Orthodynamic Roundup

[nick n]

Guys I wish I could tell you these notes of mine are accurate, and they are but at the time i probably thought I would recall exactly what i did. 
IF I get around to opening them both up again I will post on it. I know for sure the HP-50 notes are not right.
 

1. The HP-50 notes say I used the yellow rockwooly type biscuits from the Stax Sr-40, but if I recall they took too much out.
   The Hp-50 I found it hard , at least with the billions of materials I tried, to get the balance between the deeper bass and maintaining highs with the gorgeous mid areas.
   It was as though it got close to the point, but the point between too much and too little was a very small area to grab ahold of.
    

 

1. The HP-1 mods I have listed ( closest I have to the TDS-5 ) uses, according to the notes, 0.2 grams Angel Hair per side in cup rears and direct Arctic Bamboo 55mm damper. The Angel Hair deals with stray sound and trebles, and expands in place to hold the damping disc tight to the driver rear. Stock felt damping around the perimeter is intact. the Arctic Cotton is a bit thicker and probably brings out the highs more ( I know it does ) than the Arctic Bamboo.

 
Just my experience though, really looking forward to what you guys come up with.
 
Thanks for posting these things up it's got my enthusiasm back !
 
And the Unipolars, really curious to see how that goes, maybe you have to reduce the pad opening down to 10mm holes

 

[wualta]

10mm holes don't sound like a bad idea at all for a driver of that size.

 

[nick n]

you mean the center of the pad  opening right ... It sounds extreme but  not sure how much flex range those massive things have.
After all if they are huge like that and sort of don't have much bass right from the factory, this will obviously mean they are tensioned tight and don't have the large throw range. So that limits what can be done, it gets all  jumbled up in my mind dealing with things like that. Only thing left is to focus what you can or have already"qualitied up a bit " from internal damping schemes.
 
Am i right or wrong? ( c'mon I 'kin take it )
Any extraneous help in the way of focusing bass levels up would help, trying different pads would be the easiest change to make quickly with different specs in the opening.
I dunno if that's what Vid is after though

 

[vid]

They extend 'flat' to 40 Hz, which is enough bass for me. I'm mainly concerned about keeping the drivers healthy without using a moisture/dust guard at the back of the driver. Need to stuff the gaps between driver and cup with foam or something to prevent hairs and moisture from getting around to the back. Also, I thought the sound was better when I bunched up the (AKG) pad to an oval shape, kinda like on the SR-007, that left some of the baffle holes exposed. Need to experiment with that and do some measurements to see if there's an actual improvement in sound, and if so, to decide whether to cover the leftover baffle holes or not (they'd kinda help air out the moisture I guess). Might also try some pantyhose as dust guards for the baffle, who knows.

 

[wualta]

Quote:

Am i right or wrong? 

I'd say you're exactly right. Plus there's the "different path lengths causing interference" thing going on. The small hole is like an inverse phase plug as well as a way to concentrate the bass. Would probably help if the baffle hole were that size too, but not vital.
 
But as you and fellow Canadian Burton Cummings say, Vid has his own way to rock with this headphone. Let's see what he comes up with.

 

[vid]

It's Bass City with you two...

 

[nick n]

Nah not that bad

 
I just have had less than stellar bass results with some of my giant driver ( 70mm ) single ended electrets because they are tensioned too much due to having to be so close to the stators for it to function . That Sennheiser is likely a different beast all together though.

 

[Dyaems]

i ended up just using an open-cell foam for the TDS-5M because whenever i put any cotton material, or even that chamois cloth, treble goes up like crazy! it sounds very unnatural. maybe it really needs a recable or something. i will stop modding it for now, until the owner gets to have a listen to it.
 
in other news, currently doing the ES7 SFI transplant =)
 

 
i hope it sounds decent though! since i only have a small space to work with inside the cups 

 

[nick n]

Quote:

in other news, currently doing the ES7 SFI transplant =)
 

 
i hope it sounds decent though! since i only have a small space to work with inside the cups 

I guess that guarantees decent bass then if it is a small cavity( growling rumbly type  that unscrews all the headband screws the first time you try these ) There I go again with the bass hahaha.
Unless it reflects too much trebles.
 
So what sort of  space do you have to deal with again 5 mm or more?less?
Is that bluetack in all the baffle side holes?
Is there any other vents once the baffles mount to the cups you need to toy with? You going to seal that up also with any sort of gasket? 
Keeping them closed back?
 
These are those white ones aren't they?
 
I wonder how close the HP-1 and TDS-5 actually sound. I did find the HP-1 to be easily trebled through the roof, but it would be nice to hear them in an A/B setting stock. There's got to be SOMETHING that will deal with that TDS-5 in addition to foam. Even less dense craft felt no good?
 Wool pads? I still haven't made any custom felts yet, all I was planning to do was get an old surplus wool jacket and shrink it in the wash using hot water then heat to dry it.
 
sorry about the 40 questions a guy needs to know. ( me

)
 I have the ESW9 imitation woodies to toy with soon ( thanks to a great member here affording me that opportunity ), might be a similar build in some aspects .

 

[Dyaems]

Quote:

I guess that guarantees decent bass then if it is a small cavity( growling rumbly type  that unscrews all the headband screws the first time you try these ) There I go again with the bass hahaha.
 
So what sort of  space do you have to deal with again 5 mm or more?less?
Is that bluetack in all the baffle side holes?
Is there any other vents once the baffles mount to the cups you need to toy with? You going to seal that up also with any sort of gasket? 
Keeping them closed back?
 
These are those white ones aren't they?
 
I wonder how close the HP-1 and TDS-5 actually sound. I did find the HP-1 to be easily trebled through the roof, but it would be nice to hear them in an A/B setting stock. There's got to be SOMETHING that will deal with that TDS-5 in addition to foam. Even less dense craft felt no good?
 Wool pads? I still haven't made any custom felts yet, all I was planning to do was get an old surplus wool jacket and shrink it in the wash using hot water then heat to dry it.
 
sorry about the 40 questions a guy needs to know. ( me

)
 I have the ESW9 imitation woodies to toy with soon ( thanks to a great member here affording me that opportunity ), might be a similar build in some aspects .

 
Haven't tried felt, but that is the next material that i will play around with inside the TDS-5. Although it still sounds abit off to me, I will let the owner hear first with what i did so far with his TDS-5. Not sure where I can source wool here haha...
 
Although im not 100% sure because it has been about 6 months ago when i first tried a stock HP-1, the stock hp1 already has more bass content than the stock TDS-5 since when i first tried the HP-1 , first thing i said to myself is that it has abit too much bass for my tastes while my impression of the TDS-5 is that it needs abit more bass because it is just "enough" for me.
 
I can't tell for now how much space can be worked inside, although if i were to guess using the thickness of the arcitc cotton, you can put around 2-4 layers into the cups. I only placed one for now though as an initial dampening to see how it sounds.
 
Its not blutak but its actually oil-based modeling clay. I never removed it because it gave very good results when it is still using the ES7 drivers before it died.
 
I won't be playing around with any vents from the baffle side for now, but I can make one or a few if needed since the blue-white-blue clay at the bottom of the SFI driver's soldering point doesn't have accoustic paper in front. I can make a small hole from those three.
 
Yep, I'm going to keep them closed-back for portable use besides the bass port beside the part where the wire is going inside. 
 
Yes, the driver frame is white but the baffle is black since the baffle is from an ES7 with driver failure. The owner took the white baffle along with the driver in order to make his ES7 working again.
 
Fake esw9? from BMF?

 

[Dyaems]

Just finished the SFI transplant with alot of mistakes lol... it works fine though, so its all good!
 
After I had someone remove the ES7 grills, I placed a double sided tape on where the driver is placed to prevent the drivers from moving when accidentally touched.

 
 
Heres another pic

 
Drivers when placed. I need to remove Nick's "magic foam" because it doesnt fit inside the ES7 cups and i will make use of that in another headphone..

 
Another pic. I can make a vent on that blue-white-blue part above since it is made of clay.

 
Another pic

 
Testing

 
The "fail cable but it works" for it. It is fail because it is the first time I do something like this kind of cable. It is barely even twisted because it will be too short.
 

 
After soldering the wires wrongly, I show you the cups. I placed one layer of arctic cotton for testing purposes. Also did the famous "headband mod" afterwards since I hate the fit of the ES7 xD

 
HD25 velour pads. I have 2 pairs of it lying around so why not use it haha... Will change to leather/pleather/leatherette if they sound better but the white theme is lost forever =(

 
Finished product with matching white DAP xD

 
Now my room and computer table is too dirty I need to clean them now...

 

[nick n]

They look great, and the drivers look like they were placed stock from the store
 
  I never thought about the HD25 pads always assumed they were too small for stuff but they look good actually, even the velour is tempting. Could you let me know what the outer and inner measurements are  for those pads if you get a chance.
 
Thanks for posting all that. Tell us how they sound after you rest up. Looks like a lot of work already.
 
one layer of that stuff either pressed to the cup back with thin foam or against the driver with thin foam may be enough, I recall taking most of it out of a few that I used more than 1 layer in. The bamboo crud is a little thinner though.

 

[vid]

Quote:

That Sennheiser is likely a different beast all together though.

 
Get a pair and have a try.

 

[gurubhai]

Quote:

  I never thought about the HD25 pads always assumed they were too small for stuff but they look good actually, even the velour is tempting. Could you let me know what the outer and inner measurements are  for those pads if you get a chance.
 

65mm / 25mm

 

[nick n]

thanks Gurubhai.
 
VID it's just something strange with me, I told myself I would never buy a pair of Sennheisers, Ever. Just one of those things.

 
Maybe i was lying to myself though