Spent tonight nearly completing this latest set. All that is needed now is to wait for some Goop brand glue to set up at the cable entry strain relief hole, and roll some leather pads. Got enough spare pads with different sized openings kicking around to trial a few center hole sizes see whats best.
I found the bass excellent as in
earth shattering without interfering
too much with the rest of the frequencies on the earlier AT-701 mod ( was dominant though ), the bass port holes being 5/32. This time on these I wanted to bring that down slightly but I had stupidly drilled the 5/32 holes already. So dowsing the project drawers I wanted to find some sort of metal tube or grommet that was at the next size down to fit into the already too large bass port holes. What I ended up using was some 3/16 aluminum rivets.
I carefully pulled out their pins, cut the tube length down by half and countersunk the outsides of the bass port holes to fit their 3/16 outer diameter.
Then I carefully drilled out the center of the rivet housing holes to the required 9/64 and popped them in. I figure that this way if it didn't work I can go even lower with another rivet housing, and in an ideal situation this makes all the ports retrofittable. I will however ( after some testing ) glue the outer edges in place. Can still be pried out again to retrofit a smaller size bass port tuner later on.
Worth trying if someone is using wood for cups, because once you drill, it's otherwise there for good.
A few updates.
Pressing on some epoxied Sintra brand plastic squares to deal with the shifting slider backplate squeaks, worked well. needs a touchup in spots the two part epoxy is not all that great at times.
The installed bass tuners and faces of cups all sealed up around the drivers, I'll glue a bit around the tops when I settle for sure on these 9/64 size holes
How the baffles are attached to the cup faces. This is 3m Black carpet tape which I may regret having used if I ever have to get into these again for some reason. Unbelievably strong bond on the adhesive and also it seems made out of carbon fibre or something. Nice and thin can hardly notice the seam/interface between baffle and cup after the install. No screws necessary with this stuff.
Glue drying on the countersunk strain relief. Used some small black wood screws and have small rubber washers there in between the headband arms and cups. Nice for vibes I suppose but it's very sturdy and not sloppy swivelling now that is easily adjustable.
the veneer on the baffle rears has been oiled with Watco Natural as the cups have been. Tried to match up some of the grain i think it worked well.
Some small veneer squares are going to be added where the old textured black badges were before.
I might not want to gift these away after like I had in mind. Maybe they'll get a T50rp instead. So far these have taken about 3 times as long as the AT-701 pair. I need to go and install some of the new style reduced bass port tuners in those tomorrow also. Bass is incredibly awesome and fun but it's just a touch too bold for my liking and over long term listening. Nice that it can be done after the fact assuming the holes don't fill up with sawdust. We'll see.
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