[xxwannabexx]

Hello Head-Fier's,
 
I'm modding my  Creative Aurvana's for  about 6 Month now and I have already modded several for other Hi-Fiers and friends out there.
I haven't planed to publish my mod therefore I haven't got too many pictures.
 

Differences between Creative AL & Denon D1000/10001

 
There are 2 main differences betweens those headphones.
The first one is the cable hanger which is made of plastic in the Creative AL.
The other one is the back of the cups of the headphones. The Denon D1000 has onepiece cups made of plastic ,the Creative has twopiece cups which are screwed together and don't fit and isolate well.
 

Goals

The Goal of my mod is to enhance the deepbass a little bit,to get the bass punchier,to improve the clarity and isolation without spending tons of material and money.
 

Material

 
You need 4 plastic-yoghurt-cups with a inner diameter of 69mm and an outer diameter of 72-73mm, yoghurt cups with a plastic ring are just perfect !
2-component epoxy
Sound wool/dampening wool
a small and a big scissor
Dynamat Xtreme
Screwdriver
sheet of paper
pen
tissue
 

1.Step dissambling the headphone & create drawing

At first you have to take off the paddings and open the headphone by removing the 2 screws.
Now you'll see the innerside of the Cups. There are 2 more screws which hold the back of the cups in place.
Remove the screws and put the back of the cup on the paper(facing the creative label towards you) and use your pen to create a drawing.
Cut the drawing with you scissor and test if it fits innerside of the back. You might have to make it a bit smaller and add 3 spaces for the plastic spikes inside the headphone.
 

2.Step Adding Dynamat Xtreme and glue your headphone

Now you can use the drawing to cut out the right piece of Dynamat to fit in to the back.
The next Step is a bit tricky. You have to mix you 2component-Epoxy and put it on to the groove of the back of the headphone and attach the back to the cup again. It's better to use too little otherwise you have gluemarks on the outside of your headphone.
If you have Epoxy left put it on the surrounding inside the headphone to increase the isolation a bit more.
The glue needs about 1 hour to dry.
 

3.Step More Dynamat

Next step is well known from Markl-Mods. Attach some Dynamat to the magnet ring.
You can choose to add more Dynamat to the cups to increase the isolation and reduce vibrations.
But this also increases the weight of you headphones which leads to a more uncomfortable headphone.
 

 

 

4.Step Hole in to the System, sounding wool

If you have already listened to the Creative or the Denon you might have noticed that the headphone has an "in-your-face" sound So it's more of a fun sounding headphone than a serious fidelity headphone with a flat frequence.
The problem is the that the highs of the are really spiking your ears and even tough the punch-bass is quiet good, the headphone is lacking deep-bass.
The Deep-bass is necessary to give instruments and voices a certain bassline without making them too punchy and thin.
The Ultrasone HFI-780 is a good example for a good deep-bass.
 
To achieve more deep-bass the headphone has to "breath" more air. In terms of a closed headphone it's not possible to enhance this.
Therefore you have to lower the resistance of the air by cutting a little hole in the back of the fabric on the inner side of the system.
The hole should have the same size as the other holes that are already in the fabric.
It's possible to make the hole even bigger which leads to a more laid back sound. Maybe a try if you like Sennheisers?
 
Now that you have finished modding the cups ,add just a little bit of sound wool to the cups to dampen the sound.
The amount of wool depends on what sound characteristic you like.
If it's too much it sounds like you're listening through a curtain.
If there is no wool at all it'll sound a bit spiky and unbalanced.
 

5. Modding the pads

The last step is to mod you pads.
You have to cut one ring out of each the yoghurt cup with a height of 7mm.
Cut the ring some where to make it more flexible.
Attach some Dynamat to the ring and put in the inside of the paddings, If your plastic ring has a flat plastic ring ,put the ring on the downside, facing the headphone.
Take a little bit of your tissue so you can fold it 4 times.The height should be 5mm afterwards. Put it also in you paddings.
Now add another plastic ring, this time the flat ring should face you.
 

Finished !

 
There you have it ! Your Wannabe-modded Creative AL! with a nice punchy and fun-sounding characteristic.
Listen and enjoy.
 
If you have problems understanding my english (as you "might" have noticed I'm not a native speaker nor is my english really good) ask me for further information.
Also if you need more pictures you can ask me.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

[frank2908]

how does sealing the groove between the cup and the baffle changes the sound? I believe doing that would make the headphones completely closed, therefore reducing the sound stage,however there might be a boost in the bass and the mid would be thicker. Is that the case?
 

 

[xxwannabexx]

You're right ! It boosts the overall bass and thickens the mids ,but it also improves the isolation and reduces distortion in the bass caused by the loose fit of the cup and the screws.
 
One of the fellow head-fiers asked me for pictures and he said he wanted to upload them here ,but it seems like he didn't upload them at all

 

[frank2908]

How many % is the increase in isolation would you say? If its less that 20% I wouldn't be bothered. Is the change in the mid annoying?
 
 

 

[kingpage]

20%? No way. Isolation is not CAL!'s strong suit. See innerfidelity's measurement, it's only -8dBr. It's below average to begin with.
 
You need to tape some sound-absorbing material (not just dynamat) on the outside of the cups for more isolation. But it'll be ugly.

 

[frank2908]

Quote:

20%? No way. Isolation is not CAL!'s strong suit. See innerfidelity's measurement, it's only -8dBr. It's below average to begin with.
 
You need to tape some sound-absorbing material (not just dynamat) on the outside of the cups for more isolation. But it'll be ugly.

that doesn't mean the isolation wouldn't increase by sealing it. Since it's a closed cup headphones, pleather pad, there should be less isolation. The sound cannot just escape through a wall like you said.
 

 

[xxwannabexx]

The isolation improves but I don't think it will help by 20%. More about ~10% overall.
 
The sealing of the cups is more meant to improve the SQ of the headphones. The headphone sounds a lot more pleasing.
 
But I have to mention that one of my friends , who owns a modded CAL! said the  kickbass on his pair is sometimes  a little annoying but that's easy to fix by applying a sandwich of  felt+velour foam material+Aluminium foil in  to the cup.
 
If you still don't like the mids you can try to cut a hole in the felt in to the inner circle of the back of the driver and tape it afterwars with TESA.
This tweaks the sound signature again a little bit ,but its hard to explain how. It makes the sound overall more natural because it enhances harmonics.
Harmonics aren't always a bad thing. They are necessary to give a sound output a character.