[Sefelt103]

It seems to be not uncommon for people to modify their headphones. I would never alter headphones in any way that would affect their sound because a) I know very little about headphone design b) the chances of improving the sound quality are virtually zero c) I believe that every modification will reduce overall sound quality at best slightly and at worst significantly. The usual reason people modify headphones is because there is something in the sound signature that they dislike. Too much treble, lack of bass, too thin or too much midrange. It can be virtually any sonic aspect of the headphone's design. The reason for wishing to alter the sound comes from the difficulty of knowing long term what a headphone will sound like. If the user knew that a specific headphone met their requirements perhaps they wouldn't resort to alteration. Headphone design is complex and even listening with worn earpads compromises the design and reduces the bass and the sound quality. Designs rely on the physical shape and size of the earcups, the mesh of the grill, the original earpad shape, the characteristics of the driver to deliver the designed frequency curve and significantly these elements all affect each other. As soon as you alter anything by removing foam covers or inserts or add anything like cotton wool, fabric, paper then the intricate sonic characteristics of the headphone have changed. This change might be what the user wanted but is the modification as reliable as the original and is the sound quality preserved ? The first question isn't that difficult to be true but the second will be rare indeed. I'm certain if I tried to modify my Beyerdynamic DT 880 600Ω to give more bass level and reduce the treble spike at 9K, if in some absolute scale of sound quality unmodified it's 8.5/10, I am certain without even undertaking any modification that the post modification sound quality would be 8.3/10 at best and could well be worse. There might be more bass but it might not extend as well, there might be less treble extension also, the bass might not be so clean, there might be resonances or harmonic distortion or any of a whole list of degradations in the field of sound quality. Another difficulty of modification is the time it takes for your ears/brain to adjust to the new sonic environment. Like changing headphones it will take a certain amount of time before you're hearing the modification at its best. It may be then difficult to judge how much the sound quality has degraded when you are adjusted to the modification. Like some Sony amplifier that someday clears itself of all the enhancers/equalisers/filters and the user thinks that it now sounds wonderful would be similar to when your friend brings a stock headphone (the same model) that you've modified and you hear the flaws but at higher fidelity. It is surprising to me that so many people buy headphones with the intention of modifying them and that there are many long threads on the internet dedicated to modification. Modification that involves aesthetics or comfort so long as it doesn't interfere with the acoustics I can understand. Headphone modification would appear to be a result of the market and the manufacture of so many headphones with acoustic defects. Unfortunately the consumer is powerless to alleviate the effects (without likely introducing other negatives) when a manufacturer makes their headphone piercingly bright or bassless or one that has ringing issues. As to the effect of equalising problems out, I am uncertain about that (I never equalise headphones). Certainly equalisers today don't have the distortion penalty they once had. If you have a bass heavy headphone and you EQ most of the bass out to make it more neutral will the headphone attain the higher SQ of neutral headphones ? I doubt that. I don't see how the consumer can win unless the modification designer knows as much about the acoustic design as the manufacturer and has a host of relevant data and sophisticated measuring equipment that enable him or her to convert a cheap dynamic into something superior to an expensive electrostatic.

 

[r010159]

What a soliloquy! I agree with what you have said here. If the phones turn out to be deficient in some manner, even with regards to your listening taste, save up for ones that will work better for you. There is no free lunch with user modifications. The only modification that makes sense is EQ to suite ones listening taste. Maybe want stronger bass on some of those rock and roll songs as you sing along with it for fun. Then set it up differently for classical. Its cheap, more surgical, easy, and undoable.

 

[kman1211]

I’ve personally only had a couple headphones that improved drastically with modding. Main one is the DT 480(vintage so doesn’t have modern dampening and tuning, but it’s driver is the best dynamic driver I’ve owned being the highest fidelity, best imaging, lowest distortion, fastest, most resolving, most dynamic, tactile, most transparent, detailed, best inherent timbre/tonality, etc.), which went from an overly forward and somewhat glarey sounding headphone to the single best headphone I’ve ever owned outclassing even my T1.2, I would like to say my other more expensive headphones are better but in fact they are at least a league or more below the DT 480. I was always able to tell the headphone had the most untapped potential of any headphone I’ve owned, so it’s an exception to the rule, usually I leave headphones alone but this thing was just begging to have it’s potential squeezes out of it. I haven’t had the most luck with modding on most headphones, I found the DT 880 not to respond as well as I hoped. The HD 650 mods were also a mixed bag. Modding usually came down to compromises that I didn’t like and I almost always revert back to stock, but some reason the DT 480 just gobbled up the mods I threw at it and kept improving as I slowly tweaked it; I have a second pair that’s stock and it sounds very lacking in comparison whereas the modded pair often leaves me in awe of the sound when I listen to it and frequently sends shivers down my spine.

 

[r010159]

I understand. Those DT 480 headphones sound like they were a type of knockoff, where the best care was not placed in its development and fabrication, unnecessarily falling short of its potential. However, it had something going for it if you were able to turn it into fine sounding headphones, Impressive!

 

[kman1211]

I understand. Those DT 480 headphones sound like they were a type of knockoff, where the best care was not placed in its development and fabrication, unnecessarily falling short of its potential. However, it had something going for it if you were able to turn it into fine sounding headphones, Impressive!

They are incomplete without a doubt, many vintage headphones are, most of my luck with modding has been with vintage/older gear. I do agree with modern audiophile headphones, modding is a mixed bag. The DT 480 is a different version of the original dynamic(also first high fidelity) headphone, the DT 48, so in a sense it's the granddaddy of all audiophile headphones, or rather it's older sibling is. If you look at the drivers and magnet system on the DT 48/480 it's unlike any other headphone. It has a different housing and it's not fully realized, but I found out the DT 48 is also not fully realized and was never completed(was meant to be but the documentation was lost and Beyer's founder never actually completed it), but the driver quality is the best I've come across in a headphone, it's always been an incredibly fast and detailed headphone, on par with electrostatics in terms of speed.

 

[Sefelt103]

Thanks for the replies. I suppose if someone did a professional modification for say the Beyerdynamic DT480 that might attract litigation from Beyerdynamic. There must be other headphones that have untapped potential. There is always a small chance that you stumble across a modification that transforms a headphone. Headphone modification is popular like designed in harmonic distortion, people are prepared to sacrifice sound quality for a sound signature they like. I find it unusual that hi-fi is so quickly dispensed with in the attainment colour/nice distortion and other sound contortions.

 

[kman1211]

Thanks for the replies. I suppose if someone did a professional modification for say the Beyerdynamic DT480 that might attract litigation from Beyerdynamic. There must be other headphones that have untapped potential. There is always a small chance that you stumble across a modification that transforms a headphone. Headphone modification is popular like designed in harmonic distortion, people are prepared to sacrifice sound quality for a sound signature they like. I find it unusual that hi-fi is so quickly dispensed with in the attainment colour/nice distortion and other sound contortions.

Honestly I bet a professional modification of the headphone would be amazing, the DT 48/480 were designed to be brutally revealing/resolving headphones, just they need some work in terms of FR response, roll-off, and some other things, the DT 480 adds extra problems with reflections on top of that by using the DT 100 housing(which thankfully means most parts are still made for it). I agree on sometimes a modification can completely transform a headphone, I had a few of those on my 2 year long modding journey of my DT 480, I'm still working on the thing. A lot of people do modify for a sound signature they want. My personal problem is I don't have anything to measure them and I lack the ability to computer model to really fine tune my mods, if I did I would be able to fine tune the FR response more(I have to EQ to bring the last bit of the sub-bass to neutral and fine tune the headphone), I already know they have incredibly low distortion(I have seen measurements of stock/mostly stocks pairs and it's obviously very low in distortion just by listening), my main focus on them has been proper damping(it's sorely lacking stock, it's a fine line between too much and too little), making sure it seals nicely consistently(as seal is vital for bass response), making it comfortable(can't do anything about the Audeze-like weight though), and preventing reflections from the baffles(plastic/metal baffle) and inside the earcups. I've personally always used the HD 600 and also something like the DT 880 for a general guideline to modify the DT 480 as they are well-regarded standards of neutrality. I would like to see what other headphones are just begging for attention. I would like to attempt my hand at something like a Fostex T50RP again as I have much better modding knowledge than when I first attempted it. I'm not expecting a giant killer like the DT 480, but I do think I can get something nice out of it.

 

[Sefelt103]

It's part f the headphone hobby. You can buy at reasonable cost measurement devices (I think metal571 has one) to get the FR of a headphone. If you have good hearing and know something about the mathematics of acoustics I'm sure you could tune headphones. Of course I don't see the majority on Headfi taking this type of approach though. Resonance is interesting, didn't the original Beyerdynamic T1 suffer from this. There is a massive thread on here about lots of people's solution to this. I wonder what would have happened if some small headphone engineering company had cured the resonance issue with a cut-out that could be inserted and wanted to charge £50 for this cut-out. Would Beyerdynamic ignore it, not approve it, ask for 50% royalties or send in their lawyers. Is there a market for a shop that will take your stock headphone and modify based on your requirements with money back unless completely satisfied ? I just want something neutral from 1hz to 25khz, that's comfortable, durable, has no soundstage, no harmonic distortion, no colouration and is cheap as chips.