[IronSnake]

BTW their gray-black color is back in stock. I probably ordered by now over $100 in V-Moda cables for all my headphones, but ended up with only white, red, and purple as my choices

 

[Panda`]

is there a way to permanently fix the channel imbalance due to the cord? (no soldering please)

 

[LFF]

Quote:

is there a way to permanently fix the channel imbalance due to the cord? (no soldering please)

RTFT!
 
V-Moda Audio Only Cable. Order one. Problem solved.

 

[kalbee]

Huff...
I make this my last post for the while, for those that may or may not need it.
 

Spoiler: Another%20Graph%3A%20Effects%20of%20Vent%20Sealing%20on%20FR

 
As the legend shows, this is the effects of vent sealing or the lack thereof. I went by full vent slots and no partial slots, but the results are almost linear. The effects of covering vents as far as FR graph does little to be properly documented from 1kHz onward, but just remember that FR graph is not everything.

A note on terminology:
The "vent" on each cup consists of 4 "slots" on each cup.

Once again, the only worth to this graph is the relative changes.
 
I think my headache is just making me more sensitive to bass. Sleep I go.

 

[Goras]

T50RP + angled Neutrik NTP3RC
 

 
Jack hole had to be enlarged little bit with sharp knife. 30 seconds of work if you do not pay much attention to appearance, probably minute or two if you do.
 

 

[DeathDomokun]

The only reason I can justify doing this is if you're going to do something like wje. If you're just doing 3.5/3.5 I wouldn't bother with that.

 

[Goras]

If you mean connecting to speaker tabs, then it is exactly what I have done with mine pair long ago. And I do not like dual entry cables, for me they are not as comfortable in use as single entry.

 

[DeathDomokun]

Yes, I meant using pins or the red/white or something that isn't 3.5 jacks on both ends.

 

[bluemonkeyflyer]

kalbee,
 
Interesting measurements, here, and your pad rolling measurements. Thanks for sharing.
 
Are you using "vent" and "slot" to refer to the same area?  If not, what is the difference? If so, why are measurements 1 and 5, and 2 and 4 different from one another?
 
I've consistently found that closing cup vents produces less bass quantity but better bass quality, and the effect is linear. In fact, closing off 3 slots and part of the 4th is linear and significant by 1 mm increments. With my mods, I get the best SQ with no more than a 3 mm bass port in just one cup vent/slot while other modded sets sound better (to me) and measure better by completely sealing all 4 cup vent slots.
 
BTW, try measuring with the baffle port open vs closed. I think you will find that closing the baffle port increases bass quantity.
 
If you're ambitious, you could measure the interaction effects of:  baffle port open vs closed X pad type X number of cup vents closed X with/without acoustic foam, X  amount/type of dampening X xyz!  

 I haven't calculated the number of permutations but it's huge. It would be informative to know exactly how much, if any, SQ variance is accounted for by each component so we could discard components that don't add any benefit. Then again, I suppose it's possible that a component that does not work in isolation may work synergistically with other components.
 
 
Quote:

Huff...
I make this my last post for the while, for those that may or may not need it.
 

Spoiler: Another%20Graph%3A%20Effects%20of%20Vent%20Sealing%20on%20FR

 
As the legend shows, this is the effects of vent sealing or the lack thereof. I went by full vent slots and no partial slots, but the results are almost linear. The effects of covering vents as far as FR graph does little to be properly documented from 1kHz onward, but just remember that FR graph is not everything.

 

Once again, the only worth to this graph is the relative changes.
 
I think my headache is just making me more sensitive to bass. Sleep I go.

 

[wje]

More Crazy Moments In Hi-Fi ...
 
When I last had my Fostex headphones apart to install the balanced cable, I intentionally left one bass vent open on each side so that I could work with it a bit from the outside to fine tune things a bit.  For the last day and a half, I had been running the headphones with the vents open.  However, some odd issue struck me at 4:00 a.m. when I awoke for a bathroom break.  Since my Fostex and the speaker tap-laden system is next to the bed, I went to my shelf in the closet to rummage through some sort of tape.  I happened upon a "I Voted" sticker form a few weeks back that had sat on the shelf.  I tore the sticker in half and covered the bass vent openings up.  I really was able to appreciate the slight change in sound.  It didn't introduce huge volumes of bass that were obnoxious, but just enough to make things more pleasant.   However, when I woke up this morning and saw those sticker components in red, white and blue covering my speaker vents, I had to chuckle to myself a bit.
 
Yeah ... I'm addicted. 

 

[TK277]

I just received my T50RPs in the mail this morning and had them playing for about an hour now. The mids are definitely great. Everything else, not so much.
I'm going to give them 50-60 hours of burn-in before I mod 'em, mostly because I've never modified anything before and I'm terrified of breaking a component. It'd also prevent the annoyance of modding it to my preference and then having the sound change on me from natural burn-in, so I figure to get it out of the way first.

 

[kalbee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bluemonkeyflyer /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
Are you using "vent" and "slot" to refer to the same area?  If not, what is the difference? If so, why are measurements 1 and 5, and 2 and 4 different from one another?

Ah, I certainly didn't specify my choice of words did I! I edited my post to include a crudely added terminology description.
Essentially by "vent" I meant the vent as a whole as we know it. By "slot" I meant the four parallel cavities that make up the "vent".
One slot sealed would represent 1/4 of the vent sealed, as a sealed vent would represent all four slots sealed. This would be the reason why 1&5 and 2&4 measure different, as each represent a different scenario.
 
 
Quote:

I've consistently found that closing cup vents produces less bass quantity but better bass quality, and the effect is linear. In fact, closing off 3 slots and part of the 4th is linear and significant by 1 mm increments. With my mods, I get the best SQ with no more than a 3 mm bass port in just one cup vent/slot while other modded sets sound better (to me) and measure better by completely sealing all 4 cup vent slots.

Yes, this is exactly what the graph should be showing, although only in terms of quantity, hence the mention of FR graph is not everything. My current mod is two thin pieces of wood cut into the shape of the wells (the two sides in the cup that are deeper than the rest), held diagonally with a dab of plasticine and with cotton underneath. Nothing else aside from plasticine in the baffle. Basically the X-section of my cups would resemble something like this:  \--[]--/ instead of \__--[]--__/
Originally it sounded absolutely terrible. I sealed the vents and found the sound to have regained clarity. Only after making that graph did I find that 2 slots (1/2 vents) may be a better solution. Prior to closing of the vents the bass was uncontrolled and gets into the whole midrange--lots of quantity and zero quality. Sealing some of the slots reversed this little by little.
 
 
Quote:

 
BTW, try measuring with the baffle port open vs closed. I think you will find that closing the baffle port increases bass quantity.
 
If you're ambitious, you could measure the interaction effects of:  baffle port open vs closed X pad type X number of cup vents closed X with/without acoustic foam, X  amount/type of dampening X xyz!  

 I haven't calculated the number of permutations but it's huge. It would be informative to know exactly how much, if any, SQ variance is accounted for by each component so we could discard components that don't add any benefit. Then again, I suppose it's possible that a component that does not work in isolation may work synergistically with other components.

I totally forgot about the baffle port once again! I will try playing with that a bit.
As for the documentation of each changed component, I've actually done some of that without publishing it! My previous setup (removed from the cup and put in a plastic bag for easy re-use) testing damping materials was done by this exactly. If taking into considerations the changes from stock to material A, and the changes from stock to material B, the mix of A+B seems like a fairly direct addition in amplitude. In a more coherent explanation, if
material A adds +5dB@100Hz, +0dB@5kHz, -4dB@10kHz; and
material B adds -2dB@100Hz, +2dB@5kHz, +3dB@10kHz; then the addition of
material A + B will affect the sound in a similar fashion to +3dB@100Hz, +2db@5kHz, -1dB@10kHz.
I'm sure the same applies with the more complex structure!

 

[wje]

Quote:

I just received my T50RPs in the mail this morning and had them playing for about an hour now. The mids are definitely great. Everything else, not so much.
I'm going to give them 50-60 hours of burn-in before I mod 'em, mostly because I've never modified anything before and I'm terrified of breaking a component. It'd also prevent the annoyance of modding it to my preference and then having the sound change on me from natural burn-in, so I figure to get it out of the way first.

 
Personally, in my opinion, the biggest "ouch" area to really be careful of is that thin speaker leads that connect to each of the drivers.  When you have the baffle removed from the cup and flipped over on your desktop -- just keep paying close attention to those wires.  You don't want to pull the baffle too far away from the cup and stretch the wires to break them or tear them off of the solder tabs. 
 
I think if one really wanted to be protective of the wires when doing this task, they could apply a bit of duct tape over the solder spots where the leads connect to the driver and then another piece of tape over where the leads connect to the jack box on the incoming port.  This would act as insurance in the event you did "tug" on the wires, they would not break free.
 
Best of luck and enjoy!

 

[TK277]

Quote:

 
Personally, in my opinion, the biggest "ouch" area to really be careful of is that thin speaker leads that connect to each of the drivers.  When you have the baffle removed from the cup and flipped over on your desktop -- just keep paying close attention to those wires.  You don't want to pull the baffle too far away from the cup and stretch the wires to break them or tear them off of the solder tabs. 
 
I think if one really wanted to be protective of the wires when doing this task, they could apply a bit of duct tape over the solder spots where the leads connect to the driver and then another piece of tape over where the leads connect to the jack box on the incoming port.  This would act as insurance in the event you did "tug" on the wires, they would not break free.
 
Best of luck and enjoy!

I've also now read through the tutorials posted on how to open the cups and perform the mods and I feel better about it now. Shure 840 pads are on their way here. Right now I'm looking at the cheapest prices I can find for Paxmate / equivalent acoustic foam, Plasticine, and a cotton roll.

 

[nick n]

There's all sorts of materials you can try if you get the urge, by no means are the tutorials set in stone. Maybe you will come up with something nobody has thought of especially approaching it new.
Good luck!