[drummerben04]

I have never modded a pair of headphones before. Can you honestly make let say a set of $50 headphones sound like a pair of $500. How would you recommend approaching this. Building completely from scratch or modding an existing build. For the modders out their do you find you save a ton of money going this route. I'm sure it takes dedication to pull this off and I'm prepared to do this. I have basically a mini shop in my basement where I fix computers. Is modding headphones one of those things where if you don't know what you doing, don't do it because so many things can go wrong. How hard is it to get the sound just right? If it's not that hard once you get the hang of it, it sounds like a really good idea in which you can get more bang for your buck in a huge way. Thanks!

 

[Zaubertuba]

You're not likely to get a factor of 10 in perceived improvement from doing your own mods.  Most of the mods I've done (and seen) have been noticable, but incremental in nature.  That said, if you dig a little you can find things that work (and avoid those that don't).  Way back when the HD555/595's came out, it was as easy as removing a foam pad to turn the former into the latter, since we found out they use the same drivers.  That was an easy and tangible mod that could save you upwards of $150 (at least that's what I think the difference was).
 
Other mods, like changing damping material/cup configuration, dual-cabling, balancing, etc..well, YMMV.  I'm a tinkerer myself, so I've enjoyed modding and have often had good (but not tranformative) results but always with the understanding that I'm voiding warrantees and there's no recourse if you really screw something up.  A cautionary tale--after a year enjoying my heavily modded HD 555's, I totally destroyed them trying to return them back to single-ended.  My only consolation is that I didn't screw up a more expensive pair of phones. 

 

 

[drummerben04]

Well basically was thinking of taking the drivers out of the fostex t50rp and designing new cups and ear pads for them. I know it's already been done with the Mr. speakers alpha and mad dogs, and also on this forum with smeggy's mods. I was considering making the new cups out of maple. One of the biggest challenges would be shaping the ear cups just right to give perfect sound. They'd have to be a certain length and width. I would be designing these in CAD first.

I am confident and removing the planar drivers out of the fostex and placing them into my own build. Just a little uneducated in sound reproduction and how to design a closed ear cup out of wood. No I do not want to make open headphones. Want to design closed ones and have it be as open sounding as possible we'll keeping the isolation. Mr. Speakers seemed to master that with their 3-D printing. I found good thread on Here on choosing what type of wood to use.

http://www.head-fi.org/t/592921/cup-tuning-basics


Any suggestions on shape?

 

[bootdsc]

Well you have the right idea starting with fostex t50rp, truthfully is doesn't matter what you do to them they will still sound amazing, here's a link at the bottom to my 3d printed phones which use t50rp drivers. its basically fully open and really has almost nothing on the back side of the driver. They sound great open but are quite loud so anyone within 10 feet is going to be enjoying your tunes for free lol. There is more then enough bass with this design so things like amp's with bass boost are not needed but you will need a decent amp to drive these monsters. I use a FIIO E18 which works great. 
 
 
 

 

[lamode]

Some headphones can be hugely improved with some DSP parametric EQ to even out the response. It's like hearing a new set of phones.
 
For example I use the Audirvana 2.0.6 player with a Blue Cats Stereo Paramtr'EQ plugin on some cheap phones. Biggest upgrade I've ever experienced.