[KewlMunky]

  Oh, and if it isn't obvious my recommendation would be the Angled Velour pads if you're choosing from Brainwavz pads.  They improve imaging, absorb the most reflections and are comfy as hell!  They give a smoother response than the Audeze suede pads too.

Any experience with their angled hybrid pads?

 

[cskippy]

I don't but extrapolating from the graphs I'm betting that it will keep the same traits as the regular "Jerg" hybrid that I measured but with less treble.  It should be pretty good.

 

[LarsHP]

  On the recommendation of of one of the participants in this thread I have installed the HM5 angled pleather pads.   After back and forth between them and the Audeze suede pads- it is obvious that the HM5 BLOW the Audeze suede away.    The Audeze clearly smear the sound in comparison.  The HM5 are crystal clear and dynamic. They have serious punching power, superb detail and near Audeze fullness (without the veil or mud)- absolutely excellent.  I tried different materials to line the inner ring of the ear-pads and the best to my ears by far is "sorbathane". Sorbathane keeps the sound sounding fuller and smoother without slowing down, muddling, or removing one iota of detail to my ears.
 
I do not like the grill mod with the HM5/ Sorbathane mod at all.  Yes- the soundstage is increased but bass and intimacy is lost. Maybe one of the other mods would compensate for the deficiencies of the grill mod. but I am not interested in fooling around with what I perceive to be just stunning sound.
 
I have owned all the great electro stats including 007, 009, and HE-90.  I have owned many of the non-electro stats like LCD-3F, LA-900, HD800, HE1000.
 
The inexpensive HE-6 with the HM5/ Sorbathane mod. is simply superior to all of them (overall) and is the best headphone experience I ever heard.  Detail and transparency are so so close to the electro stats with the addition of superior bass, fullness of sound, and incredible impact.  These additions are CRITICAL to my headphone experience.  Soundstage is just right- meaning not the biggest I ever heard but convincingly large and without loosing intimacy. Besides this one mod. all I have done is add a suspension strap for comfort.  I do plan to hardwire the cable although only for practical (as the connectors are poor) reasons as I do not believe sonics will be effected much.

Great you liked the HM5 pads. Your impressions mirror mine in many ways. I prefer the angled pleather modded with cloth to absorb upper frequencies and this way it has the advantage of both the velour / micro suede and the leather / pleather pads. I also prefer the outer grill completely off, but that's my preference.
 

  Anyone else have opinion to share about the angled HM5 pads vs Audeze micro suede?

Yes, I have described my impressions in several posts earlier in this thread.
 

Im wondering how different the hm5 angled sound vs the hifiman pleather pads. Has anyone compared?

The HM5 is made of memory foam and is sealing and conducting punch like no other pad I have tried on my HE-6.

 

[rsbrsvp]

  Great you liked the HM5 pads. Your impressions mirror mine in many ways. I prefer the angled pleather modded with cloth to absorb upper frequencies and this way it has the advantage of both the velour / micro suede and the leather / pleather pads. I also prefer the outer grill completely off, but that's my preference.
 
Yes, I have described my impressions in several posts earlier in this thread.
 
The HM5 is made of memory foam and is sealing and conducting punch like no other pad I have tried on my HE-6.

First- I thank you for your advice on the ear-pads.  Second- I know very little about sound absorption but sorbothane is rated one of the if not the best sound absorption material on the market according to their marketing.  From what I understand- sound absorption always focus on the high frequencies as low frequencies do not bother our ears so much anyway.  Therefore I do not understand why a thick piece of cloth would perform better then sorbothane.
 
I am a novice at this and I could be wrong- so if I am please correct me if needed.

 

[LarsHP]

  First- I thank you for your advice on the ear-pads.  Second- I know very little about sound absorption but sorbothane is rated one of the if not the best sound absorption material on the market according to their marketing.  From what I understand- sound absorption always focus on the high frequencies as low frequencies do not bother our ears so much anyway.  Therefore I do not understand why a thick piece of cloth would perform better then sorbothane.
 
I am a novice at this and I could be wrong- so if I am please correct me if needed.

My comment was regarding the actual mod of the pad, not the material used. I have put the cloth here:

... on the inner "walls" of the pads (as posted Dec. 7th 2016). If that is what you meant when describing your mod, then I obviously misunderstood your post. (I thought you put Sorbothane between the pad and the driver.) If you put Sorbothane the same place as I have put the cloth/fabric, then we have the same basic mod, but the material you used may be better at doing the job than my ordinary cloth/fabric.
 
EDIT:
After looking at some pictures, I am not sure that 2mm thick Sorbothane pieces would be better at dampening upper frequencies than cloth. And if the Sorbothane is mounted on the inner "wall" of the pads (as shown in the photo) it might even resonate with lower frequencies and particularly with bass punches because the leather/pleather of the pads are not a hard and firm baselayer for the Sorbothane. However, this is just theory.
 
 
Could you please post a macro-shot of the Sorbothane pads you use, so we can see what it looks like?

 

[Tobes]

  First- I thank you for your advice on the ear-pads.  Second- I know very little about sound absorption but sorbothane is rated one of the if not the best sound absorption material on the market according to their marketing.  From what I understand- sound absorption always focus on the high frequencies as low frequencies do not bother our ears so much anyway.  Therefore I do not understand why a thick piece of cloth would perform better then sorbothane.
 
I am a novice at this and I could be wrong- so if I am please correct me if needed.

I don't believe sorbothane is used to any great extent for sound absorption.
It does of course have well known mechanical damping properties and is used as an acoustic insulator - but that is different to sound absorption. Have a look at materials used in acoustic absorption devices for room treatment - I don't think you'll find any sorbothane.
There may well be some positive acoustic outcome from sticking sorbothane onto a vibrating headphone - but most likely due to change in vibrational energy transference - or perhaps altered reflection of sound - rather than absorption of sound waves.

 

[rsbrsvp]

I don't believe sorbothane is used to any great extent for sound absorption.
It does of course have well known mechanical damping properties and is used as an acoustic insulator - but that is different to sound absorption. Have a look at materials used in acoustic absorption devices for room treatment - I don't think you'll find any sorbothane.
There may well be some positive acoustic outcome from sticking sorbothane onto a vibrating headphone - but most likely due to change in vibrational energy transference - or perhaps altered reflection of sound - rather than absorption of sound waves.

 



Type in google “Sorbothane sound absorption” and you will see their claim that sorbothane is the best sound absorption material on the market.
Regardless, it works great for me.

 

[rsbrsvp]

My comment was regarding the actual mod of the pad, not the material used. I have put the cloth here:

... on the inner "walls" of the pads (as posted Dec. 7th 2016). If that is what you meant when describing your mod, then I obviously misunderstood your post. (I thought you put Sorbothane between the pad and the driver.) If you put Sorbothane the same place as I have put the cloth/fabric, then we have the same basic mod, but the material you used may be better at doing the job than my ordinary cloth/fabric.
 
EDIT:
After looking at some pictures, I am not sure that 2mm thick Sorbothane pieces would be better at dampening upper frequencies than cloth. And if the Sorbothane is mounted on the inner "wall" of the pads (as shown in the photo) it might even resonate with lower frequencies and particularly with bass punches because the leather/pleather of the pads are not a hard and firm baselayer for the Sorbothane. However, this is just theory.
 
 
Could you please post a macro-shot of the Sorbothane pads you use, so we can see what it looks like?

 


Hi. Sorry but I cannot access a camera right now. However, my pads look exactly like yours except that sorbothane instead of cloth is lined on the inside. I did find that skipping some spaces within the inner walls of the ear pad and not covering the inner walls completely is much preferable. Two or three pieces of sorbothane with a centimeter or so of space between each piece is good- and also the strips I cut are only about 2/3 the depth of the ear pad. Less is more in this case. Again- I am not a techie. To by ears it sounds incredible.

 

[rsbrsvp]

Here are some pics.    I tried lining the inside of the ear pads with felt- the stuff used for the fuzzor mod and to my ears- the sorbothane was substantially more to my liking.  I do however want to try a thicker fabric next week hopefully for another comparison.

 

[Tobes]

 

  I don't believe sorbothane is used to any great extent for sound absorption.
It does of course have well known mechanical damping properties and is used as an acoustic insulator - but that is different to sound absorption. Have a look at materials used in acoustic absorption devices for room treatment - I don't think you'll find any sorbothane.
There may well be some positive acoustic outcome from sticking sorbothane onto a vibrating headphone - but most likely due to change in vibrational energy transference - or perhaps altered reflection of sound - rather than absorption of sound waves.

 



Type in google “Sorbothane sound absorption” and you will see their claim that sorbothane is the best sound absorption material on the market.
Regardless, it works great for me.

 
 
I found some data for acoustic absorption - and it would appear to be impressive, 40dB/cm @50Hz and increasing with frequency. Which is surprising for me since Sorbothane appears to be a closed cell material. (I'm a little dubious about that data - it sounds a bit too good to be true)

 

[rsbrsvp]

www.sorbothane.com/sound-absorbing-material.aspx (I feel like a sorbothane salesman. I really get no commission- just wanting to share my findings with head-fires)

 

[LarsHP]

Looking forward to your comparisons between Sorbothane and thick fabric, rsbrsvp.
 
As Tobes, I am a bit skeptic about a closed material absorbing high frequencies. However, since Sorbothane apparently claim that it will absorb high frequencies and you (rsbrsvp) has good experiences using it, Sorbothane may be good at doing the job.
 
On another note, since I feel the inner size of the HM5 pads is just large enough for my (not so big) ears, I am a bit hesitant to put a thick material on the inner "walls".

 

[Monsterzero]

So I picked up some HM5 angled pads,and indeed getting the pad over the bracket is tricky. I didnt want to rip the pad,nor snap the ring,so I attached the pads to the ring with dbl sided tape.

Question: By not putting the inside lip over the bracket ring as I did effect the SQ adversely? Tried them out and they did seem a tad bit brighter but that was all I could detect,as doing an instant a/b is impossible.

Thoughts?

 

[LarsHP]

  So I picked up some HM5 angled pads,and indeed getting the pad over the bracket is tricky. I didnt want to rip the pad,nor snap the ring,so I attached the pads to the ring with dbl sided tape.

Question: By not putting the inside lip over the bracket ring as I did effect the SQ adversely? Tried them out and they did seem a tad bit brighter but that was all I could detect,as doing an instant a/b is impossible.

Thoughts?

If you don't have the (old HiFiMan) mounting ring inside the pad (lip), you won't get the stretch in the pad the ring is supposed to provide.
 
When you attach the ring to the pad with double sided tape, how do you attach the pad to the cup? Also double sided tape or by the taps from the ring.
 
My experience says that getting a COMPLETELY airtight seal between pad and cup is essential. This includes a seal of the air gap between the cup itself and the ring inside the cup with the 4 or 6 screws.

 

[Monsterzero]

  If you don't have the (old HiFiMan) mounting ring inside the pad (lip), you won't get the stretch in the pad the ring is supposed to provide.
 
When you attach the ring to the pad with double sided tape, how do you attach the pad to the cup? Also double sided tape or by the taps from the ring.
 
My experience says that getting a COMPLETELY airtight seal between pad and cup is essential. This includes a seal of the air gap between the cup itself and the ring inside the cup with the 4 or 6 screws.

Yeah I get what youre saying,I managed to squeeze the ring into the pad(with a bit of trimming of the ring)but now the pad is a bit wobbled/lopsided,not to mention the four connectors on the ring are deeply buried under the lip of the cup...How do attach the ring to the headphones when the pad lip is covering it....im utterly confused