My K81DJ mod to stop boomyness and make bass clean & tight

[Rick Hunter]

Coated the inside of the cups with a layer of plastiline, it stops the cups from resonating on the lower frequencies making the bass on the K81 tighter and cleaner.

It does not tame the bass, which is always strong and forefront, but at least it turns that boomy pitchless vibration into some good understandable, discernable cleaner bass notes.

Feel free to ask questions.

 

[Andrea]

Couldn't you maybe post a pic of the driver?

 

[Duc]

How 2?

 

[uzziah]

i don't get these mods: does this cause any other problems? is it that you get more dampening inside the cup that helps tone done the bass?

it feels to me that often folks do a mod, then later project onto it the sound that they wanted to achieve in the first place...but maybe not

 

[MaZa]

Step by step pics please! I dont want to break these.

And what the heck is plastiline? Cannot figure any possible Finnish name for that stuff.

 

[Dexdexter]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaZa /img/forum/go_quote.gif And what the heck is plastiline? Cannot figure any possible Finnish name for that stuff.

From the photo, it looks like a variant of Blu-Tack to me.

 

[MaZa]

Well bluetak is certainly more familiar stuff.

 

[GlorytheWiz825]

Yeah, I'd have to say that having more pictures would definitely be more helpful.

 

[markl]

Quote:

it feels to me that often folks do a mod, then later project onto it the sound that they wanted to achieve in the first place...but maybe not

I sometimes get that feeling too.

 

[Lime Cat]

From what I remember, there was some headfier who had done this mod before using Blu-Tack, but wasn't pleased with the result and eventually didn't stick (

) with it. That post is probably buried deep in the "Official K81" -thread.

Was tempted to try this mod when I opened these phones for recabling, but didn't feel like it. Actually I've never noticed any particular boominess, but I'm all for tight bass so maybe I'll give it a try.

 

[Rick Hunter]

First of all remove the pleather earpad by pulling it away from the side:

Now remove the 3 philips screws that were under the pleather pad

Pull the two halves of the earcup apart

Pull the black half of the earcup away from the headband plastic part that runs inside the earcup itself.

Now pull away the central rubber ring so that you have more room to work with blue-tak or plastiline.

Now just make a layer of blue-tak or plastiline inside the cup like I did, then make a small "ring" of plasticine on the inner part of the external rim of the driver housing like in the picture:

Now close everything up and enjoy a finally CLEAN and controlled bass response.

Post Scriptum: to those saying "it feels to me that often folks do a mod, then later project onto it the sound that they wanted to achieve in the first place...but maybe not" believe me: it's not my case: I have at first tried filling the cups with cotton, it did tighten the bass but made the mids horribly honky, so I took all of the cotton away and tried with foam, but wasn't happy with the sound, at last i tried plastiline and the sound was OK.

 

[450]

"blue-tak or plastiline"

What's the difference between the two?

 

[Rick Hunter]

I don't know what blue-tak is.. I used plastiline, which is that thing sculptors sometimes use to make small statues or kids use at school to make small bas-reliefs, etcetera, it is very cheap, with 5 dollars you can buy enough plastiline to mod at least 30 pairs of K81's...

 

[mADmAN]

plastiline??


=


plasticine???

 

[ChaseD13]

blu tak= that sticky stuff to hang posters... its blue, but you can get off brand stuff in any color

its basically like a sticky pudy that doesn't dry out. strange tho, when you do this mod the senn 280s it increases bass impact (i would think the k81 would have enough of this)