[Noodlz]

Seeing that there's no dedicated thread available for these fantastic vintage cans i decided to share my impressions / initial mods here. Would love it if other owners of this headphone would chime in / try my EQ settings =)
 
Finally got my hands on a Lafayette F-990 after reading about it in the extreme basshead thread. (Thanks @cb3723 and @goldenSHK) After some work they sounded FANTASTIC! Here's some write ups of my experience / pad mod / EQ settings:
 
At first the stock pads were super stiff hard so it was difficult to get a seal of any sort. there was a quality in the sound that you can hear, but something just was not quite right
 
I then proceeded to change the pad with the jvc ha-m55x pads. Now they're super comfortable. Here's what they look like now:
 

 
With the seals fixed, the bass is now tighter and the highs seems more organized now, but the the sound is still kinda funky, the lows and highs sound are pretty good but just felt like it still wasn't quite right. The instrumental separation was somewhat cluttered for some reason, and the voices (male or female) just felt recessed and had this weird reverb to it.
 
I then proceeded to play with the EQ, and WOW. it was a night and day difference. I'm still pretty noobish to EQing but i was playing with some presets i had done for my HD598, and then i tweaked the settings of 2kh, 4kh, and 8kh in attempt to fix the voice issue. Somehow someway, i fixed it, and now everything is super crisp! stereo imaging is now on point, all instruments are well layered and crisp and felt super musical!
 
The strange thing is now, I had just listened to some LCD-X & HD800s 2 days ago (amped by HDVA600 Amp) , and the clarity of the F990 was actually kinda close to what i heard from HD800/LCD! I mean it doesn't have the soundstage of the HD800s, nor the buttery layered volume goodness like the LCD-X, but the clarity, layering, spatial orientation, and just the sheer musicality is pretty damn close.
 
Right now they feel like these are the best pair i have. I'm just boppin my head non-stop lol. I'm listening to them now and wondering if i'm just trippin here. Here are some of the songs i tested this with: (all on spotify, set on extreme quality, a mix of genres):
 
   The Game - West Side Story
   YG - My Nigga
   2pac ft Snoop - 2 Of Amerikaz Most Wanted
   Wiz Khalifa - On My Level
   John Legend - All of Me
   Neyo - Religious
   Adele - Someone like you
   Melody Gardo - Worrisome Heart
   Jason Mraz - You and I both
   Ed Sheeran - Don't
   Massive Attack - Angel
   Usher - Climax
   Stevie Ray Vaughn - The sky is Crying - 1984 ver
   Diana Krall - I've got you under my skin
   Miles Davis - Bitches Brew
   Isaac Hayes - Walk on By
   Led Zepplin - Good Times Bad Times
   Jimmi Hendrix - All Along the Watchtower
 
Below is the EQ settings i used (i'm playing out of my macbook > cayin C5, using a paid OSX app called Boom2:
 
32hz     +5.9db
63hz     +5.0db
125hz   +2.3db
250hz   +3.0db
500hz   - 0.7db
1khz     +2.5db
2khz     +5.1db
4khz     +8.2db
8khz     +7.3db
16khz   +7.7db
 

 
I was planning to dig in and start making some mods internally, but now with these settings i'm afraid to mess it up LoL, so i'll have to hunt for another one of these to mod & make it match the performance from the EQ.
 
Any thoughts / suggestions etc would welcome! Would love to hear from other owners of the F990 and how these EQ settings work for you!

 

[nick n]

Nice to see a good old one back in action, as far as I can tell from memory I think these are made by Elega, same as their DR-111C models, which incidentally have a decent 16-220000 spec. Elega was/is one of the first largescale OEM for many things, and I know there are a couple other models of these around from different companies. Maybe one day I'll spring for some.
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?act=url&depth=1&hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http://20cheaddatebase.web.fc2.com/elega/DR-111C.html&usg=ALkJrhi7Fzyv4utqUBQJHufG26VGxgn7IA
Could also be the DR-109C same specs
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?act=url&depth=1&hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http://20cheaddatebase.web.fc2.com/elega/DR-109C.html&usg=ALkJrhjOZt_BPRqkZR96txgK45CKxsSkzg
Great post and enjoy the heck out of them, it's all that matters. There's a lot of ignored older gems out there

 
Bet that Cayin C5 there adds a nice boost.
 
I assume you did a search for them in here there were a few threads and scattered info. Go grab the pics from the modding post on them before they are taken down from the hosting site
 
Next up on your early basshead cans : the Koss KRD-711 Red Devils. Possibly the first.
 
EDIT there is an entry on Wikiphonia even.
http://wiki.faust3d.com/wiki//index.php?title=Lafayette_F-990
 The specs as stated by Lafayette are likely random ones I would trust the Japanese manufacturer ( Elega ) at 16-20k.
 
I wonder what adding the speaker cone treatment to them might do, the liquid ( poly ? I forget ) coating

 

[Noodlz]

Actually the only one i managed to find was a post on reddit where someone put alpha dog pads on them (see below), but i didn't see anyone who actually did mods to it.
 

 
suuper curious about the speaker cone treatment tho~ Might just have to give it a try when i get around to opening these up. On a side not, as good as these sound i've realized that maybe because of the clamping force / weight / bass levels, i do find them a bit fatiguing after a few hours. and actually these are quite loud so i'm actually using the cayin as a means to turn down the sound lol (with the bass boost off. and i'm a basshead.) =P

 

[nick n]

http://www.head-fi.org/t/232787/lafayette-f-990#post_10870084
links to a recent mod picture set

 

[Noodlz]

sweet thanks! If i ever get around to modding this i will post it here =)