= HE-560 Enhancement Mod (v1.5) =

[Soundsgoodtome]

The double sided tape can be easily reversible with painters tape on both the pad ring and driver ring.

 

[jerg]

The double sided tape can be easily reversible with painters tape on both the pad ring and driver ring.

Or opaque double-sided tape that retains its rigidity even when used, which can be ripped off if needed. But the choice of the clear double-sided tape is to provide the best bond, because it is elastic and acts like a solid glue rather than temporary tape.

 

[ThurstonX]

  Or opaque double-sided tape that retains its rigidity even when used, which can be ripped off if needed. But the choice of the clear double-sided tape is to provide the best bond, because it is elastic and acts like a solid glue rather than temporary tape.

 
Well, if I end up really sticking pads on there semi-permanently, I'll use carpet tape.  Nothing but brute force will shift them 

  As for residue, I've got a few bottles of 99% isopropyl alcohol on hand.  That wipes just about anything clean.  Works great on vacuum tube pins, too.
 
In all seriousness, I get your point about the importance of a proper seal to overall tone.

 

[Articnoise]

Nice work Jerg!
 
Anyway I’m a bit surprised that the bubble foam that looks like it’s have more covering when holes, at least on your pictures, doesn’t over damp the high midrange and heights. I’m not questioning then you says it’s not, just find it surprising. Do you know witch frequencies its damping? I mean is it damping as low as 1-3 KHz?
 
Sorry if I sound like I questioning the mod after all your work – I don’t! Just like to know a bit more about how the damping will influence on the sound.

 

[Claritas]

The pads, dampening, and grills match elegantly, often a sign of being on the right track in other ways. Bravissimo!

 

[Ron12]

 
Nice work Jerg!
 
Anyway I’m a bit surprised that the bubble foam that looks like it’s have more covering when holes, at least on your pictures, doesn’t over damp the high midrange and heights. I’m not questioning then you says it’s not, just find it surprising. Do you know witch frequencies its damping? I mean is it damping as low as 1-3 KHz?
 
Sorry if I sound like I questioning the mod after all your work – I don’t! Just like to know a bit more about how the damping will influence on the sound.

 
It's always good to question things...
 
I am almost sure that the shelf-liner DOES influence treble because of my experience with modifying Hifiman HE-500 (as well as HE-4). I've tried two quite different shelf-liners and both influenced treble in some way... Definitely not midrange though and most probably not even 1-3khz region you are talking about (if yes, then not significantly). I will leave further response on jerg but from my point of view, your question is definitely valid and should be answered.
 
Another thing I find questionable (and I already discussed this with jerg a bit) is using shelf liner in combination with very significant sealing techniques together. From my experience, this indeed helps to warm up the overall sound significantly but in expense of natural leakage of sound (openness) and more closed-in sounding bass (you get more subbass and overall warmth but lose quite a bit of the open-back precision, clarity and placement of bass). In other words, headphone is starting to lean towards closed-back type of sound rather than being fully open-back.
 
Jerg explained to me that he believes HE-560 are open-back enough to still sound that way even with his sealing modifications and shelf liner. I do agree, from my experience with HE-4, that single-ended planar magnetic headphones are more open because of having magnet on one side only (and therefore less prone to sounding closed-back with added sealing or damping) but I am still a bit concerned about this. I did not like Pad adhesion mod on HE-500 because of this exact thing (Vent mod was what helped to balance the Pad adhesion mod out a bit) and I am worried that skipping this part of his modification guide will result in still a bit too bright signature to make me enjoy the headphone.
 
I am also not so sure about his comments on how great the bass will become with this modding procedure - I did not find the bass of HE-500 good with Pad adhesion + Vent mods (too loose, thick and a bit closed-back sounding). In case of HE-560, there is no Vent mod to compensate for the significant seal... and there is also the shelf liner used which further blocks sound from leaking in a completely natural way (fuzzor mod did not influence openness because of its nature).
 
To finish off, another factor to take into account are the FocusPads - they are not particularly great in terms of openness in stock form. However, I can imagine angling and perforating them could help here - I use a similar technique for angling Hifiman pads for months and it definitely influences (not only) openness in a positive way. Jerg pads with my Angle mod are stunning.

 

[jerg]

 
Nice work Jerg!
 
Anyway I’m a bit surprised that the bubble foam that looks like it’s have more covering when holes, at least on your pictures, doesn’t over damp the high midrange and heights. I’m not questioning then you says it’s not, just find it surprising. Do you know witch frequencies its damping? I mean is it damping as low as 1-3 KHz?
 
Sorry if I sound like I questioning the mod after all your work – I don’t! Just like to know a bit more about how the damping will influence on the sound.

The damping with regards to the shelf liners is for the sake of sounds bouncing around in the chamber, not for the purpose of direct damping of sound coming from the drivers.
 
But yes because it is a substantial mechanical barrier to the driver, it should inevitably change the direct sound waves from the transducer somewhat. I did my best in terms of trying to pinpoint if it does anything significant with the frequency response, via lots of before/after sinewave sweeps and reference tracks, and in the end the only thing that jumped out was maybe lower end (lower mids / bass) is very slightly more pronounced than before. So ultimately to the best of my judgement it does a slight attenuation of the upper end, nothing narrow though.
 
Like I said, it surprised me too when I was just experimenting around with different material. Other materials laid in front of the drivers not only significantly messed with the FR, but also did other bad things e.g. made the sound like underwater, more closed-in, etc.
 

   
It's always good to question things...
 
I am almost sure that the shelf-liner DOES influence treble because of my experience with modifying Hifiman HE-500 (as well as HE-4). I've tried two quite different shelf-liners and both influenced treble in some way... Definitely not midrange though and most probably not even 1-3khz region you are talking about (if yes, then not significantly). I will leave further response on jerg but from my point of view, your question is definitely valid and should be answered.
 
Another thing I find questionable (and I already discussed this with jerg a bit) is using shelf liner in combination with very significant sealing techniques together. From my experience, this indeed helps to warm up the overall sound significantly but in expense of natural leakage of sound (openness) and more closed-in sounding bass (you get more subbass and overall warmth but lose quite a bit of the open-back precision, clarity and placement of bass). In other words, headphone is starting to lean towards closed-back type of sound rather than being fully open-back.
 
Jerg explained to me that he believes HE-560 are open-back enough to still sound that way even with his sealing modifications and shelf liner. I do agree, from my experience with HE-4, that single-ended planar magnetic headphones are more open because of having magnet on one side only (and therefore less prone to sounding closed-back with added sealing or damping) but I am still a bit concerned about this. I did not like Pad adhesion mod on HE-500 because of this exact thing (Vent mod was what helped to balance the Pad adhesion mod out a bit) and I am therefore worried that skipping this part of his modification guide will result in still a bit too bright signature to make me enjoy the headphone.
 
I am also not so sure about his comments on how great the bass will become with this modding procedure - I did not find the bass of HE-500 good with Pad adhesion + Vent mods (too loose, thick and a bit closed-back sounding). In case of HE-560, there is no Vent mod to compensate for the significant seal... and there is also the shelf liner used which further blocks sound from leaking in a completely natural way (fuzzor mod did not influence openness because of its nature).
 
To finish off, another factor to take into account are the FocusPads - they are not particularly great in terms of openness in stock form. However, I can imagine angling and perforating them could help here - I use a similar technique for angling Hifiman pads for months and it definitely influences (not only) openness in a positive way. Jerg pads with my Angle mod are stunning.

I see your concerns with bass, but understand that HE560 is quite a different beast from HE500, the same modifications don't quite fit well in both cases.
 
When I slowly figured out the steps in the jergpad modification for HE500, it was because I had specific issues to pick with stock HE500's sound quality. The open vent mod was for the sake of 1) making them sound more open because stock they sound so closed, and 2) comfort because I hate my ears touching the metal rod across its drivers. As per measurement from purrin showed, the open vent mod introduced harmonic distortion in the sub-50Hz, but I felt that that was a necessary compromise to make in exchange for the benefits (openness / comfort).
 
HE560 doesn't have these issues, so this specific mod is counterintuitive. I tried it (by swapping in my jergpads from HE500s) and though it did provide a slightly more "open" sound, too many problems arose, there was some weird treble resonance issue, mid-bass felt too much, etc.
 
And I think you might be overthinking how terrible the full seal mod is relative to just stock Focus earpads. The new line of hybrid earpads seal exceptionally well already (much softer foam, angled, more sealing material, better baffles), and in their stock form I don't feel any significant loss of "open leakage benefits" as you describe them, relative to older HFM pads. The seal mod in this case just gets the seal from 95% to 99%, arbitrarily speaking, and that to my ears does absolutely no harm to openness perception, however it does a lot to the sub-bass which feels like the only trait that gets affected by the last little bit of seal missing.
 
As for your concerns with tonal balance, I like the result, it eventually will be measured by purrin I guess, but I like this current state in terms of tonality more than what HE560s sounded like ever (stock either hybrid pads, jergpads, with / without partial mods from this final list of modding steps, all these combinations).

 

[Ron12]

  I see your concerns with bass, but understand that HE560 is quite a different beast from HE500, the same modifications don't quite fit well in both cases.
 
When I slowly figured out the steps in the jergpad modification for HE500, it was because I had specific issues to pick with stock HE500's sound quality. The open vent mod was for the sake of 1) making them sound more open because stock they sound so closed, and 2) comfort because I hate my ears touching the metal rod across its drivers. As per measurement from purrin showed, the open vent mod introduced harmonic distortion in the sub-50Hz, but I felt that that was a necessary compromise to make in exchange for the benefits (openness / comfort).
 
HE560 doesn't have these issues, so this specific mod is counterintuitive. I tried it (by swapping in my jergpads from HE500s) and though it did provide a slightly more "open" sound, too many problems arose, there was some weird treble resonance issue, mid-bass felt too much, etc.
 
And I think you might be overthinking how terrible the full seal mod is relative to just stock Focus earpads. The new line of hybrid earpads seal exceptionally well already (much softer foam, angled, more sealing material, better baffles), and in their stock form I don't feel any significant loss of "open leakage benefits" as you describe them, relative to older HFM pads. The seal mod in this case just gets the seal from 95% to 99%, arbitrarily speaking, and that to my ears does absolutely no harm to openness perception, however it does a lot to the sub-bass which feels like the only trait that gets affected by the last little bit of seal missing.
 
As for your concerns with tonal balance, I like the result, it eventually will be measured by purrin I guess, but I like this current state in terms of tonality more than what HE560s sounded like ever (stock either hybrid pads, jergpads, with / without partial mods from this final list of modding steps, all these combinations).

 
My experience is as well connected with modding the single-ended HE-4... Looking at the HE-4 vs HE-560 in terms of construction, I don't see many differences (that would cause a significantly different behavior in terms of sound leakage).
 
Too bad you haven't tried to angle the jerg pads on HE-500 like I did (or like you do it right now with Focus Pads). It's a much better solution with no negative impacts on bass... The angle provided is also bigger which results in several improvements you can easily imagine
 
I haven't tried FocusPads on HE-500 but I did try them on HE-4... And didn't like what they do to the openness of headphones. However, I am sure improving their angle along with perforating them (following your guide) will help - this is where I see the potential for me liking these hybrids. Still, I am not sure how the adhesion + FocusPads + shelf liner will work together... I guess I would have to trust your word that you find the headphone still open enough.
 
My concerns are connected to the fact that without your sealing techniques, the headphone could still sound too bright. So in a hypothetical situation in which I would be forced to skip the sealing part of your guide, it may happen I will not like the tonality. I am concerned about this as a potential future owner of the HE-560 that is not rich enough to spend 900EUR for them 'just to try'. Trying out the stock HE-560 would most probably give me no idea similarly how my modded HE-500 are just different-sounding than stock HE-500 in quite a few aspects.
 
Thank you very much for your response. Did perforating the FocusPads address upper midrange emphasis in some way?

 

[jerg]

   
My experience is as well connected with modding the single-ended HE-4... Looking at the HE-4 vs HE-560 in terms of construction, I don't see many differences (that would cause a significantly different behavior in terms of sound leakage).
 
Too bad you haven't tried to angle the jerg pads on HE-500 like I did (or like you do it right now with Focus Pads). It's a much better solution with no negative impacts on bass... The angle provided is also bigger which results in several improvements you can easily imagine
 
I haven't tried FocusPads on HE-500 but I did try them on HE-4... And didn't like what they do to the openness of headphones. However, I am sure improving their angle along with perforating them will help - this is where I see the potential for me liking these hybrids. Still, I am not sure how the adhesion + FocusPads + shelf liner will work together... I guess I would have to trust your word that you find the headphone still open enough.
 
My concerns are connected to the fact that without your sealing techniques, the headphone could still sound too bright. So in a hypothetical situation in which I would be forced to skip the sealing part of your guide, it may happen I will not like the tonality. I am concerned about this as a potential future owner of the HE-560 that is not rich enough to spend 900EUR for them 'just to try'. Trying out the stock HE-560 would most probably give me no idea similarly how my modded HE-500 are just different-sounding than stock HE-500 in quite a few aspects.
 
Thank you very much for your response, btw

HE560s are between HE500 and HE6 in terms of brightness, and no amount of modding short of direct driver damping (which I have not had good experience with, because it introduced more issues than what it offered) will alter that tonal balance positioning it sits at. Like I mentioned in the concluding remarks, I feel that with this full mod the brightness factor lies between stock Focus and stock Focus-A pads.
 
If someone is seeking a drastically different-toned HE560 with this mod, either much darker or much brighter, they won't find it.
 
As for HE560 vs HE4 parallel, I really can't say, nor can you, that they are that comparable. HE4 has a very different diaphragm tracing pattern / diaphragm substrate / magnet structure vs HE560. HE500 actually shares the same tracing pattern / magnet structure as HE560, just that HE560 is single-ended and has a thinner diaphragm substrate. So in a way HE500s are closer to HE560 than HE4. FR-wise HE560's "treble fingerprint" looks the most akin to HE6 if you check out InnerFidelity, so perhaps HE6 is the best homologue. My point is your findings with HE4 experimentations might not necessarily apply so much to HE560s.

 

[Ron12]

  HE560s are between HE500 and HE6 in terms of brightness, and no amount of modding short of direct driver damping (which I have not had good experience with, because it introduced more issues than what it offered) will alter that tonal balance positioning it sits at. Like I mentioned in the concluding remarks, I feel that with this full mod the brightness factor lies between stock Focus and stock Focus-A pads.
 
If someone is seeking a drastically different-toned HE560 with this mod, either much darker or much brighter, they won't find it.

 
Ah, I see... I most probably overlooked that and I apologise for that!
 
Copy/pasting my last question for now from previous post: Did perforating the FocusPads address upper midrange emphasis in some way?

 

[jerg]

   
Ah, I see... I most probably overlooked that and I apologise for that!
 
Copy/pasting my last question for now from previous post: Did perforating the FocusPads address upper midrange emphasis in some way?

Yes. Definitely sounds a lot less "in my face" than with stock Focus pads. I think highly perforated Focus pads are the best compromise, as it seems to retain proper damping of the Focus-A pads (or gets close), while still having that solid rather than somewhat ethereal bass / lower mids, a consequence of the different internal foam shaping and coupling with the baffles. Part of Step 3) was my attempt at further enhancing that coupling with the foam pieces in the hollow areas of the mounting ring.
 
I appended the post you quoted btw.

 

[Ron12]

  As for HE560 vs HE4 parallel, I really can't say, nor can you, that they are that comparable. HE4 has a very different diaphragm tracing pattern / diaphragm substrate / magnet structure vs HE560. HE500 actually shares the same tracing pattern / magnet structure as HE560, just that HE560 is single-ended and has a thinner diaphragm substrate. So in a way HE500s are closer to HE560 than HE4. FR-wise HE560's "treble fingerprint" looks the most akin to HE6 if you check out InnerFidelity, so perhaps HE6 is the best homologue. My point is your findings with HE4 experimentations might not necessarily apply so much to HE560s.
 

 
Well, I was really only talking about the openness (sound leakage), not FR or airiness or soundstage etc. However, I get your point described in the first part even though I am not so sure it would cause a significant difference in openness of HE-560 vs HE-4. Maybe I will get to try HE-560 one day and correct my opinion then.
 
Quote:

  Yes. Definitely sounds a lot less "in my face" than with stock Focus pads. I think highly perforated Focus pads are the best compromise, as it seems to retain proper damping of the Focus-A pads (or gets close), while still having that solid rather than somewhat ethereal bass / lower mids, a consequence of the different internal foam shaping and coupling with the baffles. Part of Step 3) was my attempt at further enhancing that coupling with the foam pieces in the hollow areas of the mounting ring.
 
I appended the post you quoted btw.

 
Thanks, seems clear now.
 
Just curious (sorry for being slightly off-topic) - have you tried your 'final' version of FocusPads on HE-500? Any comparison to jerg pads? I know you mentioned that jerg pads doesn't work that well with HE-560 because of some treble issues... But would be nice if you could compare the pads in relation to HE-500 (in a few sentences not to derail the thread).

 

[jerg]

   
 
Just curious (sorry for being slightly off-topic) - have you tried your 'final' version of FocusPads on HE-500? Any comparison to jerg pads? I know you mentioned that jerg pads doesn't work that well with HE-560 because of some treble issues... But would be nice if you could compare the pads in relation to HE-500 (in a few sentences not to derail the thread).

Nope, my only pair of Focus pads are now bonded with the HE560s lol. And I'd rather not take them off as I don't wanna mess up the double-sided tape..

 

[ThurstonX]

  Just curious (sorry for being slightly off-topic) - have you tried your 'final' version of FocusPads on HE-500? Any comparison to jerg pads? I know you mentioned that jerg pads doesn't work that well with HE-560 because of some treble issues... But would be nice if you could compare the pads in relation to HE-500 (in a few sentences not to derail the thread).

 

  Nope, my only pair of Focus pads are now bonded with the HE560s lol. And I'd rather not take them off as I don't wanna mess up the double-sided tape..

 
For $40 or so you could get a pair of FocusPads and do the mod.  Just sayin'.

 

[Ron12]

   
 
For $40 or so you could get a pair of FocusPads and do the mod.  Just sayin'.

 
Well, I could... But as I posted about a minute ago, the difference between DIY jerg pads vs Modulor ones (have both) was too big for me to do this sort of work myself again. Modulor's sounded significantly better even though the physical difference was not big at all.