[matarua]

Sooooo.... after a 10-year hiatus and a detour in Stax-land and some of the non-TOTL planars, I came back to my original love for the HP-3, and with the help of modern materials figured out a damping scheme that seems to work much better than what we used to do with felt or similar materials.

I've been discussing it with Kabeer privately, and it might be worth to show it here too. I skipped the last 10 years of postings, so this might have been already discussed. In which case I'm curious about your experience with similar materials.

Material #1: synthetic fibers used to soundproof motorbike exhausts, labeled "rock wool" but it's polyamide


Material #2: speaker cabinet polyester damping


These absorb sound and reduce the speed of the backwave, without impeding driver movement like felt does. I can stuff cups full of dense balls of these, and I never get the typical overdamped, constrained sound that is so easy to get with felt.

In the HP-3, I use a ball of the first material against the driver, and then I shape a donut of the second lighter material to cover the vents around the cup. I also remove the paper ring and dust cover on the front of the driver and glue it in place with a ring of thin strong 3M adhesive film, very much like the old Stax Lambda phones. I also change the old cable with Mogami mini quad, but that is probably unnecessary. If pads are worn, there are excellent cheap 65mm spares on ebay, and 3M film replaces the old adhesive.

The effect is surprising: treble gets a slight boost, bass and deep bass come out, mids are the usual warm Yamaha mids. The modded HP-3 stand up very well to the lower end Audezes I have like the LCD-1 and Sine, and I actually prefer them to both. This damping scheme also requires less amplification compared to the old felt-based schemes, as the diaphragm encounters very little air resistance.

I don't have any pictures of the insides, I can open a pair if anyone is interested. This is my cheap, very good sounding balanced planar setup:

Got a set of these boxed like yours. As a designer I love the packaging, very nice in my favourite colourway. Mine has the original card insert also. The HP3s come out looking brand new, so in great condition and not used much. As a stock pair they sound good - and that's where it stops - lacking sound stage and clarity across the frequencies so I guess anything you can do to improve that would be great Comparing to my Audeze LCD-XC which has mind blowing detail compared. The over-ear cups and size of the driver are a definite advantage. But I still run my vintage orthos all the time Audiotronic, Fostex, Yamaha etc

 

[WallofHooligans]

Good to see people still have a love for these. I always felt the hp-2 and hp-1 were just so much better in terms of comfort- I just can't be bothered to use the hp-3 for long sessions. If I need that style in my life, I prefer the hp-50(a) or whatever it was called. They came with the Yamaha organs iirc. There was a tiny bit of extra comfort from the leatherette over the band.

 

[khbaur330162]

Perhaps the most boutique polyamide stuff that I've seen in discussion here is "Twaron Angel Hair" which is now sold under Mundorf. Might be worth checking out if you can find some.

Yes, I use Angel hair to lightly damp drivers, but of course in Sony housings. @ludoo You can have some, just pay postage.

I've been meaning to make an HP-2/3 headphone, but I had the HP-50A and figured it was good enough. I don't believe it is, but just ran out of passion to sink cash into vintage ortho's.

 

[khbaur330162]

Btw, my YH-100's (I believe early production variations) are one of the best headphones I own still. I recently got a Torpedo III amplifier. These transplanted YH-100's are insane. Everything people say about the HD600: "They scale infinitely", "Best of mid-fi", etc. I believe it's all true of the transplanted YH-100. No other headphone has portrayed/displayed to same degree the differences in USB cable, interconnect, power source, or amplifier changes. Every step of the way has incrementally taken the YH-100 from a curiosity which sounded halfway decent to a world class headphone, imho. I prefer these to HP-1A's, RP-18's, Sundara's, Oppo PM-2, HE-6se v2, Arya V2 (non-stealth), etc. etc. I friggin' love the YH-100. Most neutral headphone my imagination can muster without being very harsh/sibilant at all (with the right gear), takes bass boost well, and detailed and dynamic as all get out. Sad part is drivers are rare and don't know what you get until you buy and rip open.

 

[ludoo]

Btw, my YH-100's (I believe early production variations) are one of the best headphones I own still. I recently got a Torpedo III amplifier. These transplanted YH-100's are insane. Everything people say about the HD600: "They scale infinitely", "Best of mid-fi", etc. I believe it's all true of the transplanted YH-100. No other headphone has portrayed/displayed to same degree the differences in USB cable, interconnect, power source, or amplifier changes. Every step of the way has incrementally taken the YH-100 from a curiosity which sounded halfway decent to a world class headphone, imho. I prefer these to HP-1A's, RP-18's, Sundara's, Oppo PM-2, HE-6se v2, Arya V2 (non-stealth), etc. etc. I friggin' love the YH-100. Most neutral headphone my imagination can muster without being very harsh/sibilant at all (with the right gear), takes bass boost well, and detailed and dynamic as all get out. Sad part is drivers are rare and don't know what you get until you buy and rip open.

Funny you mention them, as they are a running joke between Kabeer and me as the most promising and harder to mod of the vintage Yamaha orthos. I had a pair at the time, and sold them in desperation as I could not get any meaningful bass out of them. I strongly suspect they would respond very well to different materials like the ones I'm now using in the HP-3, and you just confirmed it. I also much prefer their style to the Bellini-styled models which I don't like at all.

 

[khbaur330162]

Funny you mention them, as they are a running joke between Kabeer and me as the most promising and harder to mod of the vintage Yamaha orthos. I had a pair at the time, and sold them in desperation as I could not get any meaningful bass out of them. I strongly suspect they would respond very well to different materials like the ones I'm now using in the HP-3, and you just confirmed it. I also much prefer their style to the Bellini-styled models which I don't like at all.

Yes, I believe YH-100's do benefit from the Angel Hair. I went back and forth between having damping layers and not having damping layers and eventually moved over to simply damping all YH-100 drivers (I have two other pairs, different production periods) very lightly with some Angel Hair. Bass is barely sacrificed but you still get the cleanliness, tonality, and spaciousness of a damped housing, ime.

I had a pair at the time, and sold them in desperation as I could not get any meaningful bass out of them.

Here are most recent measurements of my KH-100.5's (YH-100 early production drivers inside of Sony DR-ZX701ip frame):

I listen to these with perfectly flat EQ except for a 5dB bass shelf starting at around 200Hz and it sounds sublime. It's already a bit v-shaped, but the added SPL to bass is needed, imho.

Honestly, the difference in detail between the Torpedo III and my old amp is pretty drastic. That being said, if on a budget, the Nakamichi STASIS amps are great budget performers with vintage ortho's with pretty amazing macrodynamic capability (read bass slam). They have bass boost and treble knobs and they're a lot of fun with YH-100's. Yes, the Nak's have some noise with more sensitive headphones and yes they get way too loud for a lot of headphones (even vintage ortho's if not careful), but if you can live with reducing output in your music program a bit in order to crank the volume knob (to get volume pot within useable range) it might be worth the drawbacks..

 

[Drakkard]

I generally prefer to use felting wool (like https://www.amazon.com/Natural-Corr...?keywords=Felting+Wool&qid=1697674078&sr=8-10) to the "Twaron Angel Hair", which i have also. But twaron has had some uses too

 

[khbaur330162]

I generally prefer to use felting wool (like https://www.amazon.com/Natural-Corr...?keywords=Felting+Wool&qid=1697674078&sr=8-10) to the "Twaron Angel Hair", which i have also. But twaron has had some uses too

I started out using CelluCotton 100% Rayon. It sounded very decent but took time pre-fluffing the stuff out and what not, it's too dense for stuffing as it comes. Angel Hair is grab and go and also sounds better to my ears, at least with my builds.

 

[Drakkard]

I started out using CelluCotton 100% Rayon. It sounded very decent but took time pre-fluffing the stuff out and what not, it's too dense for stuffing as it comes. Angel Hair is grab and go and also sounds better to my ears, at least with my builds.

Cotton is worse than wool and twaron, yeh

 

[DefectiveAudioComponent]

Does my old lcd1 and lcd2 count as vintage yet?

 

[GREQ]

Does my old lcd1 and lcd2 count as vintage yet?

LCD-1 came out 2009, so I guess another 6 years should do it?

I think the commonly accepted 'vintage' is 20 years, and 'antique' is 100 years.

And 'ancient' is 1500 years, or at least 1958.

 

[ludoo]

Pics of the Yamaha HP-3/HP-50 damping I described earlier. Have not listened to a pair of HP-50 in 10 years, but I find this pair markedly inferior to the three pairs of HP-3 I have, go figure... Edit: they just need a lot more power than the HP-3, switching from the Fiio KA5 to the K7 did the trick. Weird...

Remove the baffles via the usual 3 clips, discard foam, filters, paper damping. My pads are shot so I will also replace them with new 65mm round pads from Amazon/Aliexpress. Clean the baffles from the old adhesive (a hair drier to heat it up makes it a quick job).

Cut adhesive film to fix the drivers to the inside of the baffles, and pads to the outside.

Recable if you need to (mandatory on these since they are wired for mono), then prepare the damping materials: two pucks of the exhaust sound absorbing wool, two rolls of the speaker damping cotton-like material.

Fix drivers to baffles, then place the pucks in the center of the cups, and form rings on the outside with the rolls.

Close and enjoy your phones.

 

[khbaur330162]

Pics of the Yamaha HP-3/HP-50 damping I described earlier. Have not listened to a pair of HP-50 in 10 years, but I find this pair markedly inferior to the three pairs of HP-3 I have, go figure... Edit: they just need a lot more power than the HP-3, switching from the Fiio KA5 to the K7 did the trick. Weird...

I took measurements of HP-50A drivers (transplanted into circumaural enclosure) and they did not extend into the subbass as expected. I have a hunch HP-3's are different somehow acoustically with better bass extension (possibly other nuances), I just have never gotten around to building an HP-3 equivalent for comparison.

 

[santsant]

My current favourites.. DIY Woodie Ortho w/ New old stock SFI driver and sheepskin earpad.. sounds Fantastic!!

 

[Armaegis]

Oh wow, you hardly see anything SFI these days. I still have a pair of SFI drivers that I attempted to transplant into a Sextett shell years ago.