[davidsh]

Pleathers ordered!

 

[beaver316]

Just thought of a possible obstacle. If I were to glue the dust screen onto the mounting ring, I wouldn't be able to tape the ring back onto the pad like shown in this thread. Is there a way short of gluing the ring onto the pad? I would prefer not to do that as it would be irreversible. 

 

[jerg]

Quote:

Vocals just sound more like a person singing directly at you.
 
With velours, certain details seem hidden. With these modded pleathers the details are all there
 
Plus like Jerg said, having your ear this close to the driver has an impact on sound. I think soundstage is better and closer than velour where soundstage sounds a bit further away?

^This.
 
Vocals just sound so much more real with these than velours.
 
Vocals are generally a great benchmark for evaluating the midrange and treble of a headphone, because we as human beings have our hearing neural network hardwired to hone in on human speech with much more scrutiny than any other sounds on the planet.
 
If an earpad sounds more realistic and balanced with vocals, that means you got it right with the tonality of midrange and treble.
 
Velours don't got it. Unmodded pleathers don't got it. Jergpads got it fairly close IMO, closer than any other earpads I've tried.

 

[davidsh]

Quote:

^This.
 
Vocals just sound so much more real with these than velours.
 
Vocals are generally a great benchmark for evaluating the midrange and treble of a headphone, because we as human beings have our hearing neural network hardwired to hone in on human speech with much more scrutiny than any other sounds on the planet.
 
If an earpad sounds more realistic and balanced with vocals, that means you got it right with the tonality of midrange and treble.
 
Velours don't got it. Unmodded pleathers don't got it. Jergpads got it fairly close IMO, closer than any other earpads I've tried.

Does the human voice extent further than some 3-4-5 kHz into the treble?

 

[jerg]

Quote:

Does the human voice extent further than some 3-4-5 kHz into the treble?

Yes, there is a treble component to female vocals, if you remove that, everything will sound muffled like out of an old record. Interestingly in that treble component there is a 10-15kHz component that consists of the throaty sound when some females sing, and that part needs to be in moderation otherwise you get a nasty tizz rather than how you'd expect throatiness would sound like.

 

[jerg]

Quote:

Hey Jerg, Thanks for this innovative pleather pad mod!
 
 
 

 
Another JergPad on the way... Overall time for the mod: 1.5 hours, including the picture
 
 
OK, and straight into it. My first impressions:
 
Treble: That's airy! You get a wetter treble that is nicely prominent, overall it sounds fairly clean, slightly less sibilance when the recording goes into that direction. Great stuff.
 
Mids: Nice and open, slightly colder than with the velour pads, less "tubey" so to speak, a bit more forward, fuller, and a bit rounder than with the velour pads. I think that is because of the same component, which also removes a bit the sibilance with the treble. Guitars have a nicer harder crunch to it. Sounds good
 
Bass: In this department it does not shine as much as in the others. The bass was weaker with the pleathers before. I think it has won with the mod, but still the velours have a tighter and overall more presented bass. I think this also plays into the mids, which is why they sound not as warm as with the velours.
 
Stage: Wow, here is the pleathers stage back. Surely wider than with the velours. Really nice.
 
Overall: Much better than the original pleathers. Open, airy and expressive sound on a large stage. Only the bass is still superior with the velours (IMO), the pleather mod doesn't present as much bass. Taken all together, these modded pads may become my standard pads, love this open sound I'll have to do a little more listening.
 
Great job Jerg

Cool impressions! Those are consistent with my impressions almost fully.
 
Indeed, velours have the advantage on bass still because it is ultimately better damped than pleathers/jergpads (since 100% of the velour material absorb resonance, rather than just holes we made with pleathers) giving a cleaner bass, and is thicker so farther away from the ears giving a more prominent midbass.
 
I do find that if you do an additional bass ring mod on the drivers, you could attenuate the bass with jergpads to be just as much in quantity and 'thud' as velours though. Bass ring = use a fairly thin flat piece of foam, cut it into a circle the size of the driver, then cut a 1.5'' hole in the middle, and seat it right on top of the drivers.

 

[davidsh]

Quote:

Cool impressions! Those are consistent with my impressions almost fully.
 
Indeed, velours have the advantage on bass still because it is ultimately better damped than pleathers/jergpads (since 100% of the velour material absorb resonance, rather than just holes we made with pleathers) giving a cleaner bass, and is thicker so farther away from the ears giving a more prominent midbass.
 
I do find that if you do an additional bass ring mod on the drivers, you could attenuate the bass with jergpads to be just as much in quantity and 'thud' as velours though. Bass ring = use a fairly thin flat piece of foam, cut it into a circle the size of the driver, then cut a 1.5'' hole in the middle, and seat it right on top of the drivers.

What does it do with the rest of the sound?

 

[hifimanrookie]

I'll consider it down the line. Right now I'm really busy with both school and work, the only way I pulled off this mod was by missing 4 hours of sleep last night, and the only way I pulled off writing up this guide was by procrastinating at my lab today lol. 

If you don't want to wait for only a possibility of me helping you to mod some indeterminate time in the future, you could either start getting handy or perhaps ask someone else who tried or will be trying this mod. Wje is a good candidate, he loves helping and is good at allocating time out for headphone modding stuff.

WJE? Can u explain who that is pls? I would like to contact him...as i am really scarred to do this mod.

 

[jerg]

Quote:

WJE? Can u explain who that is pls? I would like to contact him...as i am really scarred to do this mod.

He's just another HE400 owner who is in the main HE400 thread, and has been a really avid modder. Don't take my word that he will be able to offer you help though, AFAIK even he has not tried my jergpad mod yet, maybe because he is busy in recent times.
 
 
 
 

What does it do with the rest of the sound?
 

 
Tames treble slightly, makes lower mids a bit more full-bodied. Nothing major or bad. The main effect is on bass quantity and impact. Just be sure to get a foam that has a fairly transparent consistency (nothing too dense, you want the kinds of foams that are like the ones used in Grado foam earpads).

 

[hifimanrookie]

He's just another HE400 owner who is in the main HE400 thread, and has been a really avid modder. Don't take my word that he will be able to offer you help though, AFAIK even he has not tried my jergpad mod yet, maybe because he is busy lately

Thanks jerg..i will contact him and see what he says..asking is always free

 

[Steelbarrage]

First I must ask Jerg, do you think the pad is thick enough after the mod?
Now to the possibly stupid question part.
What do you think of taking the memory foam out of a secondary pair of pleathers and adding it to the existing mod?
Possibly get an extra bit of space between your ear and driver but still maintain the same sound signature.
Please feel free to shoot me down but I just think the pads would be fairly thin after the mod.

 

[jerg]

Quote:

First I must ask Jerg, do you think the pad is thick enough after the mod?
Now to the possibly stupid question part.
What do you think of taking the memory foam out of a secondary pair of pleathers and adding it to the existing mod?
Possibly get an extra bit of space between your ear and driver but still maintain the same sound signature.
Please feel free to shoot me down but I just think the pads would be fairly thin after the mod.

1) the pad is the exact same thickness before and after the mod, all you did was the removal of the dust screen, addition of holes, and removal of outer rubber flaps. None of these three things account for any thickness of the pads.
 
2) Not sure how you could achieve that, where would the extra ring of foam go? I did try doubling up on the pleather pads by taping two together per side and putting them onto my HE400 and HE500, but the sound signature was fundamentally changed because of the increased distance, for the worse (bass become overbearing and loose, there is some new nasty ringing in the mids, and treble becomes sharp and piercing).

 

[davidsh]

I must ask, how does the MD compare to either of the HE-400/500 sound wise? 

 

[jerg]

Quote:

I must ask, how does the MD compare to either of the HE-400/500 sound wise? 

No clue, how is that relevant to this thread? 

 

[Steelbarrage]

Quote:

1) the pad is the exact same thickness before and after the mod, all you did was the removal of the dust screen, addition of holes, and removal of outer rubber flaps. None of these three things account for any thickness of the pads.
 
2) Not sure how you could achieve that, where would the extra ring of foam go? I did try doubling up on the pleather pads by taping two together per side and putting them onto my HE400 and HE500, but the sound signature was fundamentally changed because of the increased distance, for the worse (bass become overbearing and loose, there is some new nasty ringing in the mids, and treble becomes sharp and piercing).

1) Do you not remove the foam ring from between the earpiece and the attachment ring?
 
2) I was thinking it might be possible to fit the ring inside the existing fabric but since I haven't cut apart the fabric I really don't know how much give it has.