soulstudios
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Matmod - homemade custom earpad guide for grado headphones
(permalink to this guide here)
(Or, how to make an L-cush/G-cush semi-circumaural earpad with no money plus a little help from grado!)
The sheer possibility of making my own earpads never occured to me until I examined the price of shipping a pair of L-cush's to New Zealand. $50-$60NZ for a couple of bits of foam? No thanks! Then I looked at the grado/allesandro headphone packet and voila! Tons of foam to play with. All it takes is some patience. And do they work? Yes- very well, thank you.
I run a small music studio in Hamilton, New Zealand (link), so I'm used to things sounding pretty flat frequency-response-wise and good/realistic. I was intimidated by the in-your-faceness and muddy bassiness, combined with the overall duller upper frequency response that resulted from the comfy pads on my Alessandro MS-1's. I decided to do something different. These fit almost all Grado and Alessandro models.
How to
After experimenting I found the correct depth of earpad to be about 3/4's the width of the grado packaging foam. Please note that I have no idea how thick or thin the G-cush or L-cush pads are for the grados - these are just my personal testing 'bests' for my Alessandro MS-1's, and the foam in question.
Hope that someone gets some use out of this.
(permalink to this guide here)
(Or, how to make an L-cush/G-cush semi-circumaural earpad with no money plus a little help from grado!)
The sheer possibility of making my own earpads never occured to me until I examined the price of shipping a pair of L-cush's to New Zealand. $50-$60NZ for a couple of bits of foam? No thanks! Then I looked at the grado/allesandro headphone packet and voila! Tons of foam to play with. All it takes is some patience. And do they work? Yes- very well, thank you.
I run a small music studio in Hamilton, New Zealand (link), so I'm used to things sounding pretty flat frequency-response-wise and good/realistic. I was intimidated by the in-your-faceness and muddy bassiness, combined with the overall duller upper frequency response that resulted from the comfy pads on my Alessandro MS-1's. I decided to do something different. These fit almost all Grado and Alessandro models.
How to
After experimenting I found the correct depth of earpad to be about 3/4's the width of the grado packaging foam. Please note that I have no idea how thick or thin the G-cush or L-cush pads are for the grados - these are just my personal testing 'bests' for my Alessandro MS-1's, and the foam in question.
- Cut the two largest bits of foam out of the grado packaging.
- Using a breadknife, cut approximately 1/4 to 3/8's off the width of each.
- Put the two pieces against each other and trim the edges with a pair of scissors until both are the same roughly oval shape. Do not reduce in size substantially.
- Using a knife, cut into the middle of each pads. Make a circular hole in the centre of both, approximately 3.5cm wide and slightly wider (whatever matches the outer ring of the earpads). Use scissors to make hole smoother and more uniform.
- Make the rougher side of the pad (the part you cut with the breadknife) the outside of the pad, and the smooth side the inner. Trim the hole of the inner side of the pad by about a centimetre, diagonally with scissors, so it increases in size as it comes closer to the ear. Using the scissors again, make the curvature smoother so it becomes more of an arc.
- Using the scissors, cut about 1cm diagonally off the outer circumference of the 'outside' side of the pad, then use the scissors again to trim this cut and turn it into an eye-pleasing curve.
Before and After - Black duct tape. Make a line of it 4-5mm wide, and place it around the circumference of the pad, about 2-3mm away from the 'inner' side of the pad. I found this made the bass better/tighter (note: better not louder) without decreasing the 'spaciousness' of the sound by boxing it in. The width of tape and distance from edge of 'inner' side of the pad are important. Too far away and it makes no difference, too far in and spaciousness/soundstage was reduced.
- Put the pads on the headphones. The outer side of the hole should be large enough for you to get them on, but tight enough for them to stay on without any trouble.
- Cut out a section of stockings slightly larger than the size of each inner hole. Make two for each speaker. Put these in the inner holes, covering the speaker and continuing around the side of the speaker so that they are held on by the foam pads. This I found reduced the tinnyness and cuttingness of the upper-frequency response on the uncovered Alessandro MS-1's to a more natural, flat-response level (and from what I hear, the Grado SR-60/80/125's are worse in this regard, so doubly-important for these models unless you have upper frequency hearing loss). There is no need to glue or otherwise tape these in, they will stay in by friction alone, trapping to the foam - also glue or tape will interfere with the sound.
Hope that someone gets some use out of this.
