[boreas]

First post and a new member.  I've been a more or less reluctant headphone user for a while now, driven to them by a noise-phobic landlord who, sadly, lives upstairs.  (Weird because I met him when I sold him a turntable and, ultimately, an entire vintage stereo setup.)

 
Anyway, I picked up a pair of these much-maligned MDR-V600s at a Goodwill for $5.00 and was NOT enjoying them..... until I performed the mod described here.  A very big difference indeed!  I won't be in such an all-fired hurry to upgrade now so I'm likely to make a better decision when I do - or so I hope.  Meanwhile, these Sonys will fill the bill nicely.
 
Anyway, MrGuzmanWhite @ #30, I damn near did what you did.  The foam in mine had started to decompose and the OP's method of prying the foam out only resulted in my tearing out little chunks of degraded foam.  At one point my efforts to remove the foam ended up pushing it almost completely out of sight.  Fortunately, I was able to grab hold of it with a pair of needle-nosed tweezers and got it all out in one last piece.  There's a small black spot on the Mylar dust cap now.  I don't think it's a hole.

 
My next step will be to work on some screens to replace the covers.  I like the open back idea but I'm a little leery of exposed wires and of the cavity in the pole piece that removing the foam left behind.
 
So, thanks to ziplock for a very slick little tweak!
 
John

 

[boreas]

Well, here I am again!  I thought I'd get back as promised with what I came up with for protecting the wires on the MDR-V600s  As I mentioned above, the idea of leaving the backs off didn't appeal to me because it left the wires exposed and vulnerable to damage.  I wanted to come up with a way to have the benefits of the open back without the risks.  Sadly, my post count here is too low for me to be able to post photos so I've linked to an Audiokarma thread showing what I did and describing how I did it.  This is what I came up with.  http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=572970
 
Hope someone else finds this useful.
 
John

 

[elmoto]

Hello. I am from Slovakia. My headphones are the Sony MDR V600, AKG K400, K340 electrostatic dynamic.

MDR V600 I edited like this and you write to:
- New pads from ebay.
- Detached rear cover and make its open headphones.
- Foam from the magnet because I replaced another without losing too much bass and the other information.
- Replaced cover I did of car loudspeaker metals punching caps.
 
I must say that this play the class better.
 
The amplifier HA610 / search google / and home made ECC88 + 6AS7g. Signal source gramophone Tesla NC440 with AT95e and RIAA preamp Actidamp MK2 / google search /
 
While without the pictures this is my first post.

 

[Starbucksstew]

I opened mine up and only found some tiny black matter in the middle hole.  I was about to order some new pleather pads for mine when I was messing with the mod I decided to take the pads off.  I flipped them over to the pleather side inward and they slipped right back on inside out!  No more shedding!  Well, on the inside maybe...  Thanks for the tip.  I could hear a slight improvement after digging the black (whatever it is) stuff out.

 

[starling2k]

To avoid losing the nut (referred to as bolt above) take a small piece of Scotch tape and place over it until you're ready to put them back together.  Believe me, if you're going to take that piece of sticky sponge out of the center hole, you're going to do some moving and flipping of the headphones and the nut does fall out easily.  Be very careful trying to take out the spongy stuff, it's extremely easy (even if you're careful) for that to go on down inside the headphone.   Don't despair if you do that - just get a pair of thin long needle nosed tweezers, shake the headphone ear cup and you will see the gunky stuff through the hole.  Be very careful and use the tweezers to get it out.  The spongy stuff had degraded in mine and was more like gunk.
 
Just my observation: I like the headphones much better with the the ear caps in place.  The bass is tighter and mids are much better to me.   You can do sort of an A/B comparison for yourself  while you're doing this mod - take the palms of your hands and place them over the ear cups.  Listen to some familiar music while placing your palms over the opened ear cups, then take your hands off and listen.  Do this a couple of times to see which you prefer. 
 
The best mod for me was to replace the ear pads.  I have found that the Shure HPAEC840  or just 840 ear pads will fit on these headphones and you can get those on Amazon. At the time this is written, they are available for $11.99 a pair.  Your ears, unless they are extremely big, will fit all the way inside the ear pads.  I have also bought the the MERSUII replacement pads on Amazon for the MDR-V600 and while not as good as the original Sonys, they are quite good and only cost $4.69 a pair on Amazon with free shipping.
 
Good luck with the modding - I enjoyed doing it and thought it was a worthwhile little project and perhaps made the sound just a little better.
 
Just my 2 cents and probably not worth that.....

 

[bh02930]

I still go with the MDR-V600's. They still go for $250 Used and about $550 New. Not sure about other studio monitor headphones, but they have all the designer crap like beats and skull candy beat.

 

[DJ The Rocket]

Anyway, I picked up a pair of these much-maligned MDR-V600s at a Goodwill for $5.00 and was NOT enjoying them..... until I performed the mod described here.  A very big difference indeed!

John

Ha! Nice find. My Goodwill had them for $6.99. Considering how senseles and random their prices usually are, it's amazing that they were so consistent across space and time. My headband and earpads are old and done for though, making the whole package look a lotshoddier than it really is, or will be once I'm done fixing 'em up. I can't wait to get home and try this mod everyone's so jazzed about!

 

[DJ The Rocket]

A couple of things:
--the screw is on the TOP of the earcup, not the bottom
--you do not have to pull off the ear cusions to do this mod! The OP made it sound to me like you did, and they are tricky
--to save the tiny nut, hold the driver parallel with the plane of the ground, facing up, and you can catch the nut with the back as the OP describes

The others before me weren't exaggerating the gains TOO much, and certainly not intentionally.

This mod takes a harsh sounding headphone with obvious potential, and fulfills that potential. Initially it sounds like a more extreme improvement than I think it really is, partly because it's SUCH a relief getting rid of the harshness. I'm interested in hearing how long everyone went before putting the back back on, which I think is inevitable. Open it's like listening to out of phase drivers: it can be fun and interesting and new at first, but before long everybody will get sick of it and want it sound right again.

It's so baffling to me that so many great mods are centehred on REMOVING something. This means that not only did Sony go out of their way to make their product worse, but they PAID OUT MONEY to do so! HUHHH??? What were they thinking! I guess no one there ever dreamed up the idea to try it without the disgusting yellow bit stuffed in there. Is that even believable?

Whoever said these 'phones need A LOT of power wasn't kidding! Switching from my phone to the Mojo improved the sound by about the same amount as removing the yellows! I actually like that as a unit of measurement.

How much improvement should you expect from this mod? About 1 Mojo.

 

[boreas]

I didn't note any of the phasing problems that you did.  Perhaps this is because I opened the backs on mine rather than removing them.  Mine don't get as much use as they once did.  I now have a set of Beyer DT 880s as my main cans and the Sonys (Sonies?) are doing duty with my computer.
 
John
 

 

[AudioDoctor]

I just found this thread...  Guess what I did.  I tried the mod and pushed bits of the foam into the hole, now I have no bass at all.

 

[AudioDoctor]

  I didn't note any of the phasing problems that you did.  Perhaps this is because I opened the backs on mine rather than removing them.  Mine don't get as much use as they once did.  I now have a set of Beyer DT 880s as my main cans and the Sonys (Sonies?) are doing duty with my computer.
 
John
 

 
That is cool, how did you do that?

 

[boreas]

   
That is cool, how did you do that?

With a hole saw...... slowly.  The screen was scavenged from one of those expanded metal desk accessories, like a desk organizer or a pencil bin.
 
John