[rhythmdevils]

Maye you should get a 20hz test tone, put it on repeat, turn it all the way up and leave it under a pillow for the night.  If you can't remove it maybe you can destroy it with the huge diaphragms

 

[wualta]

Hm. Fostex loved (and still loves) to use teeny tiny screws to hold their headphones (and subassemblies, as in the T50 series) together. It's all too easy to strip the threads and then you're skunked. I like RDevils' suggestion.
 
My favorite posts about the Kapton NAD concern people wanting it because it needs them. Which it does. And the Mylar ones don't. I know the feeling. I used to work on bicycles, and there was always a strongly satisfying sense of the bicycle needing human attention to work the way it was intended. It's nice to be needed.

 

[gurubhai]

 
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yes, that's why i never touch the inside of the mylar NAD that i purchase from you...
it's already sound good for my ears, but i still end up selling those after found the kapton NAD from .de ...
more balance maybe not, but i love the first time i heard em...i feel this one have bigger potential than the simple mod mylar NAD, atleast for me it's very challenging to tweak something from stock...

 

ortho modder rule #1 Moar bass = Moar potential

 
Try tweaking perfection though, Now that's challenging.
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I'm afraid a pic wouldn't help here, because there's nothing to be seen from outside. It's just that the driver components stick togeter like hell on 80% of their outer sealing area, and if you try to widen the small gap on the unglued part, things don't give in at all. I think they would rather break, must be superglue or epoxy that had been used. I think the reason the driver halfs got glued was that one of the 4 screws had lost most of its winding. Not an entirely competent solution...
 
I think the only possibility to get through to the diaphragm would be using the mini dremel circular saw, but umhhh...I'm rather of the self confident sort with such things, but in this case I rather tend to keep it untouched actually, as no spare parts are available when I destroy something. The diaphragm's copper side areas are frightening close to the region where "housing violence" was to be applied in the repair case.
 
Dependent from the dirt's actual position, the buzz only occurs seldom, only songs with deep humming bass lines w/o percussion, but that one is quite unlistenable then. The buzz can be triggered to go away or become stronger by means of strong acceleration (drum heavy songs, or knocking against the driver). Blowing in the system also triggers change, but is complicated as so much is to be ribbed apart at the front side.

This schuckks!!
I would give RD's method a try & desist from more invasive procedures. The cup plastic is strong but slightly brittle, I would avoid poking holes in it.
 
Quote:

Hm. Fostex loved (and still loves) to use teeny tiny screws to hold their headphones (and subassemblies, as in the T50 series) together. It's all too easy to strip the threads and then you're skunked. I like RDevils' suggestion.

 
Those screws !
 
Quote:

My favorite posts about the Kapton NAD concern people wanting it because it needs them. Which it does. And the Mylar ones don't. I know the feeling. I used to work on bicycles, and there was always a strongly satisfying sense of the bicycle needing human attention to work the way it was intended. It's nice to be needed.
 

They all need me. Send whichever one any of  you comes across to a nice comfy home here in India.

 

[nickchen]

Quote:

Maye you should get a 20hz test tone, put it on repeat, turn it all the way up and leave it under a pillow for the night.  If you can't remove it maybe you can destroy it with the huge diaphragms

 
Team brain ninja

 
Quote:

Hm. Fostex loved (and still loves) to use teeny tiny screws to hold their headphones (and subassemblies, as in the T50 series) together. It's all too easy to strip the threads and then you're skunked. I like RDevils' suggestion.
 
My favorite posts about the Kapton NAD concern people wanting it because it needs them. Which it does. And the Mylar ones don't. I know the feeling. I used to work on bicycles, and there was always a strongly satisfying sense of the bicycle needing human attention to work the way it was intended. It's nice to be needed.

 
Okay, if anybody spoils Fostex screw windings in future, here's my advice: Try another screw of slightly bigger diameter if you have one available. If not, you fill the srew hole with epoxy, warm things nicely with a hairdryer (makes epoxy more fluent), and drill a new hole into that when things have dried.
 
Regarding the 2nd part of your post, I not entirely sure what you mean there, but I guess it was general praise in more lyrical form.

I'd like to second that: Slowly but steadily this thing develops into a direction where I can easely say, wouldn't trade it against an Edition 9, K1000, L3000, O2, T1 or whatever. NoXter asked me yesterday, what are you going to do about your other orthos now, I doubt they will get much usage any more. I answered, it's not just the other orthos...
 
 
 

 

[Kabeer]

Quote:

ortho modder rule #1 Moar bass = Moar patential

 
After a lot of ortho experience, I dont quite believe this. All I agree with is just that it means there is more bass.
The reason being that its sometimes very hard to get to the equilibrium point using the normal ortho modders method without making the driver sound choked or losing that bass.
In which case a more tensioned diaphragm would have already given you the same freq response with much less damping and a more open less choked sound.
Also some drivers just inherently have better timbre than others.
EG, a YH-1000 is v.bassy, but so have some HP50, whereas the HP50 were sometimes good, or some pairs boring, the YH1k was magical, but if you tried to harness that potential using the normal ortho modding techniques of sealing and heavy damping, then the magic dissapears.
 
This was my problem with some of the bass heavy orthos vs ones that needed less damping. Its always about trade off though. The T30 and NAD both have crazy fun bass, but to get that playing at the same time as a good treble sparkle and sounding NATURAL and open is a tough feat. To my ears anyway, im not a great fan of reflex dots, or v.heavy damping schemes any more.
 
The Mylar pair is already balanced stock like a T50, but like wualta says we are all modders and tweakers lol , its like all the fun is gone when someone makes a product right from stock, its almost as if they are insulting us. Ortho heads "Make a product sound balanced from the get go!  HOW DARE YOU!" lol.
The idea of earpads are good too, but theres so much to play with. I do think it had a nice timbre, so I would like to play with a bass heavy kapton pair again to see if I could make it sing using the new side of my ortho modding experience.
 

 

[gurubhai]

^I would still say that having more bass on hand is better than having less.
Though probably I should have been more specific  Loose bass = potential.

 

[DefectiveAudioComponent]

Quote:

^I would still say that having more bass on hand is better than having less.
Though probably I should have been more specific  Loose bass = potential.

I'm with Kabeer here. Loose bass only gives potential to achieve more bass. There is also the potential for a closed-in sound, etc, due to heavy damping. Also, that's assuming that there wasn't enough bass to begin with...
 
The just-about-perfect balance in the few orthos that have it, with less damping, is preferrable to me, because it also results in a more open sound. Also, one doesn't really need to mod those few orthos.
 
By the way, I now think that some electrostats present a cheaper opportunity than vintage orthos to introduce oneself to the planar sound.

 

[nickchen]

Quote:

By the way, I now think that some electrostats present a cheaper opportunity than vintage orthos to introduce oneself to the planar sound.

Problem is, estats is strategically limited to Stax nowadays, which have specialized themselfes to please the listening habits of matured jazz-, classical- and singer/songwriter listeners. I can't find myself there, just being old and ugly isn't enough reason to join that team.  **plays a psytrance track**
 
 

 

[maverickronin]

Are there actually any 'stats with anything resembling bass for a reasonable price?

 

[Kabeer]

BLUETACK IS BACK!!!
 
I seem to have very little time these days, and never got around to fixing the broken joint on my TDS15 frame. So last night decided to bring back my Ghetto-Fi ortho projects as a temporary solution. I know you guys have missed my awesome use of bluetack .
Im using SR-30 baffles as cups just to hold the frame, it also gives it good clamp without being uncomfy (=good bass).
 

 

[nickchen]

I thought you had sold the TDS15??

 

[Kabeer]

Quote:

I thought you had sold the TDS15??

That was a few years back, this is another set more recent. It's really quite a lovely phone. This is an example of what i was talking about a more tensioned driver with good timbre. You get openess and a more flowing sound.
I think the NAD kapton though is an exampe of bass heavy with some very good musicality to it and great timbre. Just back then I couldnt harness it into full range, and keep it flowing sounding. Maybe I could do it now, would be interesting to try, but Iv got too many phones as it is lol.

 

[DefectiveAudioComponent]

Great score for team USSR!
 
Quote:

BLUETACK IS BACK!!!
 
I seem to have very little time these days, and never got around to fixing the broken joint on my TDS15 frame. So last night decided to bring back my Ghetto-Fi ortho projects as a temporary solution. I know you guys have missed my awesome use of bluetack .
Im using SR-30 baffles as cups just to hold the frame, it also gives it good clamp without being uncomfy (=good bass).
 

 

 

[kwkarth]

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I'm glad to hear you were literally floored! I just hope it was a clean floor. You appear to have reached the point where you can detect quality hiding under deficiencies, and this is where the fun starts. You'll notice that even with the crazy response curve you can happily listen to music.. for awhile, at least. Coherence and smoothness make this possible, and the bad side of this is, it can be deceiving. You may think you've got the curve flattened out, because it sounds even better, but you find later that you still have a way to go. All part of the ear-brain education that happens when you own and play with orthodynamics.
 
Big diaphragms are fun, aren't they!
Yes, they couldn't have sold it for that ridiculous price if they hadn't figured out a way to make it cheaply. The only precision part, the only one made from high-quality materials, is the diaphragm. Thanks for the photos-- I always wondered how the ID1 went together. Now that you know how cheaply it was made, you'll be even more shocked when you hear it.

Kabeer is quite correct. If this were a dynamic driver or a speaker cone we were discussing, then yes, the different mechanical properties would come into play and we could speak of the different materials having different sound signatures (although I think the difference would still be pretty small). In this application the difference is so slight as to be negligible. It's just a goofy puzzle the prankster Fostex of 30 years ago is throwing at us. I'm guessing they offered the Mylar option to their clients as a cost-saving measure.
 
Yeah! As my oldest son would say (that's him in the avatar): Where, fergodsake, are the strippers? You think the Yamaha ad is nuts-- have you watched the old Certs commercial I linked to earlier? No wonder the Boomer generation is insane.

If I'm not mistaken, kapton does not stretch, whereas mylar does.  Then there's the mass of the materials relative to one another.  The lower mass might have better high end detail and higher sensitivity, unless they're really close to one another.  Then there's flexibility to consider.  In an ortho diaphragm, flexibility is good, where in a conventional cone type dynamic driver, stiffness in the cone area is needed and flexibility is bad.  Flexibility in a cone type diaphragm is needed at the periphery only.
 

 

[wualta]

 
Quote:

Are there actually any 'stats with anything resembling bass for a reasonable price?

Yeah! I was gonna ask this myself. I know orthos have moved from gem-found-in-a-trash-heap to diamond-encrusted-gotta-have-its and have lost their cheap thrill aspect, which is a shame, but I have most of the formerly-cheap stats myself, and most of 'em aren't cheap and haven't been for a long time. Which ones are still cheap thrills?
 
 
Kabeer, I'm feeling almost vindicated that someone has finally had success using the Stax SR-30 headset as a host for an ortho driver. So, huzzah. As for the comments on the potential of bassiness, it's what you prefer, of course. But a bassy headphone can be simply modded along a whole spectrum from tight and headstageless (the limiting case you chose) to loose and bassy. The bassless headphone can be simply modded  from that to... even more bassless. I think that's what the "moar potential" people were talking about.
There are obvious limits to this old rule of thumb. It goes without saying that by transplanting into a custom enclosure with custom earpads, etc. at great cost of time and treasure, one can transform a formerly bassless 'phone into something enjoyable. It's also well known that some ultrabassy 'phones, like the NAD Kapton and Fostex T30, are much more difficult to tame than the usual Yamaha YH-100.

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Great score for team USSR!

Yes, and I hope we hear more from the Russian team. They've been quiet recently.