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

[hans030390]

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You couldn't get to the diaphragm with a screw driver unless it was a really really small one.  There's a steel plate over it with only very small holes.  Something could have fallen in there, that's the most likely thing if you took the white stock damping paper off leaving the driver naked and left them open to the air, or have something in the cups that could get inside like wool hairs or something.  Or if you removed the dust cover from the front.  I'm not sure that thin material that is left is fine enough to keep out particles. 
 
If you have the driver exposed for any length of time, you should always put something over it to keep stuff from getting in.  Some ortho drivers can be opened up and cleaned, but I don't think the T50rp driver can be, at least not easily. 
 
This is something that people in the ortho thread have learned the hard way and warned about. 

I did say it was a small screw driver. 

 I did accidentally poke the diaphragm through the magnet holes once. No idea if that is what caused the buzzing. It's just a likely that something got into the drivers that shouldn't have been there.
 

 

[bluemonkeyflyer]

The pads seal good with headband compression, for me. 
 
I don't use tape to hold the the baffles to the cups. I use 1 grocery/produce rubberband per side. Works great.
 
Put little pieces of electrical tape over the 4 baffle-to-cup screw holes on the ear side of the baffles.
 
I use velcro to hold the headband and cup hangars together during modding.
 
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I used to do the pad friction mounted technique sometimes for pad rolling, and I think it gives you a general idea for that purpose, but I question whether you get a good enough seal to judge them properly.  Sometimes pads sound different when they're properly mounted.  You could add some temporary sticky stuff like some rope caulk (takk) or tape or something. 
 
Would also be cool to find a way to keep the cups together without using the screws.  I saw your tape trick earlier, but that leaves the screw holes empty, which can create vents into the pad enclosure and change the sound compared to having them filled with screws.  At least in other phones it does. Maybe not so much in the T50rp if it doesn't vent, or if venting doesn't make a very big difference.  You can always just plug them temporarily with some putty.  

 

 

[rhythmdevils]

Nice! 

 

[SanjiWatsuki]

T20RP MKII ordered with an O2 headphone amp and Silverstone acoustic foam. I'll pick up some plasticine from an arts and crafts store in town. I'm going to take a stab at these guys, because it seems like they have the same driver and housing and I'm too impatient to wait for the T50RP to get back into stock. I doubt the magnets or anything are any less powerful because the weight of the headphone is exactly the same. I'll be sure to let you guys know how it goes, though. 
 
It should be a happy new year, indeed. 

 

[rawrster]

So it looks like I won't be using the suspension headband at all. I decided to use the padding from my messenger bag that I removed from the strap a while ago. It fits just about perfectly and stays in place once I put the headphone on so don't really have to use anything to keep it in place for now. It does improve comfort by a good amount so pressure isn't directly at the middle of the headband now.

 

[rhythmdevils]

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T20RP MKII ordered with an O2 headphone amp and Silverstone acoustic foam. I'll pick up some plasticine from an arts and crafts store in town. I'm going to take a stab at these guys, because it seems like they have the same driver and housing and I'm too impatient to wait for the T50RP to get back into stock. I doubt the magnets or anything are any less powerful because the weight of the headphone is exactly the same. I'll be sure to let you guys know how it goes, though. 
 
It should be a happy new year, indeed. 

The driver is not the same. 

 

[SanjiWatsuki]

I know the pre-2007 T20RP had a different driver, but I was pretty sure that the entire MKII series had the same 35mm driver, Faust3D's wiki seemed to back that up. I know a while back they didn't have the same driver, but that was a few years ago before they refreshed the MKII series. Oh well. We'll see when it arrives and I crack it open. My gut-feeling is that the driver is the same, but the felt damping that is on the T50RP and not the T40RP MKII won't be there. 
 
In other news, merry Christmas! I talk about headphones too much with my family. They saved me a trip to the arts and crafts store, though.
 


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The driver is not the same. 

 

 

[rhythmdevils]

Smeggy has reported that after dissecting them and making sweet love to them planar style, even the new T40rp does not use the same driver.  But they're still orthos.  Have fun, and merry merry. 

 

[SanjiWatsuki]

I think Smeggy had an older MKII like a T20v3 or a T40v2 because he said the housing for the driver was white, whereas we have photo evidence that the T40RP MKII refresh looks just same as the T50RP's.  No photo evidence for the T20RP MKII, though. Someone in that topic brought up the possibility of the magnets being different, but I doubt it because Fostex reports the weight of the headphones as being exactly the same. 
 
I'll post all sorts of pictures when they come in, though. I certainly don't want to pit my word against the great Smeggy's.
 
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Smeggy has reported that after dissecting them and making sweet love to them planar style, even the new T40rp does not use the same driver.  But they're still orthos.  Have fun, and merry merry. 

 

 

[RexAeterna]

I know the pre-2007 T20RP had a different driver, but I was pretty sure that the entire MKII series had the same 35mm driver, Faust3D's wiki seemed to back that up. I know a while back they didn't have the same driver, but that was a few years ago before they refreshed the MKII series. Oh well. We'll see when it arrives and I crack it open. My gut-feeling is that the driver is the same, but the felt damping that is on the T50RP and not the T40RP MKII won't be there. 

In other news, merry Christmas! I talk about headphones too much with my family. They saved me a trip to the arts and crafts store, though.

i guess play-doh is the new thing nowadays with kids. i remember it use to be legos. thing is i can admit legos don't have same unique taste as play-doh does from what i remember.

 

[rhythmdevils]

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I think Smeggy had an older MKII like a T20v3 or a T40v2 because he said the housing for the driver was white, whereas we have photo evidence that the T40RP MKII refresh looks just same as the T50RP's.  No photo evidence for the T20RP MKII, though. Someone in that topic brought up the possibility of the magnets being different, but I doubt it because Fostex reports the weight of the headphones as being exactly the same. 
 
I'll post all sorts of pictures when they come in, though. I certainly don't want to pit my word against the great Smeggy's.
 

Here's his post.
 
I'm not trying to dash your hopes, just trying to insert bits of info from the big ortho thread into this one. 

 

[hans030390]

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Here's his post.
 
I'm not trying to dash your hopes, just trying to insert bits of info from the big ortho thread into this one. 

Seems like the article on Headfonia did not find the differences that Smeggy did. I'm assuming they're the same color and everything.
 

 

[rhythmdevils]

Yes, but Headfonia knows nothing about orthos in the slightest and made that conclusion just from looking at them.  Smeggy knows the technology, and probably knows the T50rp driver better than everyone except a few people at Fostex. 

 

[SanjiWatsuki]

Well, they are also labeled with the same model name on the pictures he showed. "FOSTER dp29 sz1d". Other people in the Ortho thread have opened their Fostex headphone and found the same driver designation. I know what Smeggy said, but I just find it hard to believe that they're different when they're the same size, weight (330g), now have the same housing (color and all, unlike what Smeggy reported), the same writing designating the model on it, etc, etc. 
 
In pictures like this one or this one, you can see that the T50RP has the exact same model printed on the driver housing. 
 
Before the MKII refresh, I'm 100% certain that they had different drivers. After the MKII refresh, I find it difficult to believe. 
 
Edit: I found evidence of what Smeggy was talking about!  It appears that the T40RP from late '10 had a different white driver housing. The T40RP from early '11 in the Headfonia article had a black driver housing just like the T50RP. We'll see what type of housing the T20RP has for me when it arrives for me. 
 
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Yes, but Headfonia knows nothing about orthos in the slightest and made that conclusion just from looking at them.  Smeggy knows the technology, and probably knows the T50rp driver better than everyone except a few people at Fostex. 

 

 

[hans030390]

I would bet they're definitely using the same drivers now. The T40s, that is. No idea about the T20s.