[davidsh]

Quote:

Tried the Jergmad modification steps on a spare pair of velour pads today. Wow! The result:
 
 

Spoiler: Warning%3A%20Spoiler!

Absolutely terrible. Mids sound a bit less wonky and more transparent, but the overall sound is extremely fast almost to the point of being fatiguing. Actually the default velours sound worse so I withdraw that evaluation; it is relatively an improvement but on absolute terms nowhere near the balance achieved by jergmodded pleathers.

Sad... Personally I find the velours to perform quite decent

 

[TMRaven]

I havn't gone through the whole thread, but if fixing the default pleathers that hifiman uses is as simple as cutting holes in its underside for damping, then has anybody actually contacted hifiman to fix this issue themselves?  That sounds like an extremely easy thing to fix as a manufacturer. 

 

[hifimanrookie]

Quote:

Tried the Jergmad modification steps on a spare pair of velour pads today. Wow! The result:
 
 

Spoiler: Warning%3A%20Spoiler!

Absolutely terrible. Mids sound a bit less wonky and more transparent, but the overall sound is extremely fast almost to the point of being fatiguing. Actually the default velours sound worse so I withdraw that evaluation; it is relatively an improvement but on absolute terms nowhere near the balance achieved by jergmodded pleathers.

Jergmad modification? What did u do with thevelours then? No need for holes..thats for sure..

 

[itshot]

You know what... **** it. I think I'll do the mod on the single set of pair of pads I got with my HE-6's.

 

[beaver316]

Brave man, good luck!

 

[itshot]

Okay, just did a streamlined version of the jergpads.
 
In terms of the effects on tone alone, I'd say that the jergpads reduces the treble a bit and increases the bass compared to the stock pleather on the HE-6.
 
That's pretty much the only difference that struck me. I wish I had more sets of pads to compare... but nope. I'm still broke. Someone buy my T1's.
 
Anyhow, I think it was worth doing, b/c I found the stock pleathers to be a tad bit bright. It's not that way any longer.
 
I think I should also note that the pleather pads I got with my HE-6's did not have the foam ring inside of it (I don't know if this normal or not ).

 

[jerg]

Quote:

Okay, just did a streamlined version of the jergpads.
 
In terms of the effects on tone alone, I'd say that the jergpads reduces the treble a bit and increases the bass compared to the stock pleather on the HE-6.
 
That's pretty much the only difference that struck me. I wish I had more sets of pads to compare... but nope. I'm still broke. Someone buy my T1's.
 
Anyhow, I think it was worth doing, b/c I found the stock pleathers to be a tad bit bright. It's not that way any longer.
 
I think I should also note that the pleather pads I got with my HE-6's did not have the foam ring inside of it (I don't know if this normal or not ).

There is an inherent "glare" in the mid~upper midrange with non-modded pleathers that might make it sound more energetic on music with forward midrange such as some piano tracks. It is really just ringing though. That is IMO the biggest difference between stock and the mod, it made some previously unlistenable piano music now just right.
 
How did you do the streamlining?
 
I actually bought another pair of pleathers recently and also streamlined the mod based on ideas posed by people in this thread, saved a lot of steps and really just required a pair of scissors now, no glue/tape nothing.

 

[itshot]

I would take some pictures, but the HE-6's are currently on my head right now.
 
JK man, let me take some pics.
 
Edit: here is a picture.
 
 

 
So basically what I did was flip the pleather pad inside out, so there was no need to cut apart the dust cover when cutting the myriad of little circles into the pleather pads. I also cut off the excess rubber blocking the vents on the plastic fixture with a penknife as you can see in the photo.
 
Minimal cutting, and minimal tape usage

 

[jerg]

Quote:

I would take some pictures, but the HE-6's are currently on my head right now.
 
JK man, let me take some pics.
 
Edit: here is a picture.
 
 

 
So basically what I did was flip the pleather pad inside out, so there was no need to cut apart the dust cover when cutting the myriad of little circles into the pleather pads. I also cut off the excess rubber blocking the vents on the plastic fixture with a penknife as you can see in the photo.
 
Minimal cutting, and minimal tape usage

Pretty much exactly what I did with the pads I modified last night. I took the extra step to trim open sections around the outer circumference of the rubber flanges though, to further open up the earpads' sound a bit.
 
Also the "tape vent" mod can be reduced to retain the bass extension. Basically I just had the 4 stacks of tapes for the back-facing 1/4 of the mounting ring. The more you lift the mounting ring from direct contact with the cup, the more the <25Hz subbass is removed unfortunately.

 

[Marleybob217]

You really don't need to cut of plastic ring of the pleathers.
 

You can fold this plastic ring inwards and use double sided tape to keep it there. It is a bit more tricky to cut the damping holes.
But there is absolutely no need for glue or whatever afterwards. This is probably benificial for sub-bass to since pads anneal seemless to the attachment ring.

 

[hifimanrookie]

Quote:

Okay, just did a streamlined version of the jergpads.
 
In terms of the effects on tone alone, I'd say that the jergpads reduces the treble a bit and increases the bass compared to the stock pleather on the HE-6.
 
That's pretty much the only difference that struck me. I wish I had more sets of pads to compare... but nope. I'm still broke. Someone buy my T1's.
 
Anyhow, I think it was worth doing, b/c I found the stock pleathers to be a tad bit bright. It's not that way any longer.
 
I think I should also note that the pleather pads I got with my HE-6's did not have the foam ring inside of it (I don't know if this normal or not ).

Wow..i thought i was getting crazy here..my pleathers dont have any foam ring inside also...i thought i did something wrong..am glad u have same pads as i got with my he500...sooo there are pleather pads around with and without the foam ring..version 1 and 2??? Lolz

 

[jerg]

Quote:

Wow..i thought i was getting crazy here..my pleathers dont have any foam ring inside also...i thought i did something wrong..am glad u have same pads as i got with my he500...sooo there are pleather pads around with and without the foam ring..version 1 and 2??? Lolz

They're not "different versions", it's just whether Hifiman inserted a foam ring in there or not. Takes 5 seconds to do it.

 

[itshot]

Quote:

Wow..i thought i was getting crazy here..my pleathers dont have any foam ring inside also...i thought i did something wrong..am glad u have same pads as i got with my he500...sooo there are pleather pads around with and without the foam ring..version 1 and 2??? Lolz

The HE-500 pleather pads I had before came with the foam ring.

 

[hifimanrookie]

Quote:

They're not "different versions", it's just whether Hifiman inserted a foam ring in there or not. Takes 5 seconds to do it.

Why didnt i know that??? I didnt find anything bout that..but then u have two different siunding pads then..the ones with the foam ring and the ones without..just checked my velours also..nope..no ring also..does the pads sound better with foam ring or not? I mean in standard form..

 

[jerg]

I figured out how to increase the sub-30Hz bass extension (almost to the point of FR linearity between 30 and 20 Hz) with Hifiman headphones today, without affecting anything else.
 
This was after noticing that sub-30Hz sub-bass rolled off drastically the more I "propped up" the earpad mounting ring off the cup with tape stacks, which made me hypothesize that the lowest subbass is conducted from the drivers to our ears via the surface contact between the cup and the flat undersides of the earpad plastic mounting rings. Another inspiration was from the fact that all Audeze headphones had the earpads adhered to the cups, rather than just mounted on.
 
So I picked up a roll of double-sided tape (the kind that pretty much leaves just a thin layer of solid adhesive on whatever you want to bond) today from dollar store, and tried it out. Here's a rough diagram of what I did (excuse the shoddy MSpaint-job, I forgot to take photos of the procedure when I did it).
 
 

** note this is not the current version of Jergpads I'm sporting, the current version has much more extensive damping holes, as well as the pleather dust screen.
 
After doing this and carefully installing the pads and pressing down to make sure the double-sided tape is adhering the mounting rings to the cups properly, I did some listening tests.
 
Sinewave sweeps show VERY little roll-off under 30 Hz with this earpad adhesion modification on my HE500. Before, there was almost no real bass vibration (just a dry whomp whomp) at 20 Hz, now 20Hz is strong and robust, and very clean, just as well as 30 Hz tones. The rest of the frequency range seems about identical, as predicted.
 
As for music tests, I tried the album Mezzanine by Massive Attack, and the improved sub-bass immediately becomes apparent. Very Audeze-like, deep, "bottomless" sounding. Wow.
 
The subbass extension is likely on-par with LCD2/3 now.
 
 
 
 
 
I'd recommend this to those who have already done the Jergpad mod on their pleathers, and are satisfied with their modding job / results already. The double-sided tape I got is removable but obviously the adhesive won't be cleanly removed without some vigorous rubbing and scrubbing both on the mounting ring and on the headphone cup, especially after I let it sit for a few weeks/months/years.
 
So don't attempt it unless you are already completely satisfied with your pads and don't mind having them semi-permanently on the headphones. Then again, if you've already done the jergpad mod you probably abandoned the notion of trying to maintain the resale value of your cans