Bilavideo
Caution: Incomplete trades.
- Joined
- Feb 29, 2008
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I just bought some HD800s, which are terrific, but having big helmet headphones (worth more than my car) just reminded me of the need for some cheap knockaround earphones - like the JVC Marshmallows.
But everybody knows these earphones suck. They're $20 worth of boom-boom-boom, with a muddy presentation that buries all the detail in that sickening boom, boom, boom.
I'd been down this road before, and had fixed my woes by simply adjusting the EQ on my iPod. "Acoustic" and "Treble Boost" provided me quick relief, opening things up nicely. I'd always wondered, though, if these cheapos could be improved upon with a little home engineering.
Well, they can.
Today, I bought another pair of these, heard the familiar boom-boom-boom, EQ'd them to "Treble Boost" and wondered if I could do better than boom-tweet-boom-tweet-boom-tweet.
I tore out the white filter in the front, which opened up the HF. Unfortunately, it also turned these suckers into harsh little monsters with a boom-boom-boom that now went up the midrange. Yuck!
I'd noticed, in tweaking some $20 Kosses (as well as some $79 SR-60s) that filters are sometimes applied to hide the acoustical weaknesses of the shells. In this instance, the white filters were apparently damping the horrid acoustics of a plastic tube, wrapped in a rubber sheath. Why not, then, remove the plastic tube? Because that plastic tube is what the little foam cushions attach to.
Not anymore. With a pair of kitchen scissors, I cut the tubes off, revealing the speaker grill esconced within. What a joke that JVC created this assembly to market something that "looks" like an earphone, even if its engineering ruins the sound.
Without a decent seal, you've got nothing but a pair of tiny, harsh, speakers, so I superglued a pair of Shure olives to the now-flat grill-face of the Marshmallows.
The result?
Depending on the seal you get, it's trash or treasure. With the right seal, these Marshmallows are amazing. I wouldn't put them up there with the best multi-driver IEMs - or even the Sennheiser IE7/8 - but for $20, hold onto your seat! They're in my ears, throbbing as before, but now the HF is unleashed and the balance is so much better.
On Feist's 1234, I can hear the slight feedback of the vocal mic. I can hear the fret changes, on both the guitar and banjo. On Styx's Borrowed Time, I can hear that little bit of sparkle on the lead guitar as it duels with the keyboard in the intro. On The Clash's Brand New Cadillac, the bass is still thumping but now it doesn't bury those screaming lead-guitar riffs. On Plies' Runnin' My Momma Crazy that thudding club-rocking bass no longer buries the piano work. On Buffalo Springfield's For What It's Worth, you can hear the buzz on that lower E string.
On the other hand, finding the sweet spot takes a little more work. Push too far and you mute the sound. If you don't press far enough, you don't get a decent seal and you get bass lite and more mids than you know what to do with.
In one of my little experiments, I went completely without any cushions, which is less comfortable but it let me push the drivers farther into my ear canals. To my surprise, I got a little taste of what we cushion-bearing universal wearers must be missing by not going custom. The effect of plastic against the walls of my ear canal was amazing. Talk about bone conduction! I see (or hear) what our friends are talking about. If you could match your ear canal with a hard, plastic groove tube, you'd get amazing bone conduction. The percussion would come alive. The cushions damp this dynamic conduit. I can see, now, how it's a compromise that asks too much.
If your budget is zilch, you might consider purchasing some cheap Marshmallows (a $20 investment) and removing all of the impediments built around the original drivers. It's amazing that JVC has done such a great job of destroying the sonic worthiness of these drivers. If you're feeling adventurous, however, you could turn trash into treasure. I'm not saying the end result will give you thousand-dollar ear cans, but if you do it right, you'll end up with something that sounds a lot better than $20 dollars' worth.
But everybody knows these earphones suck. They're $20 worth of boom-boom-boom, with a muddy presentation that buries all the detail in that sickening boom, boom, boom.
I'd been down this road before, and had fixed my woes by simply adjusting the EQ on my iPod. "Acoustic" and "Treble Boost" provided me quick relief, opening things up nicely. I'd always wondered, though, if these cheapos could be improved upon with a little home engineering.
Well, they can.
Today, I bought another pair of these, heard the familiar boom-boom-boom, EQ'd them to "Treble Boost" and wondered if I could do better than boom-tweet-boom-tweet-boom-tweet.
I tore out the white filter in the front, which opened up the HF. Unfortunately, it also turned these suckers into harsh little monsters with a boom-boom-boom that now went up the midrange. Yuck!
I'd noticed, in tweaking some $20 Kosses (as well as some $79 SR-60s) that filters are sometimes applied to hide the acoustical weaknesses of the shells. In this instance, the white filters were apparently damping the horrid acoustics of a plastic tube, wrapped in a rubber sheath. Why not, then, remove the plastic tube? Because that plastic tube is what the little foam cushions attach to.
Not anymore. With a pair of kitchen scissors, I cut the tubes off, revealing the speaker grill esconced within. What a joke that JVC created this assembly to market something that "looks" like an earphone, even if its engineering ruins the sound.
Without a decent seal, you've got nothing but a pair of tiny, harsh, speakers, so I superglued a pair of Shure olives to the now-flat grill-face of the Marshmallows.
The result?
Depending on the seal you get, it's trash or treasure. With the right seal, these Marshmallows are amazing. I wouldn't put them up there with the best multi-driver IEMs - or even the Sennheiser IE7/8 - but for $20, hold onto your seat! They're in my ears, throbbing as before, but now the HF is unleashed and the balance is so much better.
On Feist's 1234, I can hear the slight feedback of the vocal mic. I can hear the fret changes, on both the guitar and banjo. On Styx's Borrowed Time, I can hear that little bit of sparkle on the lead guitar as it duels with the keyboard in the intro. On The Clash's Brand New Cadillac, the bass is still thumping but now it doesn't bury those screaming lead-guitar riffs. On Plies' Runnin' My Momma Crazy that thudding club-rocking bass no longer buries the piano work. On Buffalo Springfield's For What It's Worth, you can hear the buzz on that lower E string.
On the other hand, finding the sweet spot takes a little more work. Push too far and you mute the sound. If you don't press far enough, you don't get a decent seal and you get bass lite and more mids than you know what to do with.
In one of my little experiments, I went completely without any cushions, which is less comfortable but it let me push the drivers farther into my ear canals. To my surprise, I got a little taste of what we cushion-bearing universal wearers must be missing by not going custom. The effect of plastic against the walls of my ear canal was amazing. Talk about bone conduction! I see (or hear) what our friends are talking about. If you could match your ear canal with a hard, plastic groove tube, you'd get amazing bone conduction. The percussion would come alive. The cushions damp this dynamic conduit. I can see, now, how it's a compromise that asks too much.
If your budget is zilch, you might consider purchasing some cheap Marshmallows (a $20 investment) and removing all of the impediments built around the original drivers. It's amazing that JVC has done such a great job of destroying the sonic worthiness of these drivers. If you're feeling adventurous, however, you could turn trash into treasure. I'm not saying the end result will give you thousand-dollar ear cans, but if you do it right, you'll end up with something that sounds a lot better than $20 dollars' worth.
