Just listened to some Fostex T50RPs today... WOW!

[mrspeakers]

Made a real difference, though I was at first nervous.

 

[lorriman]

Made a real difference, though I was at first nervous.

Thanks for that, Mrspeakers. I got the impression, which may be mistaken, that your other mods and tuning happened more or less after that change. So I'm wondering whether it may have been possible to tune the phones just fine without needing to remove the membrane. Any objective 'before and after' is arguably scuppered by the order of the mods, if you see what I mean. (Even then only a proper a/b-ing could really be called objective, I reckon.) Am I right about the order of the mods?

 

[henrylee]

Struggling to chose between these and the superlux... which one should i get?

 

[mrspeakers]

 
Quote:

Just got my Fostex T50-RP, and looking to do some mods on them.
 
First question, and this is going to make me sound totally incompetent, how do you remove the pads without damaging them?
 
I am eventually looking to replace the pads, but I am not sure which pads fit.  From what I heard:
 
Sony MDR-5000 - but I just can't find them anywhere
Shure SR840 - barely fits
 
What other pads can I use?
 
My plan is to just stuff the cups with felt, blu-tack, and cotton.

840 pads work fine, and to me sound better than 5000 pads, though not as comfy.   Blu-tack is not dense enough, plasticine or dynamat do a noticeably better job.  
 
Just "stuffing" the cups probably is not what you want to do.  Cotton is not very effective for this application, stick to paxmate or an acoustic foam to kill reflections.  
 
 

 

[mrspeakers]

 
Quote:

Quote:

Made a real difference, though I was at first nervous.

Thanks for that, Mrspeakers. I got the impression, which may be mistaken, that your other mods and tuning happened more or less after that change. So I'm wondering whether it may have been possible to tune the phones just fine without needing to remove the membrane. Any objective 'before and after' is arguably scuppered by the order of the mods, if you see what I mean. (Even then only a proper a/b-ing could really be called objective, I reckon.) Am I right about the order of the mods?

I did a lot of mods first before I took that step and they always had some tonal balance issue.  Since I bought 4 sets to mod, I thought I'd sacrifice one to the gods of experimentation and cut out the white damping material.  Initially this was to play with the transpore/micropore, but that was an evolutionary dead end, and felt was the simple, better solution...  
 

 

[RanDiesel]

Quote:

Quote:

Made a real difference, though I was at first nervous.

Thanks for that, Mrspeakers. I got the impression, which may be mistaken, that your other mods and tuning happened more or less after that change. So I'm wondering whether it may have been possible to tune the phones just fine without needing to remove the membrane. Any objective 'before and after' is arguably scuppered by the order of the mods, if you see what I mean. (Even then only a proper a/b-ing could really be called objective, I reckon.) Am I right about the order of the mods?

My post may have been a bit misleading as far as the order I actually applied my mods, I was just trying to quickly summarize everything I did. Initially I applied just the modeling clay to the baffle and the paxmate to the cup with the stock pads and spent a day at work listening to them. I didn't feel like it had made that much of a difference, they still sounded a bit forward to me and lacking in the lowend. I waivered on applying the final mrspeakers mods, especially as i found that white tape to be really stuck on there. But after thinking about it, I rationalized that this planar magnetic driver is essentially a dipole transducer and that white tape was an attempt at redirecting the sound at the ear while trying to realign the phase at the same time. The work that i did on the cup would have a much greater impact if the sound was allowed thru, I believe that this was also the key to the port tuning. Although, I did not try the tape over the back of the port prior to removing the white tape.
 

 

[leeperry]

Just "stuffing" the cups probably is not what you want to do.  Cotton is not very effective for this application, stick to paxmate or an acoustic foam to kill reflections.
 

Well, the holy R10 cups are stuffed w/ polyester stuff AFAIK, and there's also a very technical patent PDF explaining its tricks of the trade: http://www.mediafire.com/?sqj4bkw6iobbyd9
 
I'm too darn lazy to read it in full but if anyone feels like checking it out, maybe there are ideas to "steal". SONY very much know what they're doing

 

[maverickronin]

Quote:

Well, the holy R10 cups are stuffed w/ polyester stuff AFAIK, and there's also a very technical patent PDF explaining its tricks of the trade: http://www.mediafire.com/?sqj4bkw6iobbyd9
 
I'm too darn lazy to read it in full but if anyone feels like checking it out, maybe there are ideas to "steal". SONY very much know what they're doing

Thanks.  I'll look into this.  I'm always after ideas to steal.

 

[lorriman]

How easy is it to tilt the stock pads? I'm very concerned about closing that soundstage gap, but I'd rather not buy the Shure pads if I can avoid it.

Are the Shure pads really all that much of an improvement?

 

[lorriman]

I suppose I should really say that I'm reluctant to buy pads that won't last very long. £20 is £20.

I might have to turn my hand to making those lambskin jobs.

 

[mrspeakers]

The key thing to understand is that every driver has very different electro-mechanical characteristics, and how the Sony's dynamic driver interacts with the enclosure and filling will be very different from the T50.  While Sony's tips and tricks on having a well damped and non-resonant wood enclosure will be relevant, how they tune the bass and enclosure volume will not because it's a dynamic driver vs the ortho, with totally different electrical parameters...
 
Generally stuffing is used to increase the effective volume of the enclosure to keep the volume down without under-damping the driver, some stuffings can also reduce internal reflections.  In terms of internal damping of reflections the paxmate is going to be way more effective.  
 
Increasing the effective volume enclosure size to get more bass is not an issue with the T50, in many of my tests the issue was reducing the bass, so again the stuffing is actually probably going the wrong way, especially if you remove the white damping over the back of the driver and replace it with felt, which reduces the driver back-pressure.  If you try this, you'll certainly need to experiment with tuning the vent.  
 
 
 

 

[lorriman]

I tried listing to various sources of sound with the paxmate plus wrapped around my head. I wasn't too impressed with its ability to reduce sound. I may be wrong but it seems that it doesn't block much treble. Thoughts, anyone?

 

[maverickronin]

Quote:

How easy is it to tilt the stock pads? I'm very concerned about closing that soundstage gap, but I'd rather not buy the Shure pads if I can avoid it.

Are the Shure pads really all that much of an improvement?

Quote:

I suppose I should really say that I'm reluctant to buy pads that won't last very long. £20 is £20.

I might have to turn my hand to making those lambskin jobs.

Its not to hard to tilt the stock pads by building up some layers of craft foam and sealing it all with electrical tape.  That does help the soundstage some, but its neither as comfortable or as good sounding as the pads I made myself.  I've tried any pads but the stock, modded stock, and the one I made myself so I can't tell you how much it improves the sound.  I have tried the Shure 840 a few times and the pads were way more comfortable than the stock T50RP pads.  No clue about their longevity though.

 

[RanDiesel]

Has anyone done a comparison of the modded T50RPs to the Thunderpants? I am so impressed with the sound I am getting from these headphones I am considering ordering some wood and turning some cups. I am also waiting for my Maverick D1 to ship so I can really see what these babies can do.

 

[RanDiesel]

Quote:

Increasing the effective volume enclosure size to get more bass is not an issue with the T50, in many of my tests the issue was reducing the bass, so again the stuffing is actually probably going the wrong way, especially if you remove the white damping over the back of the driver and replace it with felt, which reduces the driver back-pressure.  If you try this, you'll certainly need to experiment with tuning the vent.  
 
 
 

Interesting, this makes a lot of sense. So what was the original intention of the white damping in the stock T50s? Increased driver back-pressure is going to limit the drivers travel and low frequency response, right? The stock version was totally bass anemic, but I suppose it is a cheaper alternative to having a properly dampened and tuned enclosure.