[hypermedia]

I have never experienced static electricity from the headphones at any time even though I have felt both on the driver and the pads.

Have you done mods with polyester felt on the drivers and in the cups too? Or just valour pads?

 

[LarsHP]

Have you done mods with polyester felt on the drivers and in the cups too? Or just valour pads?

I have done the "fuzzor" mod (felt on inner grill) and felt on the vinyl part of the Audeze vegan pads as well.

 

[Liu Junyuan]

I'm wondering this, if anyone is willing to try it. HD800 stock mods have come a long way, but one of the changes I've noticed in the past year is a shift from Creatology felt to foam (indeed, I people are even using Cork on the HD800 now [including me as I type this]). I wonder if felt is something that needs to be reevaluated as a material for this mod. Perhaps Creatology foam would be better than felt. Also, Tyll makes a good point that felt, over time, may absorb moisture, or dry up, or otherwise change over time, thus affecting the signature and requiring a reapplication periodically. I will try to get some foam, in any case, to test on my pair..

 

[hypermedia]

Perhaps Creatology foam would be better than felt. Also, Tyll makes a good point that felt, over time, may absorb moisture, or dry up.

Can we talk more about foam.

There is two kind of foam. Open cell and closed cell. If you're going to use foam to change the acoustic make sure you use open cell foam.

I think the foam you talking about is not open.

Closed cell foam don't "absorb" sound as open do. More like change the tuning. Closed cell is like small mini chambers that isolate the sound.

Open cell foam pass through the air and sound and absorb the unwanted sound and resonance.

But foam does only absorb higher frequencies from mids and highs. Depending on it density.

In all materials, a thick density absorb lower frequencies. Thinner density material like foam and thin felt absorb the higher frequencies.

A thick and hard felt does absorb a wider range of frequencies then foam because it have a light surface and heavy thick bottom.

Heavy materials like bitumen and wood aborb low frequency. When changing acoustic in rooms, hard packed glassfiber wool and even wood is used for "bass traps".

When using light material like foam and felt, it will absorb the upper mids and highs and give a very bassy sound. So if you want more bass use this.

You can combine a heavier material like bitumen with foam on top to get a really wide range of absorbsion.

Cork have lite thicker density then foam and felt but is still airy. Probably don't absorb the lowest frequency and the top highs. There are many types of cork that act differently.

Please tell what results all of you have got by using foam

And is felt good for to have so near exposed and sensitive parts?

Have anyone mod their headphones with bitumen or another similar material?

 

[LarsHP]

  I'm wondering this, if anyone is willing to try it. HD800 stock mods have come a long way, but one of the changes I've noticed in the past year is a shift from Creatology felt to foam (indeed, I people are even using Cork on the HD800 now [including me as I type this]). I wonder if felt is something that needs to be reevaluated as a material for this mod. Perhaps Creatology foam would be better than felt. Also, Tyll makes a good point that felt, over time, may absorb moisture, or dry up, or otherwise change over time, thus affecting the signature and requiring a reapplication periodically. I will try to get some foam, in any case, to test on my pair..

I feel confident that foam also changes in time - that's why spare ear pads are sold. I actually think felt has less potential to change over time as long as it's not touched. How felt should absorb more moisture or dry up more than foam is beyond my imagination too.

 

[hypermedia]

I don't really understand why felt is so popular in modding headphones. As a acoustics geek, I know how different material reacts. Polyester felt is a fiber material that is compressed. Fiber is good like in subwoofers lika big ball of a wool/cotton looking material. It is good for it have very much air inside and take out the highs well. If anyone remember the first hifiman's, they had this fiber on the backside.
 
The felt is compressed and not that airy. Felt will absorb (take out) little more lower frequencies than the airy fiber but not very much and not good. Felt don't absorb any frequencies much good. And felt can absorb dust and all nasty things. You don't have dust and hair in an planar diaphragm, trust me.
 
Polyethylene foam (regular foam) with open cells is a great absorber for the higher frequencies, just as the big airy fiber but much easier to work with. So if you want to reduce sibilance and get more bass, use foam. Don't use felt!
 
But one material that I think is better then polyethylene foam is melamine foam. also called Basotect. it is exceptional for it wide range of absorption of sound. Professionals use this as room absorber if they have the money. I have seen it on some headphones too. The persons that use this material knows what he or she is doing. Seen it on HD800 mods. Melamine is a thicker (smaller cells) material then regular foam. Very good acoustic material. Will reduce sibilance and all resonance(back wave). Very recommended material!
 
When doing this "Fuzzor" mod, melamine would be great because you can cut it to these trianglar shape easy like on the Audeze LCD with fazor. You can cut it what shape you want.
even regular foam is easier then felt to get that triangel fazor. I recommend melamine.
 
You can buy melamine cheap from melamine sponges and cut what thickness or size you want.

 

[GREQ]

 
When doing this "Fuzzor" mod, melamine would be great because you can cut it to these trianglar shape easy like on the Audeze LCD with fazor. You can cut it what shape you want.
even regular foam is easier then felt to get that triangel fazor. I recommend melamine.
 
You can buy melamine cheap from melamine sponges and cut what thickness or size you want.

Please tell us how we can cut this stuff easily into a triangular shape.
If it were so easy, I think someone would have tried it already.
 
The other thing about felt is the fact is that it is extremely easy to work with.
Also the fuzzor mod isn't designed to reduce treble energy from the driver, but primarily sound reflections on the metal magnet grills.
Adding any small amount of soft damping material will have this effect to an extent, even a thin layer of surgical tape should theoretically break up some reflections/ringing.

 

[GLXLR]

Is there a link to melamine that you could use for the fuzzor mod? All my google searches show stuff you would use for a room.

 

[hypermedia]

First attempt with melamine.

lost my scalpel or retractable razor knife. So I used a dull kitchen knife and scissor but was still very easy to cut. Melamine is pretty hard and makes very easy to shape and cut. I wanted the lcd fazor higher triangle shape. About 5mm high. Tried with lower too.
I did only put like 5 minutes in it and did it carelessly. But got a result that is much better then felt.

 

[hypermedia]

∆

 

[GLXLR]

First attempt with melamine.

lost my scalpel or retractable razor knife. So I used a dull kitchen knife and scissor but was still very easy to cut. Melamine is pretty hard and makes very easy to shape and cut. I wanted the lcd fazor higher triangle shape. About 5mm high. Tried with lower too.
I did only put like 5 minutes in it and did it carelessly. But got a result that is much better then felt.

So where can you buy some of this material? All of the stuff I have found online doesn't seem appropriate in quantity for a project like this..

 

[hypermedia]

So where can you buy some of this material? All of the stuff I have found online doesn't seem appropriate in quantity for a project like this..

You can buy melamine foam as a "Magic sponge" Cheap and 100% Melamine foam

I bought mine in my local hardware store in the cleaning section.

Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s?k=melamine+sponge

 

[GLXLR]

You can buy melamine foam as a "Magic sponge" Cheap and 100% Melamine foam

I bought mine in my local hardware store in the cleaning section.

Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s?k=melamine+sponge

And use a thin double sided tape with it? Seems like it could work but definitely more of a hassle than the original fuzzor. What are your initial impressions?

 

[hypermedia]

Double sided tape is the best what I have come up to use for melamine.

Melamine is very easy to cut to wanted shape. I have seen many on this thread do a more of a hassle with felt then what I've done with melamine. I've seen fails and tries in this thread of using felt, trying to make it triangle shaped. Many tries to get a good amount of resonance absorption to eliminate backwave, and correct the sound waves in straight forward direction like on the LCD fazor. I have seen they tried to make that triangle shape but no success. The most use a very light and thin 1mm felt, it won't do any "direction correction" when so thin and almost not absorb resonance at all. Like I said before felt is not so good at anything.

The key of fuzzor mod is to straighten the sound forward, to not cause resonance. Audeze have done it with triangle shaped metal fazor on the LCD series. It is that shape that is the key. Then using a good material to absorb the backwave to get even less resonance is even better. That is why I use melamine.

My impression is that I think maybe only I have succeeded, to do what the key of this mod really is.

 

[hypermedia]

The problem with dual sided magnet on large planar magnetic headphones, like the older Hifimans or LCDs with their acoustic problems occurring as sound radiates through them. The magnets gives a big surface that creates acoustical issues. The air pressure (sound waves) coming from the diaphragm and passes through the magnets are not symmetric matched of autistic and causes problem with the pressurized air (sound) in the chamber towards the ear. A use of a single sided magnet design eliminate this problem but have weaker magnetic field.
 
The key of this mod, or at least the mod I use with melamine, is to eliminate these issues. It is to give smooth transition for sound, from the diaphragm when pass through the magnets and toward the ear, by affecting the sound waves to go in a linear formation, that allows sound to leave the driver with less problem. By doing that, sound gets more acoustical symmetric, improves the autistic impedance matchning, it  will minimize signal reflection and the resonance "back wave".
 
You can accomplish this with a triangle shaped melamine piece on top the magnet, so the the pressurized air (sound waves) will "flow" out as stated above, with less of these issues. And by also absorbing the acoustical issues that occurs, with the superior sound absorption ability melamine have. Both factors will remove these issues. So this melamine mod use the combination of two, to give even better results with more issue elimination.
 
The difference you will hear by eliminate these problems will give you a better listening experience, a more detailed and imaging sound, an enchanted frequency response and less distortion. You will get a cleaner sound experience with essentially more details.