[rockgod213]

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The comfort "improvement" with the velour top mod is indeed debatable; there is nothing smooth like a good pleather material i.e. the protein pleather used on Hifiman earpads (except maybe Audeze LCD3 lambskin). However it does help cool down and stop sweating of your ears, and distance your ears a bit more from the drivers (good news for those with big ears but who hate velour pads).
 
The main point of the velour top mod is the sonic improvement though. I cannot understate the fact that it magically removes the "sealed closed-in sound" of pleathers, and makes all the sound suddenly open and out of the head. The "believability" of the 3D imaging is boosted incredibly high, even though the soundstage might sound similar in size with just the bare pleathers. That on top of the fact that it does not alter the innate tonal balance of the pleathers makes it a very strong addition in the Jergpad modification steps.

 
Ah! You're killin' me man. Now I want to go mutilate another pair of pads, haha. 

 

[itshot]

Yay! My cutting-of-excess-rubber-covering-the-holes-on-the-plastic-rings-instead-of-cutting-it-off-entirely idea was implemented! 

 

[jerg]

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Yay! My cutting-of-excess-rubber-covering-the-holes-on-the-plastic-rings-instead-of-cutting-it-off-entirely idea was implemented! 

Yep! I knew someone came up with that idea but forgot who it was. Do you want to be credited in-situ?

 

[itshot]

Sure...
 
Haha and my I'm-too-lazy-to-cut-off-the-dust-screen-so-I'll-just-flip-them-inside-out technique worked pretty well too 

 

[beaver316]

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Looking at this picture you can clearly see they big gaps the back vent mod creates. Wouldn't this negate the sub-bass adhesive mod because the seal between the headphone and the pad is broken.
 
On another note, I think im about to try the sub-bass mod, but im reluctant to use tape because of the possible mess it could create. I'll try find some other material which would serve the same purpose, i.e close the gaps between the driver and pads in order to conduct sub-bass better.

 

[Flisker]

I would like to ask as newbie again... is physical modding like this superior in any way than parametric EQing ? I mean if u have EQ available. I feel like I can cure nearly all imperfection by EQ, if I'am willing to invest some time in it and question in my head is "Is physical mod like this able to provide better SQ than just EQ?"

 

[beaver316]

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I would like to ask as newbie again... is physical modding like this superior in any way than parametric EQing ? I mean if u have EQ available. I feel like I can cure nearly all imperfection by EQ, if I'am willing to invest some time in it and question in my head is "Is physical mod like this able to provide better SQ than just EQ?"

 
I feel like physical mods are better than EQ because with a physical mod you're improving the 'hardware', whereas with EQ you're using software. With hardware mods you can use the headphone on any source and have the same sound, with EQ you're limited to the same source.

 

[jerg]

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Sure...
 
Haha and my I'm-too-lazy-to-cut-off-the-dust-screen-so-I'll-just-flip-them-inside-out technique worked pretty well too 

I'm FAIRLY sure that one was thought up by several individuals, not just you lol.
 
 
Quote:

 
Looking at this picture you can clearly see they big gaps the back vent mod creates. Wouldn't this negate the sub-bass adhesive mod because the seal between the headphone and the pad is broken.
 
On another note, I think im about to try the sub-bass mod, but im reluctant to use tape because of the possible mess it could create. I'll try find some other material which would serve the same purpose, i.e close the gaps between the driver and pads in order to conduct sub-bass better.

The backvent mod does mechanistically reduce sub-bass, but it is compensated completely by the adhesive mod. I feel adding the tape stacks at the back is a pretty critical addition to the overall scheme because it contributes quite a bit to the staging and center focus of music. So in a way the backvent and subbass mods are complementary.
 
You could try a non-adhesive approach but I can't promise that it'll work. Last I tried that (adding a few layers of tape instead of the double-sided tape to buff up the mounting ring) it actually killed the sub-bass.
 
 
Quote:

I would like to ask as newbie again... is physical modding like this superior in any way than parametric EQing ? I mean if u have EQ available. I feel like I can cure nearly all imperfection by EQ, if I'am willing to invest some time in it and question in my head is "Is physical mod like this able to provide better SQ than just EQ?"

 
You can't EQ away ringing, or EQ in soundstage / clarity / separation / better imaging / REAL improved bass extension 

 

[beaver316]

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The backvent mod does mechanistically reduce sub-bass, but it is compensated completely by the adhesive mod. I feel adding the tape stacks at the back is a pretty critical addition to the overall scheme because it contributes quite a bit to the staging and center focus of music. So in a way the backvent and subbass mods are complementary.
 
You could try a non-adhesive approach but I can't promise that it'll work. Last I tried that (adding a few layers of tape instead of the double-sided tape to buff up the mounting ring) it actually killed the sub-bass.
 

 
I went ahead and used double sided tape. No word on sound yet, but the pads feel more secure and sturdy this way. They don't rotate which felt somewhat 'cheap' for lack of a better word.

 

[jerg]

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I went ahead and used double sided tape. No word on sound yet, but the pads feel more secure and sturdy this way. They don't rotate which felt somewhat 'cheap' for lack of a better word.

Did you follow the steps precisely?
 
Anyway, the way to best its effectiveness would have been to do sinewave sweeps of the sub-bass region before and after the mod. Specific changes like these are harder to tell objectively through just music (though it is there).

 

[beaver316]

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Did you follow the steps precisely?
 
Anyway, the way to best its effectiveness would have been to do sinewave sweeps of the sub-bass region before and after the mod. Specific changes like these are harder to tell objectively through just music (though it is there).

 
Rather than cut the tape into a curved shape, I just left it straight. I don't think that would be detrimental. I put four pieces on each pad, and cut out openings over the holes.
 
I thought about using sinegen to detect differences, but the time it would take between swapping them out would probably ruin my memory of the sound. I'll have to rely on music playback. It was through music playback that I detected the slight subbass rolloff between the velour and jergpad without subbass mod, so we'll see.

 

[jerg]

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Rather than cut the tape into a curved shape, I just left it straight. I don't think that would be detrimental. I put four pieces on each pad, and cut out openings over the holes.
 
I thought about using sinegen to detect differences, but the time it would take between swapping them out would probably ruin my memory of the sound. I'll have to rely on music playback. It was through music playback that I detected the slight subbass rolloff between the velour and jergpad without subbass mod, so we'll see.

 
>I don't think that would be detrimental
 
It depends on how much coverage you got on the flat surface of the mounting ring, ideally you want 100% contact surface with the headphone cups, hence I cut them out precisely based on the tracing I did.

 

[itshot]

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I'm FAIRLY sure that one was thought up by several individuals, not just you lol.

Haha... for some reason I felt absolutely compelled to make another insanely-long-and-full-of-dashes comment last night.

 

[beaver316]

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>I don't think that would be detrimental
 
It depends on how much coverage you got on the flat surface of the mounting ring, ideally you want 100% contact surface with the headphone cups, hence I cut them out precisely based on the tracing I did.

 
A rough drawing of how i did it. Hope that's ok. Black is tape obviously.
 
 

 

[jerg]

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A rough drawing of how i did it. Hope that's ok. Black is tape obviously.
 
 

I would personally move the positions of the tapes a bit more outward actually, as the main contact points are along the outer edges of base, rather than the inner edges.