woodytone
100+ Head-Fier
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first off get yourself 2 tin cans and some sting then...
homemade headphones
- Thread starter woodytone
- Start date
Uncledan
Headphoneus Supremus
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Joe Bloggs
Sponsor: HiByMember of the Trade: EFO Technologies Co, YanYin TechnologyHis Porta Corda walked the Green Mile
Want to hear about homemade headphones? Here you go
http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showt...threadid=16986
http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showt...threadid=16986
How do they sound?
JaZZ
Headphoneus Supremus
Quote:
Both sound very extended, with very deep and strong bass -- more so than any of my other (dynamic) headphones -- and with a pronounced soundstage (thanks to the angled drivers). And with the typical electrostatic-like high resolution and airiness.
Model 1 -- with Lambda Pro drivers -- sounds fuller and rather undemonstrative, quite neutral, without any obvious coloration, with a pleasing, detailed, but never sharp treble.
Model 2 -- with the Signature Pro drivers -- is a bit more upfront (smaller angle), with pronounced detail and speed; it reminds me a bit of the Orpheus in this regard, but is rather on the lean, analytical side, despite the strong and articulate bass.
| Originally posted by Chefguru How do they sound? |
Both sound very extended, with very deep and strong bass -- more so than any of my other (dynamic) headphones -- and with a pronounced soundstage (thanks to the angled drivers). And with the typical electrostatic-like high resolution and airiness.
Model 1 -- with Lambda Pro drivers -- sounds fuller and rather undemonstrative, quite neutral, without any obvious coloration, with a pleasing, detailed, but never sharp treble.
Model 2 -- with the Signature Pro drivers -- is a bit more upfront (smaller angle), with pronounced detail and speed; it reminds me a bit of the Orpheus in this regard, but is rather on the lean, analytical side, despite the strong and articulate bass.
PinkFloyd
Headphoneus Supremus
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They look awesome Jazz! How long did they take you to make?
Mike.
Mike.
Joe Bloggs
Sponsor: HiByMember of the Trade: EFO Technologies Co, YanYin TechnologyHis Porta Corda walked the Green Mile
Hmm, so the drivers are from Staxes? Why did you take them out of their original enclosures?
Do they sound better this way?
GlowWorm
Headphoneus Supremus
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I'm diggin' them man, especially those "woodies". Keep up the good work JaZZ.
How much
?
Uncledan
Headphoneus Supremus
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oh my god, Nice job JaZZ!
JaZZ
Headphoneus Supremus
The reason for my efforts...
...was that I wasn't too happy with the Stax Lambda Pro I once had -- for a short time. Although not so shrill as with the recent Grados, the treble had the bad property to almost cause me toothage. The bass was a bit thin, with a plasticky coloration and a serious lack of substance and impact (I'm not speaking of visceral impact). The midrange was the best part. Well, the potential of this headphone and electrostatics in general was clearly audible -- its high resolution, airiness and soundstage --, but I couldn't live with this kind of implementation.
Later, after having some decent fun with the Stax Gamma, I learned about the Stax Sigma: a headphone with the drivers positioned in front of the ears with an angle of almost 90°. This was a design I thought would possibly provide a really credible soundstage almost like speakers -- and additionally compensate fo the inherent slight brightness or sharpness of electrostatics which I trace back to reflection and air compressing effects within the stator grids. From my intensive occupation with speakers I knew the effect from the compression chamber of horn drivers; and maybe someone remembers the Celestion HF 1300, a «compression-chamber» dome tweeter: once the spiral-shaped metal grill was removed, the sound was dull in comparison. the higher the frequency, the greater the loss. The stator grids in electrostatic drivers represent such a compression chamber as well. Beside the high-end pitch there are also some smearing/halo effects in play in this context, but it would go too far to amplify this subject -- but it's part of the reasons I don't consider electrostatics clearly superior to the obviously «slower» dynamic competitors.
I had the opportunity to buy a used Sigma Pro -- the most beautiful headphone Stax ever built...
A brief description: bloated, not very clear and accurate bass, lacking midrange with a woolly timbre, mat treble. The resolution was clearly inferior to what I was used to from electrostatics. The soundstage was impressive, and so was the airiness of the presentation, but far from being really natural, let alone colorful or involving.
But it was the starting point for my own design. Why not make a compromise between the classic on-the-ears- and the Sigma's in-front-of-the-ears design!
First I had to reflect about the reason for the Sigma's sonic behavior. The bloated bass has three reasons: the box design created standing waves hard to dampen even with the applied massive absorbing material, because the lower the frequency, the less absorption. Add to this the angled driver, creating a frontal sonic impact: this leads to a clearly reduced amount of high frequencies reaching the eardrums compared to the lateral impact, thus increasing the unevenness in favor of lower frequencies. The third reason is actually positive: the larger volume enclosed between drivers and ears causes a lower system resonance, thus a greater low-frequency extension.
The design which I had in mind would only imply a minor additional reflective surface, a minor driver angle and a minor increase of volume, but still be more favorable in respect of the resonance frequency than a flat array. So I took the drivers out of the Sigma and first inserted them into a prototype made of a wire grid, meant to be coated with (air-tight) textiles, forming a non-reflective housing... needless to say that this prototype didn't sound very good as to cleanness, bass and frequency balance, but it had at least one effect: I had to order new driver units (actually technically identical Lambda Pro types) from the Swiss Stax distributor, because I wasn't able to operate the Sigma drivers out of the prototypes anymore without damaging them...
.
So the next time I used «airplane (birch) plywood», the same material I use for my boomerangs. I'm sure it has the better acoustic properties than the plastic Stax uses: better stiffness and inner damping. The bothering thing is that it slivers very easily from sawing with a jig saw. After insertion of the drivers a careful lining of the interior with (black) velvet-coated carpet had to be done to minimize inner reflections -- (audibly) not so well done with the original Stax models. In fact reflections are highly underrated with headphones -- they are one of the main causes for colorations, beside membrane resonances.
This model was a full success (it's the black lacquered one above). It really fulfilled all my expectations. The bass is impactful, deep, clean, the midrange is liquid and colorful, the treble is detailed, airy, but not sharp at all, and the soundstage is great. No comparison to the original Lambda Pro.
I know you actually didn't want to know all of this, but hey... you asked!
...was that I wasn't too happy with the Stax Lambda Pro I once had -- for a short time. Although not so shrill as with the recent Grados, the treble had the bad property to almost cause me toothage. The bass was a bit thin, with a plasticky coloration and a serious lack of substance and impact (I'm not speaking of visceral impact). The midrange was the best part. Well, the potential of this headphone and electrostatics in general was clearly audible -- its high resolution, airiness and soundstage --, but I couldn't live with this kind of implementation.
Later, after having some decent fun with the Stax Gamma, I learned about the Stax Sigma: a headphone with the drivers positioned in front of the ears with an angle of almost 90°. This was a design I thought would possibly provide a really credible soundstage almost like speakers -- and additionally compensate fo the inherent slight brightness or sharpness of electrostatics which I trace back to reflection and air compressing effects within the stator grids. From my intensive occupation with speakers I knew the effect from the compression chamber of horn drivers; and maybe someone remembers the Celestion HF 1300, a «compression-chamber» dome tweeter: once the spiral-shaped metal grill was removed, the sound was dull in comparison. the higher the frequency, the greater the loss. The stator grids in electrostatic drivers represent such a compression chamber as well. Beside the high-end pitch there are also some smearing/halo effects in play in this context, but it would go too far to amplify this subject -- but it's part of the reasons I don't consider electrostatics clearly superior to the obviously «slower» dynamic competitors.
I had the opportunity to buy a used Sigma Pro -- the most beautiful headphone Stax ever built...
A brief description: bloated, not very clear and accurate bass, lacking midrange with a woolly timbre, mat treble. The resolution was clearly inferior to what I was used to from electrostatics. The soundstage was impressive, and so was the airiness of the presentation, but far from being really natural, let alone colorful or involving.
But it was the starting point for my own design. Why not make a compromise between the classic on-the-ears- and the Sigma's in-front-of-the-ears design!
First I had to reflect about the reason for the Sigma's sonic behavior. The bloated bass has three reasons: the box design created standing waves hard to dampen even with the applied massive absorbing material, because the lower the frequency, the less absorption. Add to this the angled driver, creating a frontal sonic impact: this leads to a clearly reduced amount of high frequencies reaching the eardrums compared to the lateral impact, thus increasing the unevenness in favor of lower frequencies. The third reason is actually positive: the larger volume enclosed between drivers and ears causes a lower system resonance, thus a greater low-frequency extension.
The design which I had in mind would only imply a minor additional reflective surface, a minor driver angle and a minor increase of volume, but still be more favorable in respect of the resonance frequency than a flat array. So I took the drivers out of the Sigma and first inserted them into a prototype made of a wire grid, meant to be coated with (air-tight) textiles, forming a non-reflective housing... needless to say that this prototype didn't sound very good as to cleanness, bass and frequency balance, but it had at least one effect: I had to order new driver units (actually technically identical Lambda Pro types) from the Swiss Stax distributor, because I wasn't able to operate the Sigma drivers out of the prototypes anymore without damaging them...
So the next time I used «airplane (birch) plywood», the same material I use for my boomerangs. I'm sure it has the better acoustic properties than the plastic Stax uses: better stiffness and inner damping. The bothering thing is that it slivers very easily from sawing with a jig saw. After insertion of the drivers a careful lining of the interior with (black) velvet-coated carpet had to be done to minimize inner reflections -- (audibly) not so well done with the original Stax models. In fact reflections are highly underrated with headphones -- they are one of the main causes for colorations, beside membrane resonances.
This model was a full success (it's the black lacquered one above). It really fulfilled all my expectations. The bass is impactful, deep, clean, the midrange is liquid and colorful, the treble is detailed, airy, but not sharp at all, and the soundstage is great. No comparison to the original Lambda Pro.
I know you actually didn't want to know all of this, but hey... you asked!
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