[GLXLR]

If that bar is attached to the metal plate, throughout its width, I have to believe this is a cosmetic flaw & not
a structural one.

I honestly believe the only reason those bars are on there is to help gravity hold the plate against the Mylar
while the adhesive dries. If you can , try playing the same channel of various bits through the headphones to
see if you're noticing any out of place discrepencies between the two sides

Unless something led you to believe something may have been off before you could see things for the first
time, I tend to think this bar just moved slightly but did its job. (Or the other option is those bars are put on after the whole driver assemblies are screwed down to the cups to keep them from buckling up from the center from the force on their edges)

I think this could be possible, but it seems like a roundabout way to hold the assembly together. They could have achieved the same affect with plastic or any other material that is lighter and cheaper. I haven't tested whether this bar is or is not magnetic (for obvious reasons) though It is not a magnet itself. I messaged Hifiman for a more detailed explaination but whether or not they will share this information with me is a different matter. I will update this post if I get more information.

An ab test of the two cups probably won't produce a big difference but that doesn't necessarily mean there is no difference. Are there any tracks that are recommended for driver discrepancies? I'm sure there's a thread on headfi somewhere on driver matching..

 

[knowhatimean]

If that bar is attached to the metal plate, throughout its width, I have to believe this is a cosmetic flaw & not
a structural one.

I honestly believe the only reason those bars are on there is to help gravity hold the plate against the Mylar
while the adhesive dries. If you can , try playing the same channel of various bits through the headphones to
see if you're noticing any out of place discrepencies between the two sides

Unless something led you to believe something may have been off before you could see things for the first
time, I tend to think this bar just moved slightly but did its job. (Or the other option is those bars are put on after the whole driver assemblies are screwed down to the cups to keep them from buckling up from the center from the force on their edges)

I think this could be possible, but it seems like a roundabout way to hold the assembly together. They could have achieved the same affect with plastic or any other material that is lighter and cheaper. I haven't tested whether this bar is or is not magnetic (for obvious reasons) though It is not a magnet itself. I messaged Hifiman for a more detailed explaination but whether or not they will share this information with me is a different matter. I will update this post if I get more information.

An ab test of the two cups probably won't produce a big difference but that doesn't necessarily mean there is no difference. Are there any tracks that are recommended for driver discrepancies? I'm sure there's a thread on headfi somewhere...

I don't know if you've taken the time to look at how the HE-6 are built (& they are very commendable for what
are able to achieve given this fact) , as far as the way they are put together they are only "Medium Tech".

Unless you are tooled the way someone like Sennheiser is , the materials (& some of the production processes that you use) you probably are'nt using lighter & cheaper materials due to the fact to use these materials without
any loss of build integrity may end up being the more expensive proposition. What may appear to be a "klunkier"
way to do things may be a necessity as far as keeping in touch with maintaining consistency in your quality
control.

Someone like the Gibson Guitars can crank out many multiples the amount of instruments that someone who
Handbuilds instruments. Who do you think has more extensive tooling & streamlined processes ! Now I don't think you can really put a headphone maker any where in the same league as an experienced professional
Luthier, but you can see he needs to do things differently.

(Don't be too surprised if Hifiman isn't really that eager to share Tech info with you)

 

[GLXLR]

Of course. I think getting into Hifiman kinda means you accept their build minus the he1000. And I didn't think about their access to materials. I'm hoping there will be more light on this issue in the upcoming days: )

 

[knowhatimean]

For your own benefit , I will mention once again that If you didn't suspect any type of problem before you had a look , I think it's highly unlikely this isn't just something that's not as cosmetically as correct as it could be.

There is a saying about how function follows form. I'm just suggesting that the form of what you see may
not be of the consequence it appears it could be . My Auraliti PK100 has had a less than perfectly straight
BNC digital input on it that I obsessed over for quite sometime . I've been successfully using this component
as my main musical source player for several years of pleasurable maintenance free use.

(He,he,he... I still obsess over that crooked input on it,) (Hopefully your HE-6 just has a crooked bar!) (The reason I mention this because i've seen more then a few pictures of HE-6s that appear to have very similarly
angled bars on them; enough to not be coincidental & so probably not a problem ; search through the various threads here to see if you come across a few)

 

[GLXLR]

Well I just got confirmation from HiFiMan that indeed the bar does not affect the sound quality since it doesn't impede on the driver. That said, I did testing on the headphones and noticed some tiny driver mismatch around 15khz but oh well.

 

[gmask]

Here's a quick AutoCAD drawup I did for your benefit (if you want an accurate guide)

Print to 100% scale on A4 and do what you will (Open full-size and save as... before printing)
Paper has to be level with the backing paper to be accurate! Or you can trace the outline on the backing paper
This is to Jerg's specs on the front page, so if it's inaccurate I'll update it

This is awesome, thanks a lot! One issue I had when I did the fuzzor last night and using your template was that the smaller corner pieces do seem to be too small, see photos below.

I will be re-cutting those ones and finishing up the mod on the outside when I do the regrill, but I'm just not sure why they're so much smaller since all the other template elements are damn near perfect.






Now that I look at the pictures I notice some gaps and wavy felt that I need to fix. Damn... I thought I did better.

 

[Terja]

^ That looks pretty darn good!

 

[RiddleyWalker]

This is awesome, thanks a lot! One issue I had when I did the fuzzor last night and using your template was that the smaller corner pieces do seem to be too small, see photos below.
 

Yeah, I noticed that as well when I did the mod.  What ended up working out was I purposely cut those pieces slightly larger than the instructions specified, then before removing the paper backing, sized them up on the drivers and trimmed as needed.
 
I still don't really know the ideal technique for rounding out the edges of the felt.  I just took the bottom of a pen and kind of pushed it across the edge of each piece a number of times.  Not sure if that's what Jerg meant with the instructions.

 

[vc1187]

This was a really tough mod, and I don't know if it was because I didn't round off the edges of my felt pieces enough, but I had mixed feelings about the results with the HE-6.  I spent hours cutting the pieces of felt so that they did not cover the driver.
 
Impressions:
 
These impressions were with the grills off the sides (back side of driver exposed).  I felt like just taking off the grills and the material behind the driver made a very noticeable improvement on the headphone as a whole.
 
The fuzzier mod certainly dampens the treble.  Treble is still present and actually very clearly presented because it's no longer sharp and I was actually able to hear things in songs that I had never heard before, however I feel like much of the treble it lost its sparkle and extension.  
Vocals also suffered and while very pleasant and rarely offensive or shouty, it seemed to lose all sense of dimensionality and airiness.  There was very little excitement and they felt somewhat recessed.  
I feel like bass was tighter (with about the same impact).  At first I thought maybe it was just my ears trying to adjust so I gave it a night or two.  Eventually I did a comparison with the HD650 paired with the ZD (where I originally found vocals to be good but not as natural and airy as the stock HE-6) and verified that it was certainly the mod that detracted from the qualities of the HE-6 that I love.
 
It actually made the HE-6 sound more like an Audeze LCD-2 or 3 headphone.  Like I said above, I may have incorrectly performed the mod, but I felt like I already spent way too much time trying to perfect it.
As a final note, even though I wasn't a fan of this mod, the re-grill (or grill removal) mod was awesome for me, and I would like to thank jerg for all of the effort he puts into each and every one of his innovative mods.  For the amount of time I spent just trying to re-create this mod has me unable to imagine the amount of time it took him to create it.  Very well done!     

 

[GLXLR]

  This was a really tough mod, and I don't know if it was because I didn't round off the edges of my felt pieces enough, but I had mixed feelings about the results with the HE-6.  I spent hours cutting the pieces of felt so that they did not cover the driver.
 
Impressions:
 
These impressions were with the grills off the sides (back side of driver exposed).  I felt like just taking off the grills and the material behind the driver made a very noticeable improvement on the headphone as a whole.
 
The fuzzier mod certainly dampens the treble.  Treble is still present and actually very clearly presented because it's no longer sharp and I was actually able to hear things in songs that I had never heard before, however I feel like much of the treble it lost its sparkle and extension.  
Vocals also suffered and while very pleasant and rarely offensive or shouty, it seemed to lose all sense of dimensionality and airiness.  There was very little excitement and they felt somewhat recessed.  
I feel like bass was tighter (with about the same impact).  At first I thought maybe it was just my ears trying to adjust so I gave it a night or two.  Eventually I did a comparison with the HD650 paired with the ZD (where I originally found vocals to be good but not as natural and airy as the stock HE-6) and verified that it was certainly the mod that detracted from the qualities of the HE-6 that I love.
 
It actually made the HE-6 sound more like an Audeze LCD-2 or 3 headphone.  Like I said above, I may have incorrectly performed the mod, but I felt like I already spent way too much time trying to perfect it.
As a final note, even though I wasn't a fan of this mod, the re-grill (or grill removal) mod was awesome for me, and I would like to thank jerg for all of the effort he puts into each and every one of his innovative mods.  For the amount of time I spent just trying to re-create this mod has me unable to imagine the amount of time it took him to create it.  Very well done!     

I found similar results, though I wouldn't say that the treble lost its sparkle. Honestly, I noticed that removing about half of the felt strips gave some of that treble sparkle back. I'm assuming since the basis of this mod is to remove some of the internal reflections, it still accomplishes the goal while some of the original treble can still permeate.I removed the middle (4) strips to get this affect. 
 
Over all, the imaging has a HUGE improvement and everything sounds tighter and cleaner while still having that same sound signature. LOVE this mod. Classical music is now more than just listenable with my HE-500s. 

 

[LancerFIN]

What is the optimal thickness? I think I read 2mm somewhere. How about 3.5mm? too thick?

 

[vc1187]

An update to my previous post.  @GLXLR mentioned that the removal of some pieces of felt may help, so I figured I'd try it.  The difference is actually very very favorable.   I'm actually only using the 4 felt pieces that are color coded light blue in the first post on each cup. With my current mods and the very partial jerg mod, the headphone sounds sublime!  Just enough air around vocals and instruments without the sharp, fatiguing treble that generally arises.  Oh and to note, since I didn't have anymore stiff felt, I used soft adhesive backed felt this time.
 
A list of the mods on my HE-6 can be found here: post #17745 on the HE-6 thread.

 

[GLXLR]

An update to my previous post.  @GLXLR
 mentioned that the removal of some pieces of felt may help, so I figured I'd try it.  The difference is actually very very favorable.   I'm actually only using the 4 felt pieces that are color coded light blue in the first post on each cup. With my current mods and the very partial jerg mod, the headphone sounds sublime!  Just enough air around vocals and instruments without the sharp, fatiguing treble that generally arises.  Oh and to note, since I didn't have anymore stiff felt, I used soft adhesive backed felt this time.

A list of the mods on my HE-6 can be found here: post #17745 on the HE-6 thread.

Yeah. I tried a lot of things and noticed that removing 5mm of the felt from the two center strips was the ideal

 

[TPSRA]

Yeah. I tried a lot of things and noticed that removing 5mm of the felt from the two center strips was the ideal

Very interesting 

I guess the sound differs as you place the felt at different position, can try putting on the first half or second half, or even divided by quarter.

 

[kehorton]

I just tried this mod on my HE-500's. I did one side, listened to one modified/one not modified.  I liked how the sound changed, so I modified the other. When I plugged them back in, to my surprise I had no sound through the right channel. I took apart the phones, and to my horror saw a hole in the metal plane

.
 
I can only assume I have screwed up this phone. <punch face>

Does anyone know if this is reparable?