[satshanti]

DAC, thanks you so much for taking the time to give me the brief rundown of my options. I'll keep you all posted with results and I will compare the inside of the Dual with already existing pictures.

I had already ordered some cheap felt online, so now I'll just have to source some lambskin and leather to make some proper pads for the Dual. Maybe I'll make myself some mini-versions of these pads I wrote a review for some days ago, which are very firm. For circumaural use with my sextetts they are great, but sor supra-aural use (is that a proper word?

) they might be a bit too hard on the ears.

 

[malldian]

Is there a working hypothesis on what makes a pad work for orthos?

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by malldian /img/forum/go_quote.gif Is there a working hypothesis on what makes a pad work for orthos?

Ah man, where to start? Pads alone aren't the only factor so that makes it even trickier. In general though, you want a pad with an ID that doesn't block any of the driver and you want it to have enough give in the padding to seal well, but be comfortable. In general, leather is more comfortable and will seal better. Suede may be a better choice with very bass heavy orthos to allow a little venting of the bass, but it will also change your dampening.

On rd's YH100s, the difference between R10 and ESW9 pads is pretty significant. With the dampening remaining the same, the ESW9 pads actually have a little less bass, but much smoother, better balanced highs. The smaller ID and thicker padding of the R10s act as a slight bass lens at the expense of the highs and a more closed or smaller sound stage. That doesn't make the ESW9s better pads however, as right now I have the YH100s damped so well in harmony with the R10 pads the bass is amazing and the highs are very good, just a very slight darkness to the highs, but making them any brighter effected the mids in a negative way.

On my YH3s, I have had a much more difficult time getting the ESW9 pads to play nicely. I figured out that they were actually too open and had too much volume in the ear pad to really let the little YH3 driver shine. A nice dense felt ring stuffed in the pad to block the outer most area, but with the ID cut to the YH3s driver opening took the ESW9 pads up to a very good level. But to date, every dampening scheme I've tried on my YH3s has been spanked by the YH100s. I have two more dampening schemes I plan to try in the YH3s soon, but for now I've just been tuning rd's YH100s so I can send them back to him with confidence that he'll enjoy them. Then I'll work on my T10s before tackling the YH3s again.

Working on woodie cups for the T20s before I add those to the cue, but I really liked a stacked pad arrangement for those with the stock dampening. It improved the bass and recessed the mids just enough for my tastes.

 

[DefectiveAudioComponent]

The thickness of the pads of the pads has some effect too. As does the amount of leather - too thin and some bass / other sound goes right through.

The Grundig cable broke again

This time at the plug end. It was a quick repair now but the cable work that was there stock was really poorly made. I hope this didn't affect the sound. It's taken ages to tune it.

 

[malldian]

Is there a general difference between circumaural vs supra-aural?

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by malldian /img/forum/go_quote.gif Is there a general difference between circumaural vs supra-aural?

Comfort. Generally, circumaral will need a larger driver to produce the same quantity of audible bass compared to supras... But I found a nice compromise to tuck the YH100 sized supra pads inside K240 circum pads on Fostex T20s and T50s.

 

[wualta]

It goes deeper than that, of course. One of the big differences is the amount of air the driver has to move to get a given amount of acoustic power from the driver to the eardrum. Supra-aural gets it there most efficiently, but there are always other considerations, including what we might call psychocomfort issues.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wualta /img/forum/go_quote.gif It goes deeper than that, of course. One of the big differences is the amount of air the driver has to move to get a given amount of acoustic power from the driver to the eardrum. Supra-aural gets it there most efficiently, but there are always other considerations, including what we might call psychocomfort issues.

Yep. That's what I was trying to allude to. Also the headbands clamping pressure affects the seal and a high clamping force with supras generally means great discomfort after a variable of time. The same clamping force on circums is spread out over a greater area and not directly on the ears.

Matt, dig in and start experimenting. The pads, dampening, clamping pressure combo is unique for every can, but it sure is fun when your first hypothesis for how "x" will effect the sound is correct! That's what lead me to add the felt in the ESW9 pads. I have plans to wrap the felt in leather and move it to the ear side of the ear side of the pad in the future to see what that does. I have my theories...

Edit: Oh, my forged leather punch and hand sewing tools showed up today from Tandy Leather.

 

[mypasswordis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wualta /img/forum/go_quote.gif Supra-aural gets it there most efficiently, but there are always other considerations, including what we might call psychocomfort issues.

That's something I think pervades the headphone world, and which pretty much always goes unnoticed and unsaid. "Psychocomfort" for headphones affects perceived sound quality an extraordinary amount, at least for me; I do believe differing materials used for pads each have their own sound "signatures." Obviously it's a non-issue with speakers (but then you have to deal with positioning/room acoustics).

Quote:

Originally Posted by DefectiveAudioComponent /img/forum/go_quote.gif It's probably not identical to the Sawafuji SF-16, since the Eagle uses the 8 ohm driver, and the SF-16 supposedly uses the 120 ohm driver. Strange actually, since they look identical. At the moment (stock, with blutak to seal the driver to the baffle), the Eagle has a sad face response, with lack both of deep bass and highs. I suspect / hope that the crappy pads are to blame for the bass problem. It could also be that the 8 ohm driver is not an ideal friend with my amplifiers. There are plenty of ortho tricks left in the bag, so I'm not worried yet. But stock, it sounds unamazing to me. The headset itself has the advantage of the cone that reflects the backwave out of the cups, but a drawback is that there is then less room for damping materials.

The 8-ohm impedance certainly isn't fun to deal with, unless you're running them straight from the speaker taps (being careful with the volume control). And the cone would decrease treble (ill-gotten, at that) compared to other orthos with vented closed backs so you'd need to bring up the treble through some means of trickery (for example the infamous reflex dot).

 

[wualta]

Hee hee. Yes, the infamous, evil reflex dot, the original sin of headphoniness. It will curve your spine, congest your sinuses, render you impotent, and make the Coalition lose the war on terroir!

EDIT: [maniacal laughter] Mwa ha. [/maniacal]

.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wualta /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hee hee. Yes, the infamous, evil reflex dot, the original sin of headphoniness. It will curve your spine, congest your sinuses, render you impotent, and make the Coalition lose the war on terroir! EDIT: [maniacal laughter] Mwa ha. [/maniacal] .

LOL! I'm rather partial to a nearly full coverage reflex dot of surgical tape with just a handful of open holes. Seems the best way to keep the cans sounding open for me or else the sound stage collapses and the sound congested when I try to just use more felt or other dampening materials. My tape is pretty porous though, so I'm not truly sealing off the hole, just forcing 30 pounds of bass potatoes through an opening designed for 2 pounds, allowing the treble peas to have a fighting chance on the western front.

 

[wualta]

Treble Peas On the Western Front! Love it.

It appears that by using porous tape you've combined a damping layer with a reflex layer to damp resonance and prop up the treble all in one. Sounds useful, especially where there's little or no room for felt (as in the Eagle or the Yama YHDs). Did you leave one or two magnet holes uncovered? This is what Koss does with some of their little drivers.

.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wualta /img/forum/go_quote.gif Treble Peas On the Western Front! Love it. It appears that you've combined porous tape (ie, a damping layer) with a reflex layer to prop up the treble. Sounds useful, especially where there's little or no room for felt (as in the Eagle or the Yama YHDs). Did you leave one or two magnet holes uncovered? This is what Koss does with some of their little drivers.

The treble peas was just for you wualt...


Yes, that's it, but the number of holes opened varies with each headphone.

Actually on rd's YH100s I have 6 holes reopened in a distributed pattern to reduce stress on the diaphragm as much as possible. That's with the R10 pads, so I'll probably have to go to 8 holes with my modded ESW9 pads for a nearly neutral freq. response, with the hat just gentlemenly tipped to the bass or the highs become just too harsh on certain electronica or synthesized highs. Then I have the entire back side of the driver covered in the porous synthetic felt. I found this combo to be even better than any combo of Moorbrook felt I tried. Inside the cup I have the same porous felt in the vents and a layer of my cotton batting with a 30mm hole filled with the white, thin dense felt. That's covered by a full disc of batting. That's it. Soundstage is great and the cans don't sound congested or closed anymore.

My T10s aren't fully taped off, the holes on the edge where the retainer ring holds the drivers in has a 1mm gap in the tape, damn he width of my knife blade when trying to do it without removing the ring so they're still under damped... Then I have a slightly oversized porous felt disc jammed in the center opening of the ring. I forget what dampening I'm using in the cup, but I know I have the porous felt on the screens and a disc of the white dense felt in the center between the openings to block the cup hanger noise. I know I have cotton bating, but I forget how many layers and how large the diameter is. The batting is becoming easier for me to damp with because it's about 1/16" thick and has properties that are about half the halfway between the porous felt and the Moorbrook, but it compresses so I can stuff more cotton in than felt. It also seems to do a better job dampening vibration resonances than felt without making the can seem enclosed or congested. Just MHO, but I'm definitely using less felt now than I did before.

What really surprised me with these two cans and their current dampening, is that when I move them from the CR-620 to the op-amp based Audigy, I don't lose nearly as much bass as I did before. The T10s have almost no loss of bass playing the same songs in FLAC or 320kbps MP3 as they did in WAV on my CDP with the CR-620. Previous dampening attempts on the YH100 and all my dynamic cans lose bass when making the move which I originally attributed to the lack of current on the Audigy. I guess having the bulk of the tuning/dampening right at the driver make it more efficient? I'll get my set of T20s and a loaner set of HP-1s in the cue for dampening treatments and make the comparisons again.

FWIW, the YH3 has also lost bass with every dampening scheme I've tried when making the move, but I have never been happy with the YH3 except for the one brief day when it sounded better than the YH100s before I had the 100s dialed in. In fairness to the YH3s, I do have a couple of dampening schemes laid out to try in them, but they're just pushed off to the back for now as I have more immediate cans to dampen that sound better ATM. I think the YH3 drivers need more volume at the back of the cup, or at least more space or a different design to open the vents up more. I can't put my finger on it, but my drivers certainly have plenty of bass, so much so that tuning them in the little cups is an exponential experience and the slope of the exponential curve is nearly vertical. I have a plan for their custom headbands, but it will required a lot of custom hand carving and wood working time or at least 3 milling runs (with 2 bit changes per run) on a CNC router as there is no way to easily make some of the parts with a single CNC pass except on a 4-axis machine and even that might be tough to do and would require 3 bit changes. So, I'll probably hand carve them out of foam first and just "glass" the foam, or make it a long winter project and carve them out of wood blocks to the foam 3-D template.

 

[mypasswordis]

Sadly the problem with the CE-H was less obvious than broken connections at the drivers. cetoole tried fixing them but couldn't figure out where the break in the cable was, which was too bad because I don't have any means currently to fix it myself, and I'll be darned if I have to drive all the way to house of the guy who borrowed the soldering station to take back what he should give back to me in the first place or buy a new one and then eventually end up with two soldering stations. In other words, listening impressions after mods is on indefinite hiatus until further notice. Kind of blows to have bought a pair of headphones and not be able to listen to them.

 

[Brestinder]

I think i finished my k140@sfi mod... maybe i will change driver damping, but now i dont have materials for that.



thats how they look now... i was trying to do a portable closed headphones from that vintage piece of history, and i ended with that open homeusage crapy looking thing

When i gived them air, they sound very impresive, with my zero(opa sun2) they give me more fun than my other headphones, hfi-780, hp1000 ( philips ), ksc35, and some older stuff that dont sound good. Only K340 sounds better, totaly another type of sound, huge huge soundstage, and better everything.