[yifu]

Do changing the pads or the coverings really affect the sound signature THAT much? I dont really like the look of cutting up headphones.

 

[Anaxilus]

Quote:

Do changing the pads or the coverings really affect the sound signature THAT much? I dont really like the look of cutting up headphones.

OMG yes!  The pads are just glued on.  I can only think of one thing that would require a knife.  

 

[Philimon]

Okay, using 2 layers of shelf lining seems to have completely balanced out the upper mids and brightness issues for me. Better than a layer of felt, which had a more obvious veil, more increased bass bloat, and didn't seem to do too much for that upper mids edginess anyway.
 
I just realized I've been testing the bass with the Abbey Roads remaster, which I find a little bassy on my other setups too, so must take that into consideration. I am listening to Sea Change - Beck MFSL and its sounding clear, while I have found it can make other headphones sound like they have too much midbass (from memory - MS1 for example). 
Now listening to Smack My Bich Up - Prodigy, and it sounds pretty good, inoffensive bass. Happy dance! Now time for the Miami vs Phoenix game. 

 

[lejaz]

Hell yeah, a whole lot of bass on the Abby Roads remaster for sure. I was really surprised that they did it like that. I listened with k240DFs and the 702 and they aren't exactly bass monsters, yet I'm hearing tons of bass with them. I apparently have to wait til Feb 1 at least, if I want to try the T50RP. Think I might try that shelf liner on the k702...
Quote:

Okay, using 2 layers of shelf lining seems to have completely balanced out the upper mids and brightness issues for me. Better than a layer of felt, which had a more obvious veil, more increased bass bloat, and didn't seem to do too much for that upper mids edginess anyway.
 
I just realized I've been testing the bass with the Abbey Roads remaster, which I find a little bassy on my other setups too, so must take that into consideration. I am listening to Sea Change - Beck MFSL and its sounding clear, while I have found it can make other headphones sound like they have too much midbass (from memory - MS1 for example). 
Now listening to Smack My Bich Up - Prodigy, and it sounds pretty good, inoffensive bass. Happy dance! Now time for the Miami vs Phoenix game. 

 

[Philimon]

Quote:

Hell yeah, a whole lot of bass on the Abby Roads remaster for sure. I was really surprised that they did it like that. I listened with k240DFs and the 702 and they aren't exactly bass monsters, yet I'm hearing tons of bass with them. I apparently have to wait til Feb 1 at least, if I want to try the T50RP. Think I might try that shelf liner on the k702...
Quote:

Okay, using 2 layers of shelf lining seems to have completely balanced out the upper mids and brightness issues for me. Better than a layer of felt, which had a more obvious veil, more increased bass bloat, and didn't seem to do too much for that upper mids edginess anyway.
 
I just realized I've been testing the bass with the Abbey Roads remaster, which I find a little bassy on my other setups too, so must take that into consideration. I am listening to Sea Change - Beck MFSL and its sounding clear, while I have found it can make other headphones sound like they have too much midbass (from memory - MS1 for example). 
Now listening to Smack My Bich Up - Prodigy, and it sounds pretty good, inoffensive bass. Happy dance! Now time for the Miami vs Phoenix game. 

 

According to those with the original vinyl Abbey Road say the remaster is accurate.:
http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=236151&highlight=abbey+road
 
At the grocery store they had two different patterns of the shelf liner - I bought one slightly different than was shown in the pic. I bought the different one because it was about half as thick and a little more open pattern, which I thought might be beneficial. Now I don't think it would have really mattered which I purchased since I had to end up using two layers of the thinner sheet.

 

[lejaz]

I'm really surprised the remaster is so bass heavy. Other Beatles CD's I've heard are not at all bass heavy. I have some shelf liner already...all I need now is to get me some T50's!

 

[tmblack]

Has anyone found frequency response graphs for these or other Fostex RP headphones?
I've got the T20RP v.2 which seems to be considered the most desirable after the original T50.

 

[tmblack]

How do they compare to HD600 or HD650's?
Or Audio Technica ATH-M50's for similar price range?

 

[leeperry]

 

How do they compare to HD600 or HD650's?
Or Audio Technica ATH-M50's for similar price range?

 
As it's been said about the LCD-2(which I haven't heard), these phones are dark -once fully pimped- in the sense that their trebles don't resonate like hell in your ear canals IME. After you get used to it and understand that everything you heard before was just plain WRONG...and that trebles are not meant to whine, they're astounding

 
They have a "monitoring" sound in a good sense, not boring to the slightest(like the nasty sounding Yamaha NS10M monitors, that have the dullest mids ever). They also need serious amping to get a thick and solid bass.
 
They will also most likely force you get a clear source, because they're very transparent IMO...but they don't magnify defects, like the DT770/Premium 600Ω..this one is a hardcore monitoring tool, any tiny bit of static/crackle/etc was exploding to my ears. It wasn't playing music at all to my ears, just noise...the same way it's impossible to enjoy music off NS10's.
 
Anyway, off a clean rig they sound so true to life that's it's quite unbelievable...gotta love it when the wow effect never wears out

 
And movies/games sound even more amazing than stereo music. The M50's seem to be bass farts, much like the DT770/Pro...the T50RP is most likely head and shoulders ahead. Can't comment on the HD650.
 

Do changing the pads or the coverings really affect the sound signature THAT much? I dont really like the look of cutting up headphones.

 
Remove the earpads from any phone you own, and you'll see what we mean. Earpads change the sound almost as much as drivers IMO. 
 

Has anyone found frequency response graphs for these or other Fostex RP headphones?

Hardcore flat baby(I would account the bass roll off to the v1 earpads, and the dip at 1.5kHz to the stock felt before the drivers...this felt really made movies dialogs hard to understand to my ears): http://www.geocities.jp/ryumatsuba/t50rp.html
 
much like the LCD-2: http://i1025.photobucket.com/albums/y320/tlgstudio/DSC01834.jpg

 

[igor0203]

It seems that T50RP is almost impossible to get anywhere at this time. All will get them on stock after January 2011. Is T40RP much worse than T50RP?

 

[i_djoel2000]

Quote:

What does yours look like?  His does look like my stock pad.  I think they suck myself.

the surface of my earpad looks more flat..
 
btw, i just add blue tack to the baffle. it definitely tightens up the lower bass..now the problem is the mid, and lower mid are still veiled, and the treble is still too laid back for my taste

 

[joelpearce]

Okay, I broke into mine and did a bit more tweaking yesterday afternoon.
 
I think mine are now perfect.  Before, they sounded great, but they were a bit underdamped, both at the front and the back.  There was a bit of boominess and echo, and they were a little bright without anything over the front of the driver.  But I don't like how they sound with felt over the whole front of the driver either.
 
At any rate, I got some acoustic foam and put an extremely thin layer over the felt and bitumen inside the cups.  Then, inspired by that LCD damping post, I took a piece of my super-thick, mostly wool felt that I would never use in its entirety over the driver.  I cut a piece up to look something like this:
 

 
All echo is gone now, without doing anything to diminish the truly awesome bass.  As well, the felt has done a couple things:

• mitigated the highs
• enhances the clarity
• pushes the soundstage forward slightly.

 
So this one comes highly recommended.  I think I now may have tapped out the potential of these drivers, at least in this housing.  I'm not trying to sound snotty saying that, but after hearing variations of this can over the last 6 months, I can't really imagine anything better than this.

 

[i_djoel2000]

woww..that's very inspiring joelpearce!
 
did you put any material behind those LCD-2 looking felt?

 

[joelpearce]

Nope, the original dust shield is the only other thing there.

 

[AnotherN00b]

Like lejaz I've been carefully following this and the ortho thread to keep up with everyone's latest progress while waiting to get my own pair of T50RPs. It would be great if people documented all their mods once they get them to the point where they feel they are as good as they're going to get. Looks like there's still a lot of variation on damping schemes, pads, etc. that people are trying out.
 
So joelpearce and anyone else who feels like they are done experimenting: would you mind documenting your final product for us??
 
Thanks for sharing everyone! CAN'T WAIT to get mine!!