[Moonwalker]

Hi!

I'm using the Beyerdynamic 231 occasionally for some time, but I'm not fully satisfied with their sound. First time I auditioned them, in a shop using my trusty MZ-R30 Sony MD, i was surprised by 2 things: first, the clarity and extension of these phones seemed soo good. But, the mids - voices seemed distant soft and weak. Then, using Creek OBH21SE and DVD as a source, the clarity was even better, but the mids remained quite unchanged. I decided to give them a long burn-in, just to be sure the drivers are not limited in response by their short usage.

Still, after burn-in and another 100 hours listening, they were more pronounced in bass, but the damned mids were still too weak and distant to be in balance with the rest of audio spectra.

My wife says they are not so open sounding as she wants them to be, and according to her notes, they are very bassy, more specific - one note bass sounding, very large air pumping on one frequency, weak at others.

So I modded them using foam with 5x4.5x0.8 cm dimensions after 4 trials in each earcup, making them sound less bassy, and more mids can enter the sound. They are tilted towards thin, cold and sharp sound now, as opposed to the warm sound of HD600 and HD650. But to my ears, after some comparison, the one note bass quality, albeit alleviated, still remains, and the mids COULD be stronger to make them better balanced with to the sound.

I'm looking for some help from you to save these detailed, bright cans I'd like to use in the future. Is there some way to improve their sound qualities, including some specific EQ preset, or other sound mods, preferably reversible?

Thanks a lot
Moonwalker

 

[swmtnbiker]

It sounds like you're expending a lot of effort trying to make the DT231 into something that it's not. Have you thought about simply trying out some different 'phones to try and find a sound that's closer to what you want?

 

[Moonwalker]

Hi dpippel!

Yes, you're right, that's what I'm trying

But, still, I wanted to know if someone was succesfull with some tuning of the 231 into more balanced sounding set...

Anyway, I have already more phones than I thought few years ago I could collect

Moonwalker

 

[swmtnbiker]

Nothing wrong with tinkering either!

I wish I had some mod suggestions for you, but alas I don't Good luck!

 

[mektarus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moonwalker ...My wife says they are not so open sounding as she wants them to be, and according to her notes, they are very bassy, more specific - one note bass sounding, very large air pumping on one frequency, weak at others...

Well, your wife has hit upon the exact problem. These are closed cans and they have all the classic closed headphone problems. I'm sure that EQ'ing would help but that's something you will simply have to figure out by trial and error. If you really wanted to go extreme, you could cut a hole in the outside of the housing and fashion a grill for it. But there's no going back from that one.

I agree that these are very nice sounding closed headphones. But they just can't compete with an open design. In fact, I much prefer my KSC75's to the DT231's.

Good Luck and let us know any mods you try.

 

[Moonwalker]

Thanks for wishing me good luck, guys

Last night I tried 3 more foam pieces to compare the sound produced. The screws holding the driver in place are loose now, they finally gave up, after 10 or more uses

, so I needed to use glue to make them hold it again. I've found the bass will be always a bit one-note bass, unless I damped them so strong they had simply weak bass

Now I'm using quite large foam piece say 3.5x3.5x2 cm large. The bass is quite good, maybe too soft in lower bass, and upper bass is clean but centered around one frequency. Still, compared to unmodded earpiece of 231, they really bring mids back to the stage, although not enough to make them really shine. They had originally valley-shaped response, with mids being the bottom of the large valley, now they're almost slightly-rising-slope response, with small recession in the mids.

Still, any ideas are welcome.
PS: I'm not selling 231 - still keeping them for future improvement

Moonwalker

 

[mektarus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moonwalker The screws holding the driver in place are loose now, they finally gave up, after 10 or more uses , so I needed to use glue to make them hold it again.

Try wrapping some silicone tape around them. It's a lot less permenant.

 

[redshifter]

i coated the driver cups with sticky tac, then used a pen-cap to imprint a rough surface to the sticky tack. used with a meta42 amp the dt231 bass went from boomy to deep and articulate. they are not reference but they are a lot of fun now.

 

[Moonwalker]

Hi guys!

Thanks for the help - I'm just too cautious to make the sticky tac mod, because I'm afraid if I don't like the sound, i'm screwed forever. But still, I'll try to put some putty there and fill the rest with thin foam just in case it'll do the trick.

Anyone, anything else to recommend?

Moonwalker