BrianKT
Head-Fier
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2011
- Posts
- 64
- Likes
- 57
SR225i drivers in Paduak cups by fleasbaby and they sound just as fine as they look.
Glad you like them! I've always thought the 225 is the sweet spot if you're going to mod a pair of Grados...
I completed my SR125i mod project with the addition of a leather headband from Turbulent labs. I am very happy with the outcome. The headband is nice quality and a snap to install. After installing the rosewood cups (also from Turbulent) I did some damping inside the cups and on the rear of the driver with sorbothane, but feel that it took some of the crispness away from the treble. I removed the sorbothane and used some thin felt only on the inside surface of the cups. This seemed to be more to my liking. These now sound really nice.
I would say that these are a nice complement to my RS2e's. To my ears I would say that the bass is a bit more pronounced on the modded 125i's compared to the RS2e's. All in all a very worthwhile project. I think I ended up with a first class pair of headphones, tuned to my liking, for a very reasonable price...under $200. Hopefully this is not addictive.
Voice coil material is Copper Clad Aluminum. This is preferable over copper since its an order of magnitude less in weight.
The drivers use aperiodic damping.
Made in Canada
Nhoord Red
3D printed Nylon driver cover with a protective nylon mesh Diaphragm Mylar with a proprietary formulation coating
NdFeB Magnet,
Voice Coil Hybrid Copper & Aluminium
Proprietary Damping formulation on the back of the magnet cover
We recommend that the drivers be press-fitted into wooden cups, with the face of the driver flush with the edge of the cup.
Made in South Africa
@Konstantin690, appriciate your effort in doing the testing.
We have now three independent driver manufacturers and I thought of asking for a driver loan to shoot some measurements.
All three responded in kind and send their drivers for the purpose of this review, so a huge thanks to Rhydon from Symphones, Jaco from Nhoord Audio and Chris from Elleven Acoustica for giving me the opportunity for this to happen, cheers guys.
Some technical data as provided by the manufacturers:
[Mod Edit: Please don't quote entire, large posts.]
Impedance and Phase.
Impulse Response.
Frequency Response.
Cumulative Spectral Decay
Total Harmonic Distortion
I feel like a bigger story would be told if a couple of stock Grado measurements were posted alongside for comparison.
SR80 or SR225 would probably be best as they're the most popular.
I know it's a lot to ask, but would that be possible?
what characteristics do you attribute to "lively" and "dark" amps? Trying to determine where my custom SEP tube amp would sit and which of the 3 drivers tested would be better suited. I'm using a JDS Labs ODAC with Raspberry Pi and have typically used Klipsch speakers.. It's a very clean setup, transparent, but not clinical. So I guess "lively"?
@Konstantin690, remember a ways back you and I were having a disagreement about the PX-100ii driver? Was wondering if you ever measured a few to see if they really vary that much since it was the driver that many were using at first before we started to find that there seemed to be really varied impressions between builds.