This might seem a out of left field and a bit disjointed, but I've been on a journey these past few days.
Because of my recent EQ success with the HP-3 and Advanced Alpha, I decided to take a crack at EQing my Nighthawk which I have always, to put simply, hated the sound of. After making a profile based of off my measurements, I found the Nighthawk driver
very capable when it wasn't buried in all of the tuning weirdness, with shocking amounts of detail. It almost felt like I unburied an Ferrari in a dusty old barn, really surprised me. I then compared it EQ'd to measurements of my HP-3... and some parts of the frequency response looked similar. Did some reading on the specs and sure enough, the HP-3 and Nighthawk use a extremely similar driver. The only meaningful spec difference I could see is the HP-3 uses a 52mm and the Nighthawk uses a 50mm. And honestly, knowing how "accurate" spec sheets can be from manufacturers, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were the exact same driver, just measuring it differently. The drivers certainly
look the same to my eyes. complete with a similar metal mesh cover.
Anyhow, this got me thinking, could I mod my Nighthawk and tune it like a HP-3, or at the very least, improve the sound? So I did some experiments, some modding, and some pad rolling. Also, as an aside, even my super janky measurement rig makes these things
so much easier. Don't think you need to spring for a GRAS to get a useful measurement rig for EQ and modding, I spent a total of $7 on mine and it has already saved me hours of subjective comparison hell, especially with pad rolling. I can tell at a glance what a pad does to the sound compared to stock and if it looks promising, then I spend time listening.... Anyway, back on topic.
After adding some cotton rounds behind the drivers and switching to knockoff Brainwavz microsuede oval pads (they measured
slightly better than the real BW MS pads), the Nighthawk measures
shocking similar to my HP-3! The frequency response is actually a dead match from 20hz-3.8khz. So little difference, in fact, that 3.8khz down looks closer than a L R measurement of the same headphone.
However, in practice, the Nighthawks don't sound the exact same as the HP-3. The treble deviates quite a bit, with the peaks/dips in different places, so the Nighthawk actually comes across brighter to my ears. Imaging and soundstage seem to be a little better on the HP-3, along with the bass sounding more "open." I suspect that has to do with the larger cup design. But I can't overstate what a HUGE improvement the sound is over the stock Nighthawk. Audioquest took such a capable driver and really bungled it. The fact that I paid $700 for my HP-3, felt like a got a good deal, and only paid $250 for my Nighthawk and have questioned that purchase until now, shows how good the driver can be when put in the right hands. Although, I can safely say AQ did a better job making it more comfortable. The Nighthawk really does float on my head, while my HP-3 before my suspension strap mod was downright painful to wear after only an hour.
Well, thanks for joining me on my journey of making a baby HP-3! Lol, hope you enjoyed my mad ramblings.