I will counter your opinion with my own; You are wrong. As someone who has done numerous bass mods on various headphones from Grado, beyerdynamic, Sennheiser, and AKG including my currently owned Q701, I can tell you first hand that if I had my micro iCAN SE at the time of owning them, I would have spent more time enjoying the music and zero time pissing around with foam, felt, sticky tack and the likes. I am fortunate that I picked up my Q701 after obtaining the micro iCAN SE. Truth be told, after hearing the K701 if it weren't for the iCAN SE and it's magical XBass I would not have considered purchasing the Q701 at all; Glad I did, phenomenal headphones, and I only paid $150 CND! Using the lowest XBass setting has far better control, impact, and sub bass weight than the mod which in comparison sounds muddy, boomy, and alters the rest of the sound presentation to the point that (IMO) they aren't the Q701 any more. Sorry, but losing some depth and midrange is unacceptable! On a side note, using the highest XBass setting, the Q701 takes it like a boss with excellent control vs other headphones in my inventory (such as the HD 600). I will say this, digital bass boost and tone controls are less than stellar. My 2 cents.
Speaking of iFi, while the pairing of the micro iCAN SE and the Q701 is fantastic, adding the micro iTube2 into the chain is nothing short of magical! I am not going to spoil too much because I want to save the good stuff for it's review, but I will say that the iTube2 in conjunction with the lowest XBass setting is extremely satisfying adding both impact and weight as well as texture! The added warmth and air both tamed and opened up the treble, taking down the edge a notch yet expanding the spectrum! And mids... wow... simply put, gorgeous! Not to mention the expanded depth. My iFi stack and the Q701 is a match made in heaven!
And while I have ya all reading, I may as well mention the mods I have done. The first one is a simple one; Doubling up the foam ring. This helps take the edge off the upper mids and lower treble, the area I am sensitive too. The second was upgrading the cable to a better quality and more manageable length. I got a nice silver 1.5m 5N OCC copper cable which definitely sounds a touch better than the horrible unusable length stock cables. But the biggest change was this:
So what I did was cut out the stupid raised bumps with a surgical scalpel and carefully cleaned up the area. I then took 1/8" craft felt with an adhesive backing and traced out the shape of the headband. After I took that shape and traced it out onto the genuine high quality leather I picked up at a craft store. I had black but it wasn't as rugged as the dark green (which looked like it was recycled from a couch factory). Anyway, I used brush on rubber cement and put a thin layer on the top of the felt and underside of the leather and joined the two. While the glue was still wet I pulled off the backing of the felt and placed it on the headband, and let it dry overnight. The result is like over 9000% increase in comfort! I figured using a layer of padding in between the headband and the leather would add to the comfort and I believe I made the right choice. Plus, at any time I want to upgrade the pad or swap out after wear I can easily do so because the adhesive on the felt is strong enough to indefinitely hold the pad on with normal use, yet it's bond is weak enough I can easily peel off and would probably have no damage to the headband's leather. Booya! Screw you Quincy Jone and AKG for your stupid decision to add bumps! I showed you!
