post your grado mods....

[16tons]

Hi, I ve used the grills of two old mics, anyway I have damaged both the drivers and In meanwhile I m using the hemp with drivers of sr60x. I m waiting for the answer of a retailer for fix the headphones

 

[przem]

I have resurrected my RS1 Grado from around 2006?
Wondering what mods are suggested for them?

Definitely looking at upgrading the cable. Anything else?

Apart from headband, if the stock plastic roblocks feel loose you can also replace them with aluminum ones. There's also a plenty of earpad options available on the market, apart from geekria foams there are also fabric earpads by nyczaj, dekoni or beautiful audio - earpad rolling is great for fine tuning the sound, below are some frequency response graphs showing how it changes with different earpads on GH2, PS500 or PS1000e.

 

[Amsterdamn]

Just modded an SR80X. Stock it sounds pretty miserable because of its mid forwardness. I solved the problem to an acceptable degree with memory foam from a trash mattrass. I opened all holes of the drivers, besides the four that were already in that state.
Choose to either cover all holes with the foam or leave these four holes (each driver) partly uncovered.
It sounds quite well now. Try it out if you have an SR80X and don't suffer from a hearing damage in the mid frequencies. It won't cost you much and at least you don't have to resell the thing.
It just amazes me that companies like Grado as well as many others sell such pieces of crap for a load of money and that so many reviewers hype them without telling the public you should mod them plus how to do that. See attachment.
I burned the holes in the foam with a heated piece of metal from a diy store; not too complicated like this, but do it outside and don't breathe the smoke.
I hate resonances of whatever kind, so I glued some bitumen at the backside of the magnet. And as you can see I removed the plastic logo and placed a metal grill with open structure. Looks nice too, doesn't it?

 

[Amsterdamn]

Another Grado I use when riding my bike through the city is an older SR60 (so no x or e type) that I bought second hand. Unfortunately it sounded dull and lifeless. I opened up 7 holes in each driver (good for use in my smartphone, but I would leave it at 4 or less if you have a good headphone amp; otherwise you end up with too much kickbass).
I hate resonances of whatever kind, so I added some longhair wool loosely filling the cup. And glued some bitumen at the backside of the magnet. And as you can see I removed the plastic grill with logo and placed a metal grill with open structure. Then I glued some felt at the inside of the plastic cup.

Share the result if you've done the same job. Don't forget to spend 2 or 3 euros for the cushions from Aliexpress. Not 100 procent comfort but soundwise there's nothing better.
For outdoor use I like a cord at just one side, so while modding I would do this cable mod at the same time. Do use a female connector of respected quality. The resulting hole at the other cup you can fill with a mixture of aceton and the same plastic (use the plastic of the grill you removed and dissolve it in the aceton). Don't make a mess.

 

[Currawong]

Just modded an SR80X. Stock it sounds pretty miserable because of its mid forwardness. I solved the problem to an acceptable degree with memory foam from a trash mattrass. I opened all holes of the drivers, besides the four that were already in that state.
Choose to either cover all holes with the foam or leave these four holes partly uncovered. Sounds quite well now. Try it out if you have an SR80X and don't suffer from a hearing damage in the mid frequencies. It won't cost you much and at least you don't have to resell the thing.
It just amazes me that companies like Grado as well as many others sell such pieces of crap for a load of money and that so many reviewers hype them without telling the public you should mod them plus how to do that. See attachment.
I burned the holes in the foam with a heated piece of metal from a diy store; not too complicated like this, but do it outside and don't breathe the smoke.
I hate resonances of whatever kind, so I glued some bitumen at the backside of the magnet. And as you can see I removed the plastic logo and placed a metal grill with open structure. Looks nice too, doesn't it?

Do you know about the tape mod? Supposedly, the pads resonate at about 2kHz, so if you tape around the outside circumference of them, it'll damp the mid-range a bit.

 

[przem]

I solved the problem to an acceptable degree with memory foam from a trash mattrass.
I burned the holes in the foam with a heated piece of metal from a diy store; not too complicated like this, but do it outside and don't breathe the smoke.

Very interesting! Is the memory foam open-cell or closed-cell? if you have more of it you could check by taking a big enough to cover your mouth, press it against your mouth with the palm of your hand and trying to blow air - if you'll feel your breath passing through and reaching your palm it means it's open-cell. Please let me know as I'd like to try it myself, but not sure which type of foam to use (and I have plenty in my workshop). Thanks!

 

[Amsterdamn]

@Currawong
I'm sorry, but I hadn't read about it, so I just did to see what it is about.
Resonating pads? I find this a little hard to believe, are there any measurements that confirm the resonance?

My SR60's original pads had to be replaced when I took over this headphone, so I can't say anything about how these influence the perceived sound.
In my opinion the good point about these pads is the open structure (in combination with the particular drivers); the Grado's I have (SR60 and SR80x) interact badly with putting barriers in front (or aside for that matter) of the drivers.
As a speaker builder myself, trying to solve said problems in front of a speaker would be funny. Not that I didn't give it a try with the SR80x, but what I expected to happen proved to be correct: that what you gain (f.e. less shrillness) somewhere is what you loose elsewhere. See the beautiful thick sheepskin pads in the attachment that I added to the SR60 just to show them to you; sure they will solve some problems with the SR80x (to put them in front of an SR60 would be more rediculous btw), but you end up with a muffled sound and uncontrolled addition in some lower frequency range. This is NOT the way to solve your problems, I'm sorry.

The issue with the SR60 was more or less the opposite of the SR80x, but both anomalities were solved behind the driver for the most part. The SR80x remained its character, I can't deny. But this is what I basically like in this headphone; the exaggeration is still there but the extremity is now gone. Then it is a matter of finding a good match with a headphone amp, be it your smartphone or some fancy class A amp.

We're not talking dsp here of course. This solves many of our problems easily; however, distortions because of resonations remain; if you don't kill these, you'll never get that 'analogue' / 'organic' (you name it) sound that you're after. And if there's an impedance mismatch or a sensitivity issue that your amp can't handle, dsp is not your friend either.

 

[Amsterdamn]

@przem
I'm not a mattrass expert, but it's definately a kind of open cell. Have a look at the attachment as well. It does not kill the backwave of the driver, that is what we want to avoid at all cost. So it should be an open structure anyway; that hole in the middle is there for the same reason; if you're using the simple tools shown in the attachment you will be able to produce some smooth round holes. For your health consider melting these holes somewhere outside.
Btw, my comments here are ment to assist the diy community only.
Let me know your findings.

 

[Amsterdamn]

Do you know about the tape mod? Supposedly, the pads resonate at about 2kHz, so if you tape around the outside circumference of them, it'll damp the mid-range a bit.

Another point to add, the G pads - or whatever name they are given; it's the ones at my SR60 - are the better pads here. I guess that's indeed bacause of better damping. They are larger too.
I do believe in damping but less in reflection, so personally I would not build too much of a reflecting 'wall' around my pads if not really necessary. I wouldn't want to sacrifice much of the open sound these Grados produce.

 

[przem]

I bought a new lether sewing machine in August, finally scored good quality very soft calfskin leather and made some new headbands recently, what do you guys think?
I've experimented a lot lately to minimize the wrinkling and practicing to get consistently even stitches. Still not perfect, but I feel like the practice is beginning to pay off

 

[Amsterdamn]

Looks great! Wasn't it time consuming to make? Did you try out the memory foam mod for the sr80x? Share your thoughts.

 

[przem]

@Amsterdamn thank you! I spent a lot of the time designing and experimenting with materials, so if you take that into account then it was, but sewing on a machine is much more efficient than sewing by hand, and I've done quite a lot of that in the past Machine was quite an investment though. I love crafting, so it's a fun work anyway.
Didn't have the time to try your memory foam mod yet, but thank you for the additional info and pics!
I'm going to try both open cell and closed cell memory foam as I have both types and they look pretty much identical and see what yields better results. Still not sure which of my Grado cans to use for this, I might go with the SR325e or use the spare SR125e drivers with aftermarket walnut cups that I have laying around in my workshop. I only wonder when will I have the time to try this

 

[Amsterdamn]

I haven't listened to any of them, but take the one that's most peaky in the mid- high-mid frequencies.
Yes, time. I'd still like to order some nice planar drivers and design the headphone for them. Should not be too complicated to come up with something original. And then hope it sounds well without much tweaking.

 

[16tons]

Hi, I have to replace my hemp drivers, here in Italy a couple of drivers for hemp cost over 260€; now I can buy a sr325x for about 150€, do you know if the two headphones mount the same drivers? I could mount the 325x driver in the hemp

 

[Amsterdamn]

Hi 16tons, not sure they'll fit but can you not do a search? In case you're looking for something cheap (for a while) that would probably fit, you might consider these: https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/1005....0.0.71c861d7FRYV2g&mp=1&gatewayAdapt=glo2nld. Though cheap these are very good drivers (titanium diaphragm); these are the drivers that Onkyo used in a closed headphone (Onkyo ES-FC300). Will likely play well in yours too.