[GermanGuy]

I would be happy to get some community advice:

I spent more than one year now modding grado headphones and want to start posting my results and ideas to give something back to the community i have learned so much from.

- I started with making custom bowls that greatly improve bass and soundstage while they can be tuned to the personal sound preferences
- i then tested modifications of the headband to get it and the overall comfort improved
- a way to modify the grado cable with the result of a soft, very flexible cable
- evaluation of venting and materials / dampening the driver
- an easy sytem to build grado style and / or mod grado headphones including custom easy to make aluminium housing with inner wooden body, everything is replaceable, the only fixed connection are the soldering points cable - driver
- wooden inlays for standard grados
- four sample headphones to post complete mods

This post is also intended to put some pressure on me to start as there is a lot to prepare for the posts.

So my questions:

- hope i am welcome here
- Do you prefer everything to be posted in this thread ?
- is a new thread sensefull to keep things together ?
- for me it would be much easier to attach pdf's for the different topics - would this be ok?

I would be happy to get some recommendations for
- a good source for flexible pure silver cable
- small male/female connectors to get the cable changeable (at the moment my favorite is smc mini koax)

 

[fleasbaby]

I for one would be very interested in the info on aluminum cups and wooden inner sleeves, as well as the info on wooden inner sleeves for standard Grados...I would say this is the best place...either here or the DIY forum.

 

[fleasbaby]

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[fleasbaby]

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[GermanGuy]

thanks for your response and interest! at the moment my mobile flat has reached its limit so everything is very slow, will start more detailed posts after 4th of may. nevertheless i want to give you some idea of what i have done in this area.
 
after a while and trying to enhance bass quality and depth not only with custom bowls and venting the driver (usually all holes, it gives you the best speed, detail and soundstage i found the plastic housings to be the problem.
 
so i looked fore something round with different diameters, expandable in length, cheap and fitting the size requirements to load a grado driver. i also did some measurement about sizes of driver, bowls etc. and found a silly easy way to build a custom aluminium housing with variable size and diameter:
 
- simply fotofilter rings and adapters !
 
 

here is a picture of my latest mod, its a grado style headphone where i used the grado headband, parts of the cable and sr80i drivers (just today i replaced them with turbulent labs x drivers).
 
it is funny that a step up adapter 49mm to 52 mm has just the size to apply bowls or g-cushions on the 52mm side while the driver just fits stable on the 49mm side.
 
 

 
if you then add a 49mm filter ring, you have a replaceable driver unit, with the next additional 49mm filter ring also with a hole for the cable. to replace the driver with another one you just have to opeb the step up ring, solder a new driver with the cable and close it again.
 
afterr a step down adapter 52mm to 49mm you can add as much 52 mm filter ring up to the length were you find your best balance between bass, soundstage and imaging. at this point you can close the housing by just using a step up 49 to 52mm adapter
 

modded sr325is
 
or as i have done (see first picture) use step up and step down rings 52mm to 67mm to have the (whats the name for the ¨Gitter¨ ?metal part at the end closing the headphone, starting with sr225i made out of metal ??) Gitter covered with wood. (comment - i have leared now that gitter is metal mesh)
 
i wanted to get samething similar to the wooden sound of the big grados so i tried different kinds of wood finally choosing Balsa-Wood (In Germany called Balsa, its the i think lightest wood on earth and easy to manufacture, sounds great, easy to get it to resonate).
 
after trying to made rings with different technics i bought all the tools and learned to produce rings out a one single massive piece of wood.
 
So after you have built the aluminium housing out of rings, connect the cable, insert the wood rings, close the housing and you are ready to enjoy a great sounding grado style headphone with complete wooden inlay.
 
 

 
Thats all.
 
By the way the result is great sounding, you can´t hear even the smallest resonance or accoustical sign that there is a housing, just music around your head. as a short note, everything i did was crosschecked and listened to by to good friends who with no respect to any friendship gave me all the critics and points of improvement you need not to run into a single corner. 
 
p.s. the typing errors are mainly caused by typing this whole post with my tablet, beg your pardon for that.

 

[kvtaco17]

 
Looks legit, I will wait till the 4th for more!

 

[GermanGuy]

Just want to add that the smaller wood ring (see picture one of my previous post) just has the size to be used as inlay for a standard sr grado. As sample i have modded a sr225i by inserting such a ring and venting all holes of the drivers. While sounding SR225i like transparent but without any harshness you get a nice sounding bass with good extension , but ... when music gets louder you hear the limitations of the plastic housing.

P.s beg your pardon but my english seams not to be good enough, what means 'looks legit' google translator has no translation for this phrase?

 

[AHorseNamedJeff]

Haha, with all those numerical values, the cups look more like a lens

 

[kvtaco17]

Quote:

Just want to add that the smaller wood ring (see picture one of my previous post) just has the size to be used as inlay for a standard sr grado. As sample i have modded a sr225i by inserting such a ring and venting all holes of the drivers. While sounding SR225i like transparent but without any harshness you get a nice sounding bass with good extension , but ... when music gets louder you hear the limitations of the plastic housing.

P.s beg your pardon but my english seams not to be good enough, what means 'looks legit' google translator has no translation for this phrase?

 
Sorry, its just slang/meme sir. I have spend a lot of time with the SR225i. The plastic housing needs help yes. I tried dampening it with a thin layer of Elmers tac n' stik and it helped a bit. I also used the same material to dampen the back of the driver. Vented the driver, and changed to G cushions...I'm waiting on getting them back because Martin custom audio has them. (Getting custom wood housings)  hopefully they will be where I want them to be sonically now!

 

[GermanGuy]

Ahorsenamedjeff - Yes, i even had the idea just for fun to use two old zoom lenses to mod a grado then having the options
- variable length and aperture settings for bass adjustment
- full open to full closed operation
- webcam option

To be honest i bought different black and other colors acryl paint but never found the time for a paint job and then decided first to document things before removing the text on the rings.

 

[GermanGuy]

Kvtaco17 - Whould be happy to read somehing here about the results - and also see a picture - for me the martin custom audio products and headphones are not only a technical product - he is an excellent manufacturer and an excellent artist, his headphones are also a kind of art and that beautiful!

 

[kvtaco17]

Should one be a couple weeks! I Gave him full creative reign so I don't even know what I'm getting back lol
 

 

[kopral 21]

Quote:

Ahorsenamedjeff - Yes, i even had the idea just for fun to use two old zoom lenses to mod a grado then having the options
- variable length and aperture settings for bass adjustment
- full open to full closed operation
- webcam option

To be honest i bought different black and other colors acryl paint but never found the time for a paint job and then decided first to document things before removing the text on the rings.

 
good job , i like that..  so creativ

 

[GermanGuy]

Thanks for your comment! Can i assume that you find the whole system of using foto filter rings and adapters creative? Would be very happy to hear that! I tried to think of a solution for all the possible grado improvements without any limitation but can say that this concept and its results are working, sound great, and really cheap. Also all modifications can also be altered because everything is replaceable.

P.S. the answer was also the try to give a polite response to the just haha....

 

[EF88]

Where did you get the brass mesh? I've been looking forever for one