I have an update. I bought the Goldplanar GL600 which is the kissing cousin of the Monolith M565 & have modified it by increasing the damping on both sides of the driver. I put some foam inside the ear pad behind the grill cloth to increase damping on the front side. I took the back off & placed a piece of old t shirt & a piece of an old sweat shirt behind the driver then placed the original foam behind that & reinstalled metal back cover. I placed the old t shirt piece on back of driver first then old sweat shirt piece before reassembly. I just thought that might be important.
One of the other things that that the foam damper on the front of the driver does is reduce interference from high frequencies from the outer edges of the driver that have to travel along the face of the driver to reach the ear canal. These interferences can cause significant peaks & dips in the response down as low as the midrange.
A couple of years ago I did null tests on my computer & discovered that even small differences in time between 2 identical files recorded at 96KHz & resampled to 768KHz to allow extremely small time shifts of one sample width at 768KHz sample rate & the total null collapsed to just over 20db null which is quite a loss of my perfect null. There was sound clearly into the upper midrange leaking. Program I used has on the fly resampling on playback just in case anyone was wondering. So reducing amplitude of the delayed high frequencies can reduce peakiness across a broad range of sound spectrum.
Sound is now less bass heavy & has significantly more presence& treble. I would characterize the sound now as very neutral. Sub bass is still present & because the earphones are less sensitive & require more drive sub bass actually improves some as damping has less effect on sub bass but is not out of line with mid bass. Mid & upper bass is reduced some which helps vocals immensely. Upper mid range emphasis is reduced allowing vocals to have more presence which results in smoother more airy vocals. Presence region is just above the upper midrange so reducing upper midrange exposes the presence in recordings. Violins in large orchestras are much more present in the sound stage. Stock it was hard to even hear the violins much of the time. Sound stage is quite large with excellent imaging. Pipe organ sounds excellent with great power at all frequencies including sub bass & great sound stage.
With all these changes covering the back of the headphone makes a smaller difference such that it may be possible to close the back with only small loss in sound. With some music it may even be preferable to run closed back. Much music though covering the back still has mild negative consequences to sound.
That's interesting, or what ever, but you are talking about a different headphone than this thread is about.
I read a brief summary of the GL600...the driver housing, magnets, headband, cup materiel, etc, are all different....which makes any thoughts you have about the tuning of them totally irrelevant here. They might be cousins, but they are distinct enough that talking about the GL600 here is just...off topic bloviating.
I mean, you had all kinds of very specific opinions as to how to tune the M565...but then it turns out you didn't actually have one so you were just speculating....and now you are here to share with us how to tune a totally different headphone than the M565.....ok...but why? Seems like you need to start a new thread.
The gl600's came with restrictive paper over the driver from factory where the m565 did not. The magnet aren't that much stronger on the GL600's. I'm not sure how much thinner the driver itself is but I'm sure they are not that much different. What I brought up is a different potential direction to go with tuning than everyone seems to be going.
The M565 had some of the same issues as the GL600's only worse from what heard. This could be due to lack of restrictive tuning. Removing what little restriction there was stock may seem to open up sound but I found that even though it seemed to opened up midrange & upper bass sound I lost the high frequencies even further & ultimately lost detail plus deep bass was reduced further than stock.
I posted here as I felt the information may be useful in tuning the M565. Yes I know they aren't perfectly the same but they are similar enough that it may work if anyone cares to try.
How about letting others try instead of trying to shut me down. Its not so much about the model its about the principles used to tune them. With restrictive tuning most of the factors you brought up go by the way side. All manufacturers of headphones use some form of restrictive tuning to achieve their desired sound.
First, I must point out, you have never even HEARD an M565.
Did it ever occur to you: people are "going a different direction" because they are modifying a different headphone? We are talking about 2 distinctly different headphones based on some similar parts. Think about this: not a single element of these 2 headphones is identical....just off the top of my head: the headband, the cup material, the driver membrane, the magnets, the driver housing, the outer grill...all different.
You just tried to hand wave away all the differences in the headphones, but I have modified enough headphones to be able to confidently say, you are modifying a different headphone. Also, you have never heard an M565.
If you want to talk in general terms about how various modifications can change the sound of a headphone, that's fine....but you need to meander over to the "sound science section" there's allll kinds of general vague theoretical discussions to be had....this is a thread about ONE particular headphone...your mods would be greatly appreciated in this thread: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/the...dphone-mods-here.867426/page-30#post-15817893
you are currently posting mods you made to the the GL600 in the M565 thread bro! The problem is, your suggestions could be misleading or counter productive....because you are talking about a different headphone....also, you've never heard an M565.
How about letting others try instead of trying to shut me down. Its not so much about the model its about the principles used to tune them. With restrictive tuning most of the factors you brought up go by the way side. All manufacturers of headphones use some form of restrictive tuning to achieve their desired sound.
I don't think Luke was trying to shut you down, he was trying to point you in the right direction. Create a modding thread on the GL600. Share what worked for you. If you want to create a post in here that points to your thread and mention why you think it's helpful, that's great.
The issue is that the content you are posting here clutters the thread. I came here looking for input from people who actually have this headset. Your posts made it more time consuming for me to find the content I needed. Again, this has nothing to do with shutting you up. It's helping you understand the right way to create content in this forum.
Modding update: I did an A/B test of mods by updating one headphone and then the other. This allowed me to listen to one headphone and then the other and then compare what I was hearing. The changes I made were removing the foam, adding 30 MM LTYIVABHTTW velour earpads from Amazon and small additions of Blu-tack. I used a black marker to color the blu-tack which helped it blend in a bit.
I love music, play guitar and have a bit of an ear for tone, but I am not an audiophile. That said, I was able to notice a perceptible difference with these mods that I believe go beyond the placebo effect. I think it does what others describe, which is to brighten or open up the sound. Almost like removing a blanket from a speaker. It wasn't as major as I hoped, but definitely noticeable to the point where I enjoy the headphones substantial more since making the mods.
A couple additional notes, I am listening to these straight through my PC and the headphones have around 30 hours of burn-in time. So, the sound may continue to open up as the burn-in time increases. Will be looking to get my first headphone amp in the coming weeks. I can add pics, but I think they are very similar to what has already been posted here.
I don't think Luke was trying to shut you down, he was trying to point you in the right direction. Create a modding thread on the GL600. Share what worked for you. If you want to create a post in here that points to your thread and mention why you think it's helpful, that's great.
The issue is that the content you are posting here clutters the thread. I came here looking for input from people who actually have this headset. Your posts made it more time consuming for me to find the content I needed. Again, this has nothing to do with shutting you up. It's helping you understand the right way to create content in this forum.
Thank you. It's muddying the water unnecessarily....
I'm glad you found some mods that worked for you. An amp will make a noticeable improvement. It's been a while since I heard my set, so I can't tell you HOW exactly the sound gets better, just trust me, it does.
Thank you. It's muddying the water unnecessarily....
I'm glad you found some mods that worked for you. An amp will make a noticeable improvement. It's been a while since I heard my set, so I can't tell you HOW exactly the sound gets better, just trust me, it does.
Is there an amp that you like? I may try and sort through @forge457 's post to see if I can get some ideas there. Would probably try and keep it a bit more on the cheap side at this point.
Is there an amp that you like? I may try and sort through @forge457 's post to see if I can get some ideas there. Would probably try and keep it a bit more on the cheap side at this point.
yeah...there's a relatively cheap amp I like a lot. It doesn't get a lot of love, but the AKG HP4e is a pretty damn good.
Pros: 4 out put channels, fed by 2 inputs. So you can have 2 sources plugged in and toggle between them easily, AND you can have 4 headphones plugged in. If you want to A/B headphones (and C/D two more headphones), this is the BEST amp anywhere near this price...and it happens to sound better than the Schiit Magni 3 for power hungry headphones. I use this to power a vintage T20 Argon and a 600ohm AKG K240 Sextett. I had the Magni 3 at the same time , and I liked the AKG amp better....the magni was more versatile, in terms of using it with lower ohm headphones and iems...but for vintage headphones and Planars the AKG was better.
Cons: it's a few years old...it's very analog, dated?...you get 2 inputs and 4 outputs, volume goes up volume goes down...that's all you need! There is no high/low gain switch. there is no on off switch. you plug into wall, ok? you plug turntable and phone in, ok? you plug 4 headphone in...ok?
You people modding m565 may look at this as to possible ideas for modding the m565 if you find other ideas didn't work to your satisfaction. Not the same headphone but uses very similar driver unit.
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