for a tight wallop at the guitarsparticularly in the decay/quick stops. It should have the resonance that makes it feel like the walls are shaking. This is most likely between 150 and 200hz peak?

Also, this song is dark (for metal) so you should be able to get the volume up without the treble killing your ears

thanks

Hail, brother of metal. I had a listen. It sounds good, but you can really hear the crappy YouTube compression produce a grainy quality across the spectrum. That said, double bass is slamming and thunderous, but controlled. There's no jiggle here.

I'm a big metalhead myself, though more from the "classic" era, but well produced death metal sounds sweet on the TH900, for example:

 

[SonicFade]

Hail, brother of metal. I had a listen. It sounds good, but you can really hear the crappy YouTube compression produce a grainy quality across the spectrum. That said, double bass is slamming and thunderous, but controlled. There's no jiggle here.

I'm a big metalhead myself, though more from the "classic" era, but well produced death metal sounds sweet on the TH900, for example:

I hear Nile being referenced a lot in the hi-fi world. I need to check them out.

wow that song had thunderous bass. My truck can’t handle it haha. I wonder if that drummers legs fell off after playing that song!

 

[jmills8]

The TH900 can sound great from a good dap with 300MW or 700MW , but you will not vet the TH900s FULL potential from any dap pushing MW. Here I have been testing a few over $1,000 to 3,500 USD daps Vs those daps and cheaper with a 3 to5 Watt amp attached to it. The extra power gives much more dynamics , more depth , more separation , more space from one instrument to the other.

 

[Nostoi]

The TH900 can sound great from a good dap with 300MW or 700MW , but you will not vet the TH900s FULL potential from any dap pushing MW. Here I have been testing a few over $1,000 to 3,500 USD daps Vs those daps and cheaper with a 3 to5 Watt amp attached to it. The extra power gives much more dynamics , more depth , more separation , more space from one instrument to the other.

Nice choice there. Peak Tate

 

[jmills8]

Nice choice there. Peak Tate

Then they became poppy. Seen them on The Warning Tour.

 

[Nostoi]

Then they became poppy. Seen them on The Warning Tour.

I love Rage for Order and obviously Mindcrime, but that they're full of hunger on The Warning. You're lucky to have seen them during that era. I think they were touring with Dio during that album, if I remember correctly.