[arpinnurmela]

I'm a unhappy owner of the KPH30i "clear". I bought these as replacement for a broken but highly used KPH30i "beige". The reason I went "clear" was that I had heard that the "clear" were far more flexible than the "beige" and "white". And indeed, the "clear" are much more durable and flexible feeling.

After allowing some time for usage and break-in I decided to do some critical listening on the "clear". WOW. First off they don't sound much like the "beige" or "white" at all. They have an entirely different frequency response compared to the "beige" and "white". Where the "beige" and "white" have that balanced signature that you'd expect from an audiophile headphone with bass that is on the more accurate side of things but not extraordinary. The "beige" and "white" just sound like they cost more than what you paid for them by at least double. The "clear", YIKES, DO NOT have that same balanced signature nor do they sound more expensive than what you paid for them. They sound exactly like the $25 headphones that they are.

Key differences of the "clear" are that they have notably more bass than the "beige". The mids sound more recessed as a result. The sound does have more freedom in it compared to the beige, but without that full air one would expect from an open back headphone. It just doesn't reach that level. So by freedom I'm referring to a quality in which the "clear" sound a touch faster than the "beige". But sadly, this fastness or whatever just doesn't make up for what I feel is a mutilated sound signature. Whatever the foam behind the driver was doing in the beige seems to my ear to have been noticeably lost on the "clear" and it just isn't a good thing. Sure... there is no doubt that the clear have notably better bass response, but the total loss of the balanced sound signature of the "beige" is just too much to recommend this headphone to anyone at really any price.

I did my critical listening via an Arcam MusicBoost which is what I had been using with my "beige" and absolutely loving the sound quality and the musicality. Sadly, I simply couldn't find a single musical genre that I thought sounded good. Not one. It all sounded cheap to my ear. To the point that I wouldn't personally use these to listen to any music at all. The frustration I feel with this poor sound signature is far too unenjoyable for me. There just isn't anything audiophile about it. So that magical charm of the "beige" has been completely lost.

Die or Improve​

So because the "clear" have no redeeming quality to them, it is time for them to either improve via mods or die trying. In my pre-mod days (where I thought modding was ridiculous) I would have thrown them in the garbage straight away. But I have some hope that they can be improved and want to try out two key mods.

My first mod will be to replace the stock cable and internal wiring with solid core air-gapped 30ga copper wire inside of 26ga Teflon tubing. I'm hoping that this mod will give me that solid core boost that I have on the rest of my equipment. It could be interesting since usually going solid core will bring forward the mids, calm and extend the highs, and slightly thin out the bass by making the bass go deeper and quicker which on first listen sounds like "less bass".

My second mod will be to experiment with different foam backings. Sadly, after my "beige" suffered a 3 prong snap (which super glue did absolutely zero to fix), I tossed them into the trash. So I can't use their foam. Darnit! And I don't want to butcher my daughter's "white" either. So I'll have to find some foam options to play around with. But because I'm generally lazy, if the first mod makes the "clear" enjoyable for music listening I may just leave them without a foam backing. For looks alone, I may not want foam inside there. Another option I may try is to put a foam ring inside there so that I can still see the internal workings unimpaired. We'll see and hear.

 

[jant71]

Since the clear are the prison phones you have to see inside them. Any stuff like the foam won't be put inside if it gives them a chance to hide contraband. They are not always just the same phones in a clear color. Also why they are more flexible and durable. It isn't cool though that they just don't say that they are different. I guess perhaps they made the prison model and are just selling it along with the regular model which is not cool. Not really much of a clear model if the foam is blocking the view but it is not gonna sound the same.

 

[arpinnurmela]

Yesterday I took apart and rewired my KPH30i “clear”. I used a nylon pry tool to gently pop off the backs. The cup backs had a rubber/plastic wire router block that was easily detached from the cup backs by just gently pulling them out. Once the wire was fully detached from the cup backs it was easy to use a solder wick and absorb most of the solder where the wires attached to the cups. I took some small blunt scissors and attempted to remove the old wire from the rubber/plastic wire routing blocks. I used some short blunt wire cutters to cut through the top middle of the harder plastic wire router blocks without cutting the rubber grommet part. This allowed me to pull out the old wire. I made sure that I was able to see light through the rubber grommets. I then slid one of four 26ga Teflon tubes that I had already cut to the length I wanted (which was six inches shorter than the stock cable). Once I got that empty tube through, I slid in a second empty tube. Teflon is good at keeping its shape, so when I threaded in 30ga solid copper wire it went into my 3.5ft Teflon tubes without too much effort. Then I soldered those to the cups with fresh Cardas silver solder. The rubber grommet made a almost perfect fit for the two 26ga Teflon tubes. Then I slid up some small gauge clear shrink tubing to hold the two wires together until they met where I wanted them to split. I did a gentle braid of the four wires down to the bottom, slid up two larger shrink tubes over the four wires. One to the split. One at the bottom that I would later slide down once I soldered the wires to the 3.5mm jack. Then I slid on my screw housing for the jack once I was done soldering and heatshrinking. From here I simply wrapped the 30ga copper using some tweezers through each hole and soldered. Then I heat shrunk and screwed on the screw housing. And I was done.

 

[arpinnurmela]

The Improved KPH30S​

I spent a couple of hours just listening to the upgraded KPH30S. S is for “solid core”. It’s a naming convention I use anytime I upgrade my equipment with air-gapped solid core.

The KPH30S are eminently listenable and have the kind of refinement I’d expect to hear out of a >$150 headphone. Bass runs as deep as it did before but is much tighter. Still a touch more bloomy than I personally prefer, but these drop a beat much better now especially listening to hip hop and electronica. Prior to the upgrade neither of those genres were listenable on this headphone. Playing some Radiohead Dollars & Cents on my Apple listening dongle right now and the bass runs rich and deep. Mids are what is most notably improved and are now able to stand apart from the deep bass lines that these “clear” seem to have over the “beige”. Top end is neither up nor down, but far more detailed without some of the vagueness I was hearing beforehand. Stereo separation feels much stronger than before. Soundstage is maybe doubled.

Whereas I never really felt that the KPH30i gained much from any one DAC I tried with them, the KPH30S definitely have scaling power and are now able to reveal some of the advantages of a better DAC/amp. I use an Arcam MusicBoost plus for portable critical listening. While the Arcam isn’t endgame by any measure, it does offer up more depth, detail, and a touch of PRAT depending on the headphone pairing.

Should you do this?​

On the “beige”? I don’t know that I would. The “beige” were just too short lived and fragile for me to want to put time into them. And especially given their already good sound signature, I’d probably just enjoy them as a killer $25 headphone that sounds more expensive.

For the “clear”, yes I’d do this over again. It was relatively easy to do and resolved much of the lack of crispness and lack of detail that made them unlistenable (to me). Plus their more obvious durability lends them well to an investment of time. The sound signature of the “clear” are improved by cleaning up the mids, making them more listenable. This perceived effect could likely be due to the control over the low frequencies that just bloomed way too much and overcrowded the mids. The wire that was replaced had to be no more than 34ga stranded copper.

Solid core is ridiculous for headphone cables.​

Don’t do this unless you want to have a lightweight cable that retains some of its curvature. I can’t reasonably suggest that anyone do a solid core cable like I’ve done it. However, I’m lazy and cheap, which means that I don’t use a jacket for my wires. Perhaps a nylon jacket could give the cable run enough weight such that it prevents some of the mind of its own character of Teflon tubing.

Regarding solid core for headphones, don’t do it until you hear a solid core interconnect. If you can’t hear a difference with a solid core interconnect, then don’t waste your time on a headphone cable like I have. If, however, you can hear the difference on a RCA interconnect, and you also want to throw away your KPH30i “clear” then by all means, screw around with replacing your headphone cables. The result is a sophistication and clarity to the sound that is quite fun.