[Philimon]

Anybody seen @takato14 ? I sent a PM and no response. I understand he is a busy guy so not too worried. Just have not had any update from him in awhile in regards to the vintage ortho tour.

edit: Im guessing that like me, he has a alternate email that he uses for random schitt and doesnt check the inbox regularly so wont notice he has an internet forum notifications for some time. I usually check my alt/spam email only once a week so its understandable.

Update. No response from takato14 yet. I even went so far as to ask wualta (humble brag name drop) who was very kind in his response. Unfortunately he does not know our takato.

I was able to obtain tak’s phone number from (vtory) so sent him a text just a little while ago. Hopefully a reply soon!

edit: correction

 

[khbaur330162]

I think reducing damping might help alleviate ringing. Maybe try experimenting with this @Philimon

 

[Philimon]

I think reducing damping might help alleviate ringing. Maybe try experimenting with this @Philimon

I think the exact opposite, but I will definitely give no damp a try.

 

[khbaur330162]

Whoa, I think you are right. I reduced damping one layer thinking it made it better but then I replaced the damping layer and added another and I think it's better, but treble is pronounced? Ringing is still there but less wincing I think, but now I'm EQ'ing >6.5kHz down 1dB or so. Hrm.

Chinese pads may have been lost in the mail. We will see if they turn up eventually and hopefully the can alleviate overdone treble with overdamping.

 

[Philimon]

Damping is a balance of compromises and preferences. EQ helps.

I want to try measurings the differences in CSD and distortion from no damping to overdamping. And to try measuring the effects of the enclosure.

 

[Philimon]

Edit: nevermind. T. Is still afk

 

[khbaur330162]

New pads arrived. They are decent. Not as bright as Brainwavz sheepskin, imo. Still assessing. Midrange is not as titled upwards. Bass has very interesting qualities. Hearing new things in bass with these pads, and it sounds pretty good for these drivers. Intricate bass at times.

Foam damping for YH-100's is . I'm using magic eraser sponge cut in half. Seems to cut down on sibilance. Maybe more detailed? Interesting.

 

[Philimon]

Update: T. resurfaced. He has been busy irl. Vintage ortho tour impressions are back on. HP-1a will be forking on its own adventure to compare to a modded HP-1a!

Other news: I bought a YH-1. Excellent condition with box.
Stock YH-1 vs stock 6XX on my flate plate coupler. EARS measurements maybe later.

edit: 2kHz reduction with EQ sounds NICE. Best sounding stock YH-1 I've heard. I think its because the pads are in excellent shape. And obviously the stock damping can't be in too bad of shape because look at that bass extension.

 

[khbaur330162]

I am thinking no damping is actually good for ringing in YH-100 again, seems less sibilant to my ears with no damping, at least for YH-100. YH-1 doesn't seem to care as much, sounds about the same with no damping and magic eraser damping as far as sibilance is concerned. Must try with HP-1A, not tested those yet.

Ok Arya's are next level. I keep thinking YH-100's are just as good, but Arya's are actually another level or two up in certain respects. Like crazy texture to notes sometimes, super bold and just relentlessly fast attack. YH-100's sound more like a bad speaker and less like hyper reproduced music in direct comparison with these notes. But then the next day I'm listening to Arya's and I'm just like "No, something is wrong," and I switch to YH-100's and it's like "Ahhh." Arya's have their moments, but YH-100's are fast on their heels despite lower technical prowess. There's just a magical musicality to Yamaha ortho's. I listen to T50RP's, or transplanted TDS-15's... even B&O U70's. They are gooooood, but I get bored? I switch over to any of the Yamaha's, YH-1, HP-1A, YHD-3, YH-100... and it's like "Holy crap" levels of audio bliss. These Yamaha ortho's just hit some invisible threshold that makes me believe they are worth listening to, Idk. I've been tuning vintage ortho's for 3 or 4 months now; just a non-stop audio discovery extravaganza, like all my free time goes to this haha. So much fun.

YH-100's are getting a recable and I'm afraid. Head-fi member leepeery told me to recable YH-100's with silver plated OCC copper, Acrolink branded. Today I unbraided the 8 core braid for the y split, then re-braided two lines of 4 for each cup. I also sheathed everything with paracord 550. I have the expensive plug, just waiting on Mundorf solder. I am scared, tbh. I have recabled headphones before and completely ruined them, they sounded completely different and 100% ruined. Reading reviews of silver plated OCC reveals that it might be bright? YH-100's do not need to be any brighter... But then I have an audiophile friend saying Silver plated OCC is warm. @_@ Honestly I don't know why I'm taking the chance, YH-100's are perfect rn. New Chinese pads don't have same midrange glare as Brainwavz sheepskin. I never noticed midrange glare until these new pads, Brainwavz sheepskin sound badddd, Idk why I loved that combo so much. The new Chinese pads are very good. Better bass, detailed bass, not quite as open and spacious, but better tuning, imho, and less offensive midrange glare. Very close to perfect tuning for YH-100, imho. I stil EQ midrange down a bit. I referred to EARS measurements and attempted to bring midrange down linearly across 1k-6.25kHz. Sounds really, really good. I'm afraid to send YH-100's to @Philimon because the left driver does not extend in the bass which he will definitely uncover with measurements. I always just averaged the two channels and it looks normal in the graphs I posted. The left driver is foobar, but they sound so good I just ignore the measurements. There is a YH-100 driver on eBay which I have considered purchasing and replacing left driver with. Not sure it's worth it to me just for the measurements, it sounds so good as is. I guess with Chinese pads YH-100's could stand to get a TAD brighter if it meant better detail and soundstage or something, but... grrrrrrr.

 

[Philimon]

This YH-1 is in excellent condition inside and out.

Interesting results on fpc.:
1. Bass extension did not require rear driver damping.
2. Bass extension was very much seal dependent.
3. 2kHz resonance disappeared with enclosure removal
4. 2kHz resonance did not reappear after applying micropore tape to rear of driver. Possibly meaning 2kHz is entirely enclosure related. This is corroborated by my “sealed” enclosure experiment (see sbaf).

Graphs incoming.
Edit: I did use driver baffle and pads. Just not rear cups.

 

[Philimon]

YH1 stock VS Loki EQ 2k@7

This is how I had listened to the YH1 over the past couple days. Each time fatigue would set in, the same fatigue I felt from all the Yams. Presumably from 2kHz resonance. EQ helps reduce the amplitude but doesn't stop the source of resonance. With EQ, YH1 has that "richness" that we find in vintage ortho. I imagine it like how people describe tube amps. Just a little more texture and depth, mainly in the midrange here with YH1. On the Fostex T30 it's palpable from bass through mids.

 

[khbaur330162]

Listening to stock HP-1's rn. They are NOT sibilant... There is not really even a hint of "sssss" region harshness. Is this the same as 2kHz ringing? I'm actually starting to think the problems I'm having are 100% transplant related and we are talking about different things.

Stock HP-1's never sounded this bad to me despite no sibilance, though. I looked at them way less harshly before. I lent my transplanted YH-1's to that audiophile friend of mine again so I can't compare them to stock HP-1's right now, but these HP-1's have a dull midrange imho, image seems small or something, treble is muddled. Pretty blah. Transplanted YH-100's and HP-1A's just seem to have less enclosure and earpad noise and stuff, like literally less midrange and treble MUFFLING to my ears, much clearer, but add slight sibilance with 5% of poorly mastered music. This sibilance is what keeps me from being even more annoying praising vintage Yamaha's. I am at a loss. Earpads can help, but nothing fully solves the issue unless there's some unobtanium earpad with amazing acoustical properties. Who knows, maybe I need to create ported chambers behind the drivers and like damp the ports ala stock config. I'd like to retain benefits of transplant yet smother sibilance completely, but seems very difficult.

 

[Philimon]

- Attached are distortion plots for YH-1 stock, ob (open back), and obmp (open back but with micropore tape).
- Positioning, inputs and outputs all left alone in between measurements.
- FWIW + grains of salt etc
- Distortion spike patterns in the higher frequencies is something do with my fpc. wip
- I took multiple trial measurements from each headphone layout, and these graphs shown are more or less representative of the average trends. Same with frequency response and CSD (coming up).

 

[Philimon]

I made these CSD graph's limits slightly deeper than normal to make more evident patterns of resonance, so some of these smaller ridges like at 9kHz are maybe actually largely inaudible to us. I'm refraining from using the word "ringing" because I need to look up the definitions (thanks vtory).

As you can see there are two main areas of resonance at 1.5kHz and 2.5kHz.

As seen in "ob", removing the enclosure removes the 2.5kHz resonance, but the 1.5kHz resonance grows larger. Does this mean 2.5kHz is an enclosure issue, and 1.5kHz is a driver issue? Without the enclosure and damping materials the driver would no longer have the acoustic impedance to slow its movements which would cause inherent driver ringing to persist longer without resistance.

In theory with "obmp", micropore tape reduces airflow which basically makes it harder for the driver to move thus damping the driver's 1.5kHz resonance. I'd expect there would be some trade offs because if you compare CSD of "stock" vs "obmp", you can see where some things have improved and other's made worse. In previous mods, subjectively, placing dense damping materials further away from the driver always sounded a little more open / clearer...

 

[Philimon]

So, let's see what happens when we do a basic mod oft recommended which is filling the cups with felt. See attached (mod2).

- Compared to stock CSD, we see some improvement.
- Compared to stock distortion, we see a little worse. This felt is pretty porous and I could've squeezed a little more in. Less acoustic impedance vs stock damping Id wager. Ill try adding micropore tape to cup vents.
- Frequency response is mostly the same.

Compared to stock from memory with EQ applied to both (2k@7):
- mod2 doesnt sound as fast (treble)
- bass is more potent (more macrodynamic) - upper mids harshness / glare a little less evident (but maybe thats placebo / bias from graphs).
- Havent listened long enough to decide on fatigueyness but I feel its tamed some and will only be noticeable with extended listening.

I bought a second YH-1 so I can do side-by-side a/b comparisons from this point on. I also want to compare unit to unit variations.

I ordered some stand-off screws so I could make the cups more open for mod3... without resorting to hole drilling or driver transplants.