k so as per everyone's suggestions I've now acquired the T50RP rather than a lower model.
Before I actually got them, I thought the housing looked pretty lame-- visually unappealing, and a seemingly weak cup attachment method. Now that I have the actual headphones I have to reverse that entirely. The build quality on these things is extremely nice, and they don't look too bad at all when you're wearing them. Consequently I now feel somewhat reluctant to go ahead and abandon the original housing. ;_; oh well, it can't be helped
As for actual use, they sound fairly good stock (but I'm really unqualified to judge). Not really as good as my old Pro 30 though, in any area. Even comfort, which I never thought I'd be saying, since I always hated the supra pads on the Pro 30. The pads on the T50RP are totally surrounding my ears but not really exerting pressure on my head, so my ears are being crushed against the baffle. feels bad man. It's pretty much intolerable after 20 minutes, so I really need to find some new pads soon.
I took the cups apart and applied dampening basically similar to the standard method on wikiphonia (felt on the driver, a blob of cotton, felt on the vent, a lot of plastiscine clay along the inside of the cups). result = ULTRA FAIL. It's like the aural equivalent of applying some kind of contrast/sharpening filter over everything. The whole spectrum sounds 'punchier' and more distinct, and I can't explicitly discern what's not there, but I can't shake the feeling that stuff's missing. It definitely sounds cleaner now (everything was slightly muddied together before, plastic resonance is gone now) but it sounds less interesting overall. Pro 30 still wins by a lot-- it's punchy and clear without losing details.
I'm going to remove the wad of cotton and the pad of felt on the vent in the T50RP and replace it with fish foam. The main problem with the stock state was the resonance in the housing, which was dealt with by the clay, and extra damping beyond a basic level of felt might be unnecessary for me. I'll find out soon enough, anyway.
still need to do something about those pads though. gah
meanwhile, have this bad photo of the T50RP page from a silly anime-headphone-girl book I've got >_>;