[Nevod]

Quote:

Well, yeah, he's probably referring to the sort of fit & finish enhancements that are within the reach of an established headphone/microphone maker.
 
Some people really care about that stuff.
 
Really, what we have now is nice, but i don't think our work is done until we can go to amazon and buy a current production ortho with big drivers for a couple hundred bucks.

Yes, I'm talking about such things, as:
1) Angled drivers - that's not hard to do, just make the earpads angled. 
2) Proper earpads - now we have either the non-reflective, but leaking velour pads, or non-leaking, but reflective leather ones. Koss makes air-filled pads, though they are, afaik, vinyl. Who no one makes air-filled pads, coated with thick, non-reflecting velour on inside. That way we both save bass and mids/highs.
3) Proper, thin, light diaphragm. What do we see now? Copper, or even gold traces. Heavy. Yes, aluminium peels off after time, but why not coat it with secold layer of mylar/kapton, so it would have nowhere to go? That, though, is probably not as easy as other points.
4) Driver design. Again, patents on efficient drivers seem to be held y Fostex, so they are probaly the only ones we can expect efficient orthos from. Just increase the open area, current round holes are somewhat too small.
 
Everything above is just imho. 

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Quote:

If someone had some business sense they could make a great headphone by just throwing money at the head-fi ortho ninjas.  Fly you all out to a discrete location in the desert in Nevada with big piles of magnets etc and food and ladies and lock the door.  Great things would happen.

I vote for Reno, Tahoe is just up the mountain.  Vegas sucks.  But that's the funny thing about ninjas, you never know what they are working on or where they are until it's done. 

 

[Armaegis]

And by the time they're finished, you're already dead!

 

[LDme]

guys, i have ussr orthodynamic\isodynamic headphones 4 pairs tds-16 (16 ohm), tds-16 (40ohm), tds-7 (8ohm) & tds-15 , but only tds-7 in a perfect condition, want to sell it - how do you think anyone will buy it or trade it for 1 pair of used headphones? (from another country)
btw - they are all have original drivers & works fine.

 

[wualta]

Whoops, I'm in danger of leaving someone behind. Let's backtrack and pick him up:
 
Quote:

... I stumbled across this site while trying to find out more about my Fostex T40's (originals, not mkII). I have always enjoyed the sound of the T40's, which I use for dance music production rather than just listening. 
 
 I have learned from this site that the T40's are actually quite well respected. However, I also read about a mod that is said to improve their sound. I found a post by wualta but unfortunately it didn't make much sense to me as a headphone noob (what's a 'baffle' for example!). 
 
1. Can anyone point me to a particular post that shows photos of the T40 being modded (if one exists) please? I've been searching for some time now (1045 pages!). 
2. Am I wasting my time trying to attempt this being a headphone noob, or should it be possible for anyone to do?
 

 
First, welcome to HF. Glad you're enjoying the website and we hope this little bit of it will increase your enjoyment. This particular "little bit" has grown unwieldy over the last nearly 6 years, but fear not; rather avail yourself of the devilishly clever search engine made just for the biggest threads by a devilish denizen of Milan: http://headfi.qix.it
 
Easy answer to #2: No, and Yes.
 
Sort of answer to #1: http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/111193/orthodynamic-roundup/330#post_2940546
 
The baffle of a headphone or speaker is simply the board you mount the drivers (woofers, tweeters, fullranges, etc) on. Its job is to separate the two halves of the driver's output, ie, the frontwave and backwave, or perhaps we should say the sound and the antisound, since when the two are combined with no delay, the result is silence. They annihilate one another, though for reasons which will seldom be made clear, this annihilation happens mostly in the bass. We're trying to baffle the evil bass backwave in its quest to reach over and combine with the freedomloving innocent patriotic frontwave and wipe it out.
 
You get a slight improvement in the sound of the T40v1 by removing those foamrubber rings from the baffle, as shown in post 339. You get a further improvement by holding the white factory damping layer (the "diaper") firmly against the back of the driver, being careful not to do this in a way that will block the sound coming through the diaper. I showed a way to hold the layer down with a chunk of opencell foam, but you could also just glue the thing down better than Fostex did-- not difficult.
 
I'm sure further improvements can be had with further tinkering, but it's hard not to stop and enjoy the real-world improvements of these two ludicrously simple mods whilst smirking horribly to oneself. Give it a try (it's all reversible) and see if you don't agree.

 

[LDme]

If someone intrested 4 pairs USSR Orthodynamic \Isodynamic headphones TDS

 

[joelpearce]

Quote:

Whoops, I'm in danger of leaving someone behind. Let's backtrack and pick him up:
 
Quote:

... I stumbled across this site while trying to find out more about my Fostex T40's (originals, not mkII). I have always enjoyed the sound of the T40's, which I use for dance music production rather than just listening. 
 
 I have learned from this site that the T40's are actually quite well respected. However, I also read about a mod that is said to improve their sound. I found a post by wualta but unfortunately it didn't make much sense to me as a headphone noob (what's a 'baffle' for example!). 
 
1. Can anyone point me to a particular post that shows photos of the T40 being modded (if one exists) please? I've been searching for some time now (1045 pages!). 
2. Am I wasting my time trying to attempt this being a headphone noob, or should it be possible for anyone to do?
 

 
 

I missed this one as well, and I've spent quite a bit of time on mine lately.  I will more fully post later, but I'll toss in a couple notes:
 
1. Yes, it makes a huge difference to get rid of that crap between the drivers and your ears.  It's not entirely reversible, but it opens up the sound.
2. I found that foam pressed against the driver killed the bass too much for my liking.  Instead, I worked on some additional damping, and I'll take a few pictures tonight for you.  It's more time consuming and much less reversible, but they now sound much better to my ears.

 

[judy1992]

I just won these..
 

Vintage NOS Orthodynamic Headphones TDS-16 ECH

 
Anyone know about this headphone? I take the sellers praise with a grain of salt & much bravado, but I thought I would try it.

 

[DefectiveAudioComponent]

The wikiphonia has some information on it.
 
Quote:

I just won these..
 

Vintage NOS Orthodynamic Headphones TDS-16 ECH

 
Anyone know about this headphone? I take the sellers praise with a grain of salt & much bravado, but I thought I would try it.

 

[Kabeer]

More proof of the cream coloured HP-3, some photos for the picking if anyone is interested:
http://page18.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/w57196112

 

[judy1992]

Thanks sweetie..
 
They differ from TDS 16 manufactured in Kiev. The same drivers but different housing and cable. Pads from the cheap fake leather gave fantastic results for sound. These cans I'll never part with. They have the quickest attack, comparable with stats, excellent upper bass slam, exceptional transparency in mids. Forget about Grados, these ones are excellent choice for any brutal music, best choice for death-metal listening, extremely good for blues, any guitar music, where the light speed attack is important. Highs are rough and dirty.
 
Interesting.
Quote:

The wikiphonia has some information on it.
 
Quote:

I just won these..
 

Vintage NOS Orthodynamic Headphones TDS-16 ECH

 
Anyone know about this headphone? I take the sellers praise with a grain of salt & much bravado, but I thought I would try it.

 

[EddieE]

 
Quote:

More proof of the cream coloured HP-3, some photos for the picking if anyone is interested:
http://page18.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/w57196112

Waaaa! 1 or 2 you mean rather than 3? 
 
Never seen anything like it - very cool. Looks like there may have been a whole range of colours at one point if you look at the bottom of the page of that ad:
 

Source - link above
 
But there is the chance these were never commercially released/ Like you know how when Nintendo announces a new console they show it in a massive range of colours but in the end only two or three are released?

 

[Kabeer]

Quote:

Source - link above
 
But there is the chance these were never commercially released/ Like you know how when Nintendo announces a new console they show it in a massive range of colours but in the end only two or three are released?

They were released, i have seen all of them for sale at least once at one point in a japanese auction of some kind.

 

[EddieE]

Cool. Would love to find a pair one day. It's an HP-2 right? Text says there were four colours. I've seen dark red versions of them in auction and normal grey/black and now cream. So what's the forth colour then? Impossible to tell in the photograph of the catalogue... 
 
EDIT: Wikiphonia answered my question... kind of a dark green:
 

Source

 

[wualta]

Almost forgot one very important bit in benstat's post:
 
Quote:

I have always enjoyed the sound of the T40's, which I use for dance music production rather than just listening.

 
If you're using the 'phones as an audio tool rather than for music listening, you may need to keep the 'phones as they are, because I suspect they were designed for just the kind of work you're putting them to.
 
Now, should you happen across another T40v1...