I’ve been following the conversations on how to mod the M1060s with interest because I’ve had them in constant comparison mode with the Hifiman HE-500s since I got them. From the get go I’d been hoping they would quickly dethrone the HE-500s as my daily go-to headphone. Ah yeah, it didn’t happen right away despite the overtime hypetrain.
Just as a sidenote mine are V1 and I got them after adding my name to the contact list as soon as I found out Monoprice was coming out with these. I could see the potential right away.
From first listen I was quite impressed with the tone and clarity of these phones, even on the lower frequencies the bass remained clear and in that regard they are better than the HE-500s which tend to lose tautness in the lower frequencies. What the M1060s were lacking in my auditory terms was BODY! This is something the HE-500s excel at. The Hifiman HE-500s produce what I call full-body music, especially when you give them the current they need. I’ve got mine hooked up to the speaker posts of a Luxman LV-103 tube hybrid amplifier. And yes they are very good that away! (I have the M1060s plugged into the headphone out, it is far easier to drive than the HE-500.) So now how to make the M1060s play in the same league?
So back to the mods. First of all I had no interest in changing pads. I quite like the stock pads and did not want to add more expense to a budget phone, so the mods had to take that parameter into account. The paper mod has been suggested many times in this thread so I tried that. For me it thinned out the sound even more than stock. I then tried acoustic cloth on top of the foam and in my recollection that took away some of the bass and muffled the lower frequencies. I also tried going foamless but that resulted in piercing highs, aargh! All along this watchtower I was comparing the resulting sound with the HE-500s and the M1060s were coming up short. And then . . .
Why not try using the acoustic cloth next to the driver underneath the foam? I did that and the result -- a superlative headphone that is bringing it to the Hifimans and is full-bodied with the added bonus it still has all that crystal clear tonality and pulling more detail from the music. Finally, in this modded form the M1060s are clearly better than the HE-500s.
I do not have a measuring rig nor am I technically inclined that way. Anyone else who is so inclined can do the measurement. For me the challenge was auditory, trying to bring this phone to the performance level the HE-500s.
Here are some pictures that tell the story. The acoustic cloth is similar to what you would find outside desktop size speakers for example. As you can see from the pictures the material is thin and see-through. I cut it into a circle slightly smaller than the diameter of the foam pad. Caveat: this mod is geared towards keeping the stock pads in place so I am not sure how it would play out for those using third-party pads like Audeze.
If anyone else tries this please report back with results.