[radi9red]

And I'm pretty impressed your minuscule amount of knowledge on the headphone mods you've performed really shows that you don't have the slightest clue as to what you are doing and oh yeah do tell me MOAR about the bass. :rolleyes:

To make yourself less of a fool please educate yourself on what dampening does as depicted in the many useful modding threads we have here (especially  in the diy subsection) some with backed up measurements. Please. /unsubbed, what a waste of effort.

 

here you go again.. imagining things about your "to-do" mods by reading what others has done. that's sad

 

[IBJamon]

thumbs up ! Great job brother !. how would you evaluate the sound difference before and after the 3 mods you did ? not sure if you wanna try the 15-20degree tilt mod and the mod7 , anyway both are simpler comparing to the plugs you modded , impressive. crystalT mod the plugs as well. I spent quite a bit of time getting rid of the emanel coating when resolder to new plugs..

also do you reckon the stock cable 2.8 ohms was due to the 6m length or the quality of the stock cable ?

 
I put a new plug on the old cable, figuring that 20ft may still be useful someday, and I compared that way.  The difference was noticable, but it's hard to say how much of that was volume... you know how it is.
 
I just looked back on Crystal's posts... man I should have thought of using the dremel!  I have one of those that I rarely use, that would have been perfect for making an internal port fit  I may redo it at some point to make it fit... but not urgent.
 
As for the 2.8 ohms, something occured to me that I had to check, and it turned out to be correct.  What happens when you loop a cable?  Inductance, of course!  So, since the 20ft cable is looped many times, at least some of the resistance (about .3 according to my measurements) is related to the inductance of the wire loops.  Inductance also can low pass out some of the high frequencies as well, which may explain why highs may seem brighter with that mod alone.  Other than that, 2.5 Ohms does seem a bit high.  It could be the really thin cable they use; hard to say.  Measuring the 6ft monoprice cable was about .4 Ohms, which if you multiply that *3.3, gets you 1.32Ohms.  A 12ft cable (which came with my Monoprice 8323) measured ~1.5 (I'm not home to verify right now) but it is looped several times with the attached microphone cable, so it's hard to do apples to apples until I test again.
 
IBJamon

 

[GearMe]

  To enlighten you with a bit of history, I have done the same mods (with different material) when I had these headphones 2 years ago, I even went as far as completely modding the outter grill housing to get a more open sound from them to expand soundstage a bit as there is some congestion on the low-end playing some multi-layered mixed music. For what it's worth all he did was just stuff felt and add foam dampening and immediately = MOAR BASS, when in fact it's taken away other aspects of sound, does he even know what dampening does? What backwave reflection, sibilance and ringing are? 
 
If you want to do some mods, change out the pads is the first recommendation as earpads are a hit or miss to the sound attributing to the seal around your ears and comfort. The next step is (and I doubt anyone here has the balls to go as far as drilling/punching holes into the housing) is to follow the driver and baffle plate dampening Mark used for his Denon D2/5/7k Lawton mods. I wouldn't recommend stuffing polyfill or cotton balls inside the housing as the housing chamber is quite thin and small, this will stuff up the treble ,make the mids sound funny and cut your soundstage by half.

Quote:

I'm pretty impressed that your vivid imagination of modding this headphones goes as far as 2 years ago.

 
I really find it amusing that someone calls out another Head-Fier for lying about modding headphones when they clearly said they performed the same mods 2 years ago with different material (most likely better materials, given his modding experience)

 
So...I searched on DefQon and Mods.  Results -- 212 Posts in 120 Threads.  Still, the thought occurs, maybe he just likes to harass all the people modding their headphones! 
 
So...I actually read some his posts.  Turns out he knows a thing or two about modding.  Below is one of them where is is talking about modding an LCD 2 R2s (other posts are for modding Stax, etc.)
 
DefQon

1. PS I'm drunk. Very drunk.
2. 

Remove the dampening on the r2, put a piece of 50ppi foam over it. Clarity and openness increased, but one would need to dampen the grill as it shrills the treble a bit from resonance and I ain't sharing my secret how to dampen that grill.
 
At my first real job, I learned a couple of valuable things from a Sr. Systems Engineer that had to put up with my all of my rookie questions/comments...the first was always follow the corporate motto ('Think') and the other was RTFM (reading / research -- a lost art)

 

[kvtaco17]

  Quote:
 
I really find it amusing that someone calls out another Head-Fier for lying about modding headphones when they clearly said they performed the same mods 2 years ago with different material (most likely better materials, given his modding experience)

 
So...I searched on DefQon and Mods.  Results -- 212 Posts in 120 Threads.  Still, the thought occurs, maybe he just likes to harass all the people modding their headphones! 
 
So...I actually read some his posts.  Turns out he knows a thing or two about modding.  Below is one of them where is is talking about modding an LCD 2 R2s (other posts are for modding Stax, etc.)
 
DefQon

1. PS I'm drunk. Very drunk.
2. 

Remove the dampening on the r2, put a piece of 50ppi foam over it. Clarity and openness increased, but one would need to dampen the grill as it shrills the treble a bit from resonance and I ain't sharing my secret how to dampen that grill.
 
At my first real job, I learned a couple of valuable things from a Sr. Systems Engineer that had to put up with my all of my rookie questions/comments...the first was always follow the corporate motto ('Think') and the other was RTFM (reading / research -- a lost art)

 
Agreed, DefQon is a decent guy and his posts have helped me out a few times... he has a lot of modding and review experience, especially with nicer equipment. 

 

[shirazir]

   
To enlighten you with a bit of history, I have done the same mods (with different material) when I had these headphones 2 years ago, I even went as far as completely modding the outter grill housing to get a more open sound from them to expand soundstage a bit as there is some congestion on the low-end playing some multi-layered mixed music. For what it's worth all he did was just stuff felt and add foam dampening and immediately = MOAR BASS, when in fact it's taken away other aspects of sound, does he even know what dampening does? What backwave reflection, sibilance and ringing are? 
 
If you want to do some mods, change out the pads is the first recommendation as earpads are a hit or miss to the sound attributing to the seal around your ears and comfort. The next step is (and I doubt anyone here has the balls to go as far as drilling/punching holes into the housing) is to follow the driver and baffle plate dampening Mark used for his Denon D2/5/7k Lawton mods. I wouldn't recommend stuffing polyfill or cotton balls inside the housing as the housing chamber is quite thin and small, this will stuff up the treble ,make the mids sound funny and cut your soundstage by half.

 
If that's the case then indeed, your opinion is both valid and valued. I definitely agree with you as far as excessive dampening goes on open cans, it's a bit contrary to the nature of the open back design.
 
I still respect everyone's right to mod their headphones as they please but claims such as "20% more bass" in Radi9Red's case are a bit excessive.

 

[IBJamon]

Hey guys... I don't know about you all, but I am here to learn, and hopefully get a better listening experience as a result.  I really appreciate it when those with different experiences come by to offer their advice on how to improve things.  For the record, on the foam mod, I pretty much agree that you sacrifice too much air... my opinion only.  I did not try it, but putting my hand near the gap in the shell was all I needed to convince me there.  I do think a small amount of cutting highs would be nice (after the felt removal opened them up, perhaps too much) but I still would be inclined not to do that particular mod.
 
I hope that modders of all experience levels find this thread a welcoming place - those of us who took the plunge would really appreciate it.  And thank you!
 
IBJamon

 

[GearMe]

Tyll clearly had a defective pair because my pair sound nothing like his chart would claim.

  http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/PioneerSEA1000.pdf
 
the wrong chart was in the quote, here's the right one.

 
Crystal, I know we all hear differently and I'm glad you got a high-quality set of these headphones but there are several of us that apparently weren't as fortunate. 
 
Tyll's comments below ring pretty true for me (pun intended) more or less...as they usually do.  I've bought a variety of cans based on his recommendations and found that his reviews align closely with what I experience listening to them.  The Pioneer's shortcomings don't make them a bad headphone from my perspective -- especially for $45 (good value buy).  They're just not an awesome one (like my $30 M-80s) 
 
That said, I just listened to them the other day with some live jazz trio music and really enjoyed them.  BTW, for me, they sound much better through my Bravo Ocean than my Magni.
 
Actually, your point really makes me wonder if they've had on-going QC issues with the production of these cans...hence, the mediocre sales over the years and mixed reviews.
 
 
Pioneer SE-A1000 - per Tyll (http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/headphone-measurements-explained-square-wave-response-page-2)
This is a very poorly measuring headphone. From the steeply descending 30Hz square wave we can expect a very bass shy headphone; the significant undershoot below the zero line indicates a sloppy, non-tight bass. The general downward tilt of the 300Hz waveform indicates a thin sound with a stronger treble than mid-range, and very strong first overshoot and strong subsequent ringing make me think these will be very piercing in sound quality. I don't remember listening to these cans...I've probably suppressed the memory of a bad experience.

 

[GearMe]

   
Agreed, DefQon is a decent guy and his posts have helped me out a few times... he has a lot of modding and review experience, especially with nicer equipment. 

 
Anybody modding Audeze and Stax has my respect...either you're really good or really rich -- probably both!  

 

[Me x3]

  I really love the logic here, add bit of dampening = MOAR BASS. Not to knock on your efforts but any measurements to back up the claims?

Ok, you are probably right most of the times here. But, I think, asking for measurements to back up the claims is not fair. Imagine if someone ask this simple question to anyone who says something here: "Any measurements to back up the claims?"
 
First of all, measurements are only measurements. Measuring sound is quite complicated and measuring how an unknown person subjectively perceive sound is fairly impossible.
Sound perceived by a person depends on a big number of variables, and most of those variables aren't taken in care when someone decide to measure a headphone frecuency response or %THD, etc. (As you should know)
 
Then I can't get your point asking for measurements. And I'm sure you knew the answer to your question from the begining.
 
Many people here claims things that are not true or at least are very difficult to prove.
Those things are just the result of subjectively thinking and writing. People with a lot of experience here often take much more care after claiming something like "20% more bass"
 
radi9red: Junior Head-Fi-er
DefQon: Headphoneus Supremus
 
Being such an experienced head-fi'er writing to a relatively new one, you could have said the same things in a different way, just to encourage him to keep learning, modding and contributing to the Head-Fi comunity.
 
Best Luck!

 

[radi9red]

Ok, you are probably right most of the times here. But, I think, asking for measurements to back up the claims is not fair. Imagine if someone ask this simple question to anyone who says something here: "Any measurements to back up the claims?"

First of all, measurements are only measurements. Measuring sound is quite complicated and measuring how an unknown person subjectively perceive sound is fairly impossible.

Sound perceived by a person depends on a big number of variables, and most of those variables aren't taken in care when someone decide to measure a headphone frecuency response or %THD, etc. (As you should know)

Then I can't get your point asking for measurements. And I'm sure you knew the answer to your question from the begining.

Many people here claims things that are not true or at least are very difficult to prove.

Those things are just the result of subjectively thinking and writing. People with a lot of experience here often take much more care after claiming something like "20% more bass"

radi9red: Junior Head-Fi-er

DefQon: Headphoneus Supremus

Being such an experienced head-fi'er writing to a relatively new one, you could have said the same things in a different way, just to encourage him to keep learning, modding and contributing to the Head-Fi comunity.

Best Luck!

well few more years i'm 40. i lived thru phono casette tapes and walkman era and my 1st headphone was a used stax electret 20+ years ago. if there's someone who knows it all knows it best, good for him. i've better things to do than to argue and proof frequency readings. what's the point ? i'm not fostex engineer. i don' have to prove to the world.The reason why I bothered to post pics of my mods is not to show off and educate others as if I know it all. it's merely to share since i saw some folks did some mod to theirs a1000 and if others who happened to have the sane headphone as I do did try my mods and had good results, I'll think its worth my time writing threads. I don't really care about having a reputation in this virtual forum, end of the day, I enjoy the experience as a music loving hobby that's all. I'm old enough to realise I dont have to win everytime and comes up with a load of justifications on my claims. To each his own. period.

 

[Me x3]

well few more years i'm 40. i lived thru phono casette tapes and walkman era and my 1st headphone was a used stax electret 20+ years ago. if there's someone who knows it all knows it best, good for him. i've better things to do than to argue and proof frequency readings. what's the point ? i'm not fostex engineer. i don' have to prove to the world.The reason why I bothered to post pics of my mods is not to show off and educate others as if I know it all. it's merely to share since i saw some folks did some mod to theirs a1000 and if others who happened to have the sane headphone as I do did try my mods and had good results, I'll think its worth my time writing threads. I don't really care about having a reputation in this virtual forum, end of the day, I enjoy the experience as a music loving hobby that's all. I'm old enough to realise I dont have to win everytime and comes up with a load of justifications on my claims. To each his own. period.

I'm with you and appreciate your comments and pictures. I'm modding my Se-A1000 since I read your posts on this thread. I'll upload some pictures when my girlfriend finishes the custom "Audeze type" earpads.
 
Best Luck!

 

[shirazir]

To each his own. period.

 
This. 
 
Now let's all move on and continue the great work started in this thread. Cheers!

 

[IBJamon]

Okay.  I just finished dremeling and installing a proper permanent 1/8" jack into the headphone instead of the dongle that I had before.  Looks a lot better (though if you look too closely, you can see some blemishes... but don't look that closely ).
 
So yay on that.  They sound good, too.  
 
IBJamon

 

[radi9red]

  I'm with you and appreciate your comments and pictures. I'm modding my Se-A1000 since I read your posts on this thread. I'll upload some pictures when my girlfriend finishes the custom "Audeze type" earpads.
 
Best Luck!

 
Hey bro Me X3,   seems we are on the same wavelength -   2 weeks back i was thinking of a "audeze" similar angled earpad as well.   So i ordered a sony earpad (oval shaped) that has slightly bigger diameter than the Pioneer Se - A1000.  Previously i tried to mod the stock ear cap by fattening it - but ultimately it's still too thin to my likings and i prefer leather earcups over nylon
 
Just couple of hours ago, the leather sony earcups arrived at my mailbox.  I remove the foam inserts in my previous post mod 7 since the leather earcups will give me a thicker mid and bass with better sealing comparing to the stock ear cups - so the mod 7 is redundant.   With the original 15 degree tilt foam mod, i added some foam allow the sony ear cup to take shape like the audeze earcup ( i like that design - good seal and excellent dynamics)
 
Here's some photos showing the earcups size comparing with my audeze LCD2 ear cups .  You can see the close resemblances.
The back of the pad is much fatter than the front.  - photo showing front & back.
 

 

 
The reason why i felt mod 7 - The foam sandwich is not needed now as you can see - The leather earcups is so thick that it covers up the previous
slot airway between the shell ! ..   Maybe i even has to loosen the 4 screws to allow some more air to flow in to have a slightly looser airy soundstage.
 

 
 
And adiagos guys...

 

[Mickice]

I have no idea what it was, but skimming through this thread the other week it sung to me. Seconds later I was buying a pair off Amazon who luckily shipped these babies all the way to Oz land.
 
I don't know what it is but generic Australian retail stores have really junk headphones in them, even from the better brands.
 
So far loving these headphones, the open air, smooth delicious mids and the bass can really kick you when called.
Really impressive, liking these more than my Fostex t50rp and SONY MDR-V6.
 
Shame they are open and that 6m (lol) cord otherwise I'd wear these to work.