[Sardonyx]

I started looking over my T40 to decide the best way to Dremel out the vent, and hmmm.. why is this flexible?  Because it's closed by... guess what... A SMALL PIECE OF THIN PLASTIC GLUED OVER THE VENT AREA! 

 
My photography needs work, but relevant pictures have already been posted. It threw me off at first, the pictures are of left & right cups, and the T50 (pic #2) is shown vent on left of pic, T40 (pic#3) it's on the right.
 
Quote:

 
 

<snip>
 
 
 
 
 
 

headfonia <dot> com/the-fostex-orthodynamics-t50rp-and-t40rp-mk2/

The slots are semi open on the T50RP. They are fully closed on the T40RP Mk2.


 

 

Differences in damping: pay attention to the small piece of felt cloth around the middle of the housing. This is the T50RP's housing.


 

 

And this is the T40RP Mk2's housing.


 

Black plastic glued to black plastic looks like a solid molding, but a small paper clip fits through the slots, and a firm push to break loose the glue opens the vent:
Quote:

<snip>
For use in here:
 

 
But I'm not totally sure what to do with this area. Should I just do the Blue Stick first and listen for the changes that mod makes first. Also where do I get those 02 pads and what other pads are available?

 

 

[geetarman49]

good find!
 
since you already have a piece of black plastic sized to fit the vents, just nibble away a small opening, say 10%, and tape it back in place and test. keep nibbling away and testing until u find satisfactory signature.   (ofc, do the internal dynamat/newplast/paxmate etc. dampening)
 
wrt pads, people have tried sa5k, 840, rx900 to varying degrees of satisfaction.

 

[BotByte]

Quote:

good find!
 
since you already have a piece of black plastic sized to fit the vents, just nibble away a small opening, say 10%, and tape it back in place and test. keep nibbling away and testing until u find satisfactory signature.   (ofc, do the internal dynamat/newplast/paxmate etc. dampening)
 
wrt pads, people have tried sa5k, 840, rx900 to varying degrees of satisfaction.

When you dampen the inside, dampen  fully
 
I found this crowds the sound
 
Then I cut a hole through all my dampening to the vents
 
then the bass seemed more defined and airy while the highs lowered and the mids moved back a bit
 

 

[glt]

Anyone tried increasing the pad thickness?
 
Cut two doughnut shaped pieces out of an old mouse pad and put them between the pads of the headphone and my ears. There is marked improvement: more 3D....

 

[BotByte]

Quote:

Anyone tried increasing the pad thickness?
 
Cut two doughnut shaped pieces out of an old mouse pad and put them between the pads of the headphone and my ears. There is marked improvement: more 3D....

Pad thickness was the first thing I did when they were still stock
 
But now I made my own pads and I have two inches of my ear from the driver. Amazing soundstage while being with full detail and bass reproduction.
 
From the stock, I added foam all around and sound everything turned out better. Including comfort. For god's sake, I tested the original pads and they were horrid in sound and comfort.
 

 

[Sardonyx]

I'm tuning the bass with tape on the outside, when I get it where I want it, I will trim the plastic and glue it back in place.  The stock sound had weak bass, and horrible exaggerated mids.  I would describe it as a poorly implemented "mid boost" EQ preset.  Loud, but "honky" and unnatural.  After mass damping the baffles and cups, and opening the vent, it is much better.  The mids are still a lot louder than what I'm used to (Dennon d2000), but now it's volume with quality.  I still want to flatten the FR curve, and give the bass more lf extension, but the first thing is dealing with the headband and earpad comfort.
 
I ordered Shure 840 pads with the headphones, they are smaller diameter than the cups, do I just need to be more aggressive stretching them on?  I'm afraid they will still be too thin for me, the drivers are pressing against my ears with the stock pads, & the 840s are only slightly thicker. I'll try stuffing the stock pads first.
 
I spent a few minutes looking around the store for anything that might be semi-breathable, and came up with a few items:
Sheer ribbon - found in the same aisle as all the other ribbons & bows.  The barely there nylon looks looks  a good dust screen for open vents.
Fake roses.  The nylon petals are thin, but woven tightly enough to be more restrictive than felt.  Probably not useful. 
First aid gauze pads.  Might be good for cup stuffing material.

 

[geetarman49]

Good, good...all good
more ideas and suggestions to drive the modding onwards ... has anyone come up with an angled baffle that works and properly mates cups, drivers and pads?
 
Quote:

When you dampen the inside, dampen  fully
 
I found this crowds the sound
 
Then I cut a hole through all my dampening to the vents
 
then the bass seemed more defined and airy while the highs lowered and the mids moved back a bit
 

Quote:

Anyone tried increasing the pad thickness?
 
Cut two doughnut shaped pieces out of an old mouse pad and put them between the pads of the headphone and my ears. There is marked improvement: more 3D....

Quote:

Pad thickness was the first thing I did when they were still stock
 
But now I made my own pads and I have two inches of my ear from the driver. Amazing soundstage while being with full detail and bass reproduction.
 
From the stock, I added foam all around and sound everything turned out better. Including comfort. For god's sake, I tested the original pads and they were horrid in sound and comfort.
 

Quote:

I'm tuning the bass with tape on the outside, when I get it where I want it, I will trim the plastic and glue it back in place.  The stock sound had weak bass, and horrible exaggerated mids.  I would describe it as a poorly implemented "mid boost" EQ preset.  Loud, but "honky" and unnatural.  After mass damping the baffles and cups, and opening the vent, it is much better.  The mids are still a lot louder than what I'm used to (Dennon d2000), but now it's volume with quality.  I still want to flatten the FR curve, and give the bass more lf extension, but the first thing is dealing with the headband and earpad comfort.
 
I ordered Shure 840 pads with the headphones, they are smaller diameter than the cups, do I just need to be more aggressive stretching them on?  I'm afraid they will still be too thin for me, the drivers are pressing against my ears with the stock pads, & the 840s are only slightly thicker. I'll try stuffing the stock pads first.
 
I spent a few minutes looking around the store for anything that might be semi-breathable, and came up with a few items:
Sheer ribbon - found in the same aisle as all the other ribbons & bows.  The barely there nylon looks looks  a good dust screen for open vents.
Fake roses.  The nylon petals are thin, but woven tightly enough to be more restrictive than felt.  Probably not useful. 
First aid gauze pads.  Might be good for cup stuffing material.

 

 

[BotByte]

Quote:

Good, good...all good
more ideas and suggestions to drive the modding onwards ... has anyone come up with an angled baffle that works and properly mates cups, drivers and pads?
 





 

I'm going to upload some picks when the sun's out and show off my current mods.
 
I've found a great median where I like my sound and comfort at. So I'll share that later.

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

Quote:

We all have different ears shapes, whatever external, middle or inner...also, some ppl don't have their two ear canals shaped in the same way...I rest my case that those measurements are meaningless to the utmost as this all means that their ear resonances will be different, meaning that each individual will hear them very differently.
 

Let's say I put some headphnes on a monkey. They'd sound more different than on humans.  Or on a dog, even more different. A mouse? Yes, even more different. So, from me to you to anyone else, yes we hear different due to the physical differences, but not so different as to be "meaninless to the utmost."  
 
Nuanced understanding and carefully tempered words will improve the quality of information at Head-Fi. Your exageration makes your post "meaninless to the utmost." 
 

 

[leeperry]

Let's say I put some headphnes on a monkey. They'd sound more different than on humans.  Or on a dog, even more different. A mouse? Yes, even more different. So, from me to you to anyone else, yes we hear different due to the physical differences, but not so different as to be "meaninless to the utmost."  
 
Nuanced understanding and carefully tempered words will improve the quality of information at Head-Fi. Your exageration makes your post "meaninless to the utmost." 
 

I did write "meaningless" which is proper english BTW, maybe it's time to recalibrate on your end.
 
We both agree that everyone hears differently, so how are your measurements meant to help in any way again? Did you model your measurements dummy head against your own morphology? But this is OT, and neither of us is willing to make compromises so we might as well leave it at that....you make a living out of it, a bunch of self-proclaimed experts like to draw all kinds of phony conclusions out of them as if they were the word of God....I see that you guys found yourself a great hobby

 
Personally I've got 2 nasty resonances around 6.4kHz and 9.7kHz so whatever headphones I use, I have to tune down those 2 spikes that are due to physiological resonances within my ear canals. I don't expect any headphones maker to tune them down perfectly, that's impossible. Maybe someday we'll get headphones perfectly tuned to our ear resonances, but that doesn't exist yet AFAIK.

 

[Draygonn]

Since the 50's have been OOS I ordered a T40RP. The headband looks very uncomfortable. What's the word on transplanting the drivers to another headset?

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

 
Quote:

 
We both agree that everyone hears differently, so how are your measurements meant to help in any way again?
 
 

 
Relative accuracy, not absolute accuracy.  Because the gear is the same for every measurement, the relative differences between headphones as measured is fairly accurate.  Bringing it back on topic, lots of people from this thread alone have told me the measurements are helpful.
 
 
Quote:

 
Personally I've got 2 nasty resonances around 6.4kHz and 9.7kHz

 

 
Funny how that one shows up on all my graphs.  Maybe it's because the measurements system is VERY highly engineered to be representative of the nominal human hearing system, of which you have a version. 
 
 
Quote:

. Maybe someday we'll get headphones perfectly tuned to our ear resonances, but that doesn't exist yet AFAIK.
 

 
 
And how, exactly, are you going to know?  Answer: measurements will back up the subjective impressions of others. For example, the LCD-2 measures very well and is pretty strongly thought of as the best headphones out there.  See? Those two things go hand in hand. The Beats Solos measure like doo-doo and sound like it too. See? those two things are related.
 
Is it a perfect one-to-one corrsponance? Can you tell what a headphone will sound like by the measurements? No. Of course not. But they are strongly related.
 
Don't assume just because you don't understand something it's nonsense. You don't understand it; others may. 
 
 
Quote:

But this is OT, and neither of us is willing to make compromises so we might as well leave it at that....you make a living out of it, a bunch of self-proclaimed experts like to draw all kinds of phony conclusions out of them as if they were the word of God

I'm willing to make compromises when confronted with rational logic. My conclusions come from listening and measuring, not God. (He/she/it/whatever has better things to do, I'm sure.) 
 
 
Quote:

....I see that you guys found yourself a great hobby 

 
Yes, I, and others, have found a great hobby. I see by the tense of the phrase "you guys," that you don't count yourself among our numbers. (Phew!) Wondering why you've got so many posts though, since you don't care for the hobby.
 
 
PS I'm sure I've spelled something wrong in my post again. Don't bother pointing it out.

 

[chrislangley4253]

Quote:

 
Funny how that one shows up on all my graphs.  Maybe it's because the measurements system is VERY highly engineered to be representative of the nominal human hearing system, of which you have a version. 
 

Wow, I had no idea that those peaks even existed or that your measurement system was that highly engineered. color me impressed. I've learned something today. 

 

[leeperry]

TBH, I got those two spikes on each and every headphones I tried...because they are due to the input impedance of my eardrums/ear canals. And my T50RP cups are stuffed w/ acoustic damping foam, that has allowed me to drastically lower the amount of EQ needed of course as the sound doesn't come up as stray as before within my ear canals, so I now only need to really EQ down my own physiological shortcomings. The same way some videoprojectors manufacturers claim that you don't necessarily get the highest contrast ratio at the very center of their optics, I'm quite sure that all those measurements about THD/SNR/FR will change drastically from one person to the other due to the abovementioned reasons. Believers will say that that ppl hearing the same headphones differently(say T1) will be to due to manufacturing discrepancy, but they're missing the point IMO. And I rest my case that lefties and righties do hear differently as well, as their brains are wired completely differently. I'm leftie and colorblind BTW.
 
Links proving my point:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8270739
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=impedance+of+my+ear+canals
http://www.head-fi.org/t/413900/how-to-equalize-your-headphones-a-tutorial
But let's not get too OT please, as we're here to talk about the holy T50RP and how much this little thing rocks hard once pimped

 

[200poundsofamp]

Quote:

I'm tuning the bass with tape on the outside, when I get it where I want it, I will trim the plastic and glue it back in place.  The stock sound had weak bass, and horrible exaggerated mids.  I would describe it as a poorly implemented "mid boost" EQ preset.  Loud, but "honky" and unnatural.  After mass damping the baffles and cups, and opening the vent, it is much better.  The mids are still a lot louder than what I'm used to (Dennon d2000), but now it's volume with quality.  I still want to flatten the FR curve, and give the bass more lf extension, but the first thing is dealing with the headband and earpad comfort.
 
I ordered Shure 840 pads with the headphones, they are smaller diameter than the cups, do I just need to be more aggressive stretching them on?  I'm afraid they will still be too thin for me, the drivers are pressing against my ears with the stock pads, & the 840s are only slightly thicker. I'll try stuffing the stock pads first.

 
The 840 pads are actually a lot thicker, no worries. Tight fit, but not much harder to get on than the stock ones. You'll probably need to remove the white material over the driver to use them though (which I haven't tried), I don't think they sound good otherwise.
 
With the white felt on at least I think they're always going to have somewhat exaggerated lower mids, so don't get your hopes up on them being being completely flat, but you can get them sounding very good despite it. Main thing to do is adjust the vent so the bass is in line with the mids at least.
 
edit: being a dick