drader
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2009
- Posts
- 37
- Likes
- 0
Hello - new guy here. I've really been enjoying this site (just ask my wallet).
Markl's posts made me upgrade from my old Ultrasone hfi-700s to the Denon d2000. I performed his mod and did not like the change in bass, so I sort of did a reverse-markl mod in my quest to crank up the boom boom. Ha! If you're blessed with bass out of a headphone you must embrace it! One thing I found remarkable was just how much an affect the ear pad stuffing and position had on the sound signature. Wow. Anyone not happy with their phones should start here! The Jena Labs cable also makes a noticeable difference - its like the notes have more space between them. I really love these phones, and so do my new audiophile friends at work. Worthy of the hype, for sure.
Here's where I argue the d2000 is an OPEN phone. Let me describe how most closed phones are constructed: there is a cup, and capping the cup is a baffle-board. This board holds the driver in the center, and surrounding the driver are a bunch of holes, or ports. This whole thing resembles a speaker box. The front wave from the driver goes directly into your ear, the backwave bounces around the cup and comes out through the ports also into your ear. Here's where the Denon's differ: the entire speaker box is separated from the ear cushion by a magnesium frame. The speaker box is mounted not flush, but with an offset. Some of the backwave goes into the ear cushion area, but most of it escapes out the gap of this offset. How big is this gap? About 1mm x 100mm diameter. Do the math and this is equivalent to a hole the size of a quarter! I think this makes it almost as open as a Grado sr80! No wonder the d2000 leak more than most closed phones, and why they sound so airy.
The Ultrasone is even more interesting in design. I'll argue the hfi design is a bandpass box! I could only know this by doing explorative surgery with a Dremel. Unfortunately the patient didn't quite make it. The driver is mounted so that it is sandwiched between a back chamber (the cup) and a small, front chamber. That's right - there is a tuned air chamber in front of the driver. The driver is mounted in a recess on the baffle-board and there is a plate covering that area; this plate has a hole in it that exposes maybe 1/3 of the driver. This squeezes the sound down... increases velocity to drive it down your ear canal at the expense of midrange clarity. This is probably the most important bit of design that gives the Ultrasones their sound. In front of that plate is a screen with a bunch of small square holes. These holes were 1mm on the front, but 1.5mm on the back (I think). So yet another thing in the way of the soundwave that would have a funneling and velocity-increasing effect. Removing all this stuff left me with a very different sounding phone; bass disappeared along with the fun, and there was a newfound crunchiness to some notes, but some areas in the midrange definately had more clarity. I experimented with the port sizes and air volume in front chamber and realized designing headphones is much less forgiving than designing full size speaker boxes. Moving forward I will stick with dynamat and wire mods.
Markl's posts made me upgrade from my old Ultrasone hfi-700s to the Denon d2000. I performed his mod and did not like the change in bass, so I sort of did a reverse-markl mod in my quest to crank up the boom boom. Ha! If you're blessed with bass out of a headphone you must embrace it! One thing I found remarkable was just how much an affect the ear pad stuffing and position had on the sound signature. Wow. Anyone not happy with their phones should start here! The Jena Labs cable also makes a noticeable difference - its like the notes have more space between them. I really love these phones, and so do my new audiophile friends at work. Worthy of the hype, for sure.
Here's where I argue the d2000 is an OPEN phone. Let me describe how most closed phones are constructed: there is a cup, and capping the cup is a baffle-board. This board holds the driver in the center, and surrounding the driver are a bunch of holes, or ports. This whole thing resembles a speaker box. The front wave from the driver goes directly into your ear, the backwave bounces around the cup and comes out through the ports also into your ear. Here's where the Denon's differ: the entire speaker box is separated from the ear cushion by a magnesium frame. The speaker box is mounted not flush, but with an offset. Some of the backwave goes into the ear cushion area, but most of it escapes out the gap of this offset. How big is this gap? About 1mm x 100mm diameter. Do the math and this is equivalent to a hole the size of a quarter! I think this makes it almost as open as a Grado sr80! No wonder the d2000 leak more than most closed phones, and why they sound so airy.
The Ultrasone is even more interesting in design. I'll argue the hfi design is a bandpass box! I could only know this by doing explorative surgery with a Dremel. Unfortunately the patient didn't quite make it. The driver is mounted so that it is sandwiched between a back chamber (the cup) and a small, front chamber. That's right - there is a tuned air chamber in front of the driver. The driver is mounted in a recess on the baffle-board and there is a plate covering that area; this plate has a hole in it that exposes maybe 1/3 of the driver. This squeezes the sound down... increases velocity to drive it down your ear canal at the expense of midrange clarity. This is probably the most important bit of design that gives the Ultrasones their sound. In front of that plate is a screen with a bunch of small square holes. These holes were 1mm on the front, but 1.5mm on the back (I think). So yet another thing in the way of the soundwave that would have a funneling and velocity-increasing effect. Removing all this stuff left me with a very different sounding phone; bass disappeared along with the fun, and there was a newfound crunchiness to some notes, but some areas in the midrange definately had more clarity. I experimented with the port sizes and air volume in front chamber and realized designing headphones is much less forgiving than designing full size speaker boxes. Moving forward I will stick with dynamat and wire mods.
