pp312
Hoping to be taken seriously for once in his life
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2001
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You say: "I expect that mods would not be necessary to achieve maximum (or even satisfactory) performance".
How can it be that these mods are "necessary" when there are 1000's of satisfied users and there have been dozens of glowing professional reviews for these headphones - in stock form - comparing them to some of the finest HF's around?
We can agree to disagree on the HE-500's sound but I think your inference that mods are "necessary" for satisfactory performance is a distortion of the truth.
Not meaning to suggest that mods are necessary for everyone, merely for those who find the performance unsatisfactory out of the box, as many in the jergpad mod thread did and do. Obvious when a huge modding thread grows up around a product (and with the HE500 it's more than just pads) it means that many are not satisfied with the stock product (for some, of course, it simply means they find the product so good they want to extract every last ounce of performance out of it, but not all). I actually bought two HE500s because I couldn't believe there wasn't something wrong with the first one, but they sounded identical. I compared them at length with the DT880 Pro and while I could hear that the HE500 was clearly superior in bass extension and overall resolution and smoothness, the DT880 sounded so much more open and easier to listen to--that cave-like effect was gone and the sun was pouring in again. My feeling is that there's a resonance in the stock product that bothers some and not others, and which is probably remedied by one or other of the mods (grill mod maybe?). It's probably also genre specific, showing up most clearly on large orchestral works (which is where most faults show up, which is why I would not judge any phone on anything other than heavy orchestral music no matter what music I actually listened to). Anyway, after two samples I reckon I've given them a fair go, though if someone wanted to send me a modded version just out of the goodness of their heart I wouldn't knock it back. Just saying.