jerg
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2010
- Posts
- 6,126
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- 864
Being quite new to here, my first purchases influenced by HFi was, of course, them Koss Ksc75 clips. Before them, I thought the no-name Sony earbuds sounded superb, but the past is the past heheh. Ears are easily spoiled.
However, with bad luck concerning bass distortions inherent in the Koss clips, which especially aggravates me, being an avid hip-pop listener and all, base + vocals = no no. The ksc75s just crapped out on all those songs, rendering them less listenable than 3-year-old ibuds. I had to seek out something of similar sound but unyielding bass response. With some reluctance, I chose the Yuin G2As and bought a pair earlier this month.
They arrived 2 weeks ago and my first thought after listening to them was: am I going to regret this? They sounded sibilant and anemic out of the box, no real bass to speak of in terms of judging if they're distorted also (which is almost as bad as distorted bass lol). Over the week after, I've had them burning 22/7 (the other 2 being me trying them out or watching movies on laptop), and put in a good 100 hours of burning in. The bass did pop out eventually, almost to koss clip's levels, but to some disappointment, still some very subtle rattling bass distortion at high volumes on bass-heavy vocal songs, but hey, it's subtle, and more of an exception than rule, unlike the koss clips' issue.
The sound was, indeed, TRANSPARENT, like many have praised/flamed it to be here at HFi. The sibilance seems to be due entirely to that - the "s"s and "ts"s in some songs are entirely smooth on the G2As, but on 3/4 of the songs they are sharp. I guess the Koss Ksc75's were well-engineered to really suppress the sibilance. The transparency really shows the flaws in songs in my (entirely non-audiophile in terms of bit-rate
) music library, but the sound overall still shines...various instruments sound real, separation of sounds is great, sound stage is larger than ksc75s under the same condition (with koss earclips), and it sounds much less anemic than ksc75s after the burning in, very full.
But having a first taste of modding from my Ksc75 experience, I had to spent a lot of time over the last week experimenting with modding on these G2As.
My first issue that I wanted to tackle via modding was the small bass presence. After some trial and error, I decided that they had to be on headbands to have good bass - the clips were just so loose and there was NO seal formed with those, aka no bass. However, the headband I had (old PortaPros headband) doesn't quite fit right - the socket matches but the flat aluminum covering of the G2As prevent them from being inserted onto the headband. After some vigorous filing of the inside of the headband it fit snuggily.
But then another problem arose. Even with the inside bevel of the portapro headband filed away, the G2As still only barely fit, with no freedom of rotation. For the seal to occur, the phones have to face at a slight angle toward the ears rather than perpendicular. After a lot of frustration, it seemed the easiest way for this to occur was to slightly bend the headband steel frame, which I did, and did not regret. The Yuins suddenly doubled in bass, while the mids and highs also sounded fuller and smoother. It also reduced the pressure strain on the outer ear manifold, making the thing pleasant to wear. The right sealing angle was all it needed.
The foam was soft but...lacking in foaminess. So I quarter-modded them, and used a pair of portapro foams (about 5mm larger in diametre), sort of wrapped the larger foam over the smaller G2A Qmodded foam. This now became a pair of foam pieces with double the thickness, a bit more surface area, and less obstructive centres. They further improved the seals and made the G2As sound so much more effortless and punchier; it's still transparent, but much much less harshly so.
Oh I also modded some more foam onto the temple supports of the headband to ease the pressure of clamping.
Here's what I finally settled in with:
Not the prettiest of all modded headphones, but it has the right seal, great comfort, superb bass, and great Yuin sound.
Cheers!
However, with bad luck concerning bass distortions inherent in the Koss clips, which especially aggravates me, being an avid hip-pop listener and all, base + vocals = no no. The ksc75s just crapped out on all those songs, rendering them less listenable than 3-year-old ibuds. I had to seek out something of similar sound but unyielding bass response. With some reluctance, I chose the Yuin G2As and bought a pair earlier this month.
They arrived 2 weeks ago and my first thought after listening to them was: am I going to regret this? They sounded sibilant and anemic out of the box, no real bass to speak of in terms of judging if they're distorted also (which is almost as bad as distorted bass lol). Over the week after, I've had them burning 22/7 (the other 2 being me trying them out or watching movies on laptop), and put in a good 100 hours of burning in. The bass did pop out eventually, almost to koss clip's levels, but to some disappointment, still some very subtle rattling bass distortion at high volumes on bass-heavy vocal songs, but hey, it's subtle, and more of an exception than rule, unlike the koss clips' issue.
The sound was, indeed, TRANSPARENT, like many have praised/flamed it to be here at HFi. The sibilance seems to be due entirely to that - the "s"s and "ts"s in some songs are entirely smooth on the G2As, but on 3/4 of the songs they are sharp. I guess the Koss Ksc75's were well-engineered to really suppress the sibilance. The transparency really shows the flaws in songs in my (entirely non-audiophile in terms of bit-rate
) music library, but the sound overall still shines...various instruments sound real, separation of sounds is great, sound stage is larger than ksc75s under the same condition (with koss earclips), and it sounds much less anemic than ksc75s after the burning in, very full.But having a first taste of modding from my Ksc75 experience, I had to spent a lot of time over the last week experimenting with modding on these G2As.
My first issue that I wanted to tackle via modding was the small bass presence. After some trial and error, I decided that they had to be on headbands to have good bass - the clips were just so loose and there was NO seal formed with those, aka no bass. However, the headband I had (old PortaPros headband) doesn't quite fit right - the socket matches but the flat aluminum covering of the G2As prevent them from being inserted onto the headband. After some vigorous filing of the inside of the headband it fit snuggily.
But then another problem arose. Even with the inside bevel of the portapro headband filed away, the G2As still only barely fit, with no freedom of rotation. For the seal to occur, the phones have to face at a slight angle toward the ears rather than perpendicular. After a lot of frustration, it seemed the easiest way for this to occur was to slightly bend the headband steel frame, which I did, and did not regret. The Yuins suddenly doubled in bass, while the mids and highs also sounded fuller and smoother. It also reduced the pressure strain on the outer ear manifold, making the thing pleasant to wear. The right sealing angle was all it needed.
The foam was soft but...lacking in foaminess. So I quarter-modded them, and used a pair of portapro foams (about 5mm larger in diametre), sort of wrapped the larger foam over the smaller G2A Qmodded foam. This now became a pair of foam pieces with double the thickness, a bit more surface area, and less obstructive centres. They further improved the seals and made the G2As sound so much more effortless and punchier; it's still transparent, but much much less harshly so.
Oh I also modded some more foam onto the temple supports of the headband to ease the pressure of clamping.
Here's what I finally settled in with:
Not the prettiest of all modded headphones, but it has the right seal, great comfort, superb bass, and great Yuin sound.
Cheers!
