SennGrado Thread
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fleasbaby
Member of the Trade: Wabi Sabi Headphones
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Yes, but Tyll doesn't like Grado cans so that probably wasn't a compliment.
LOL...true, true...
burgunder
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2004
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I find the measurements rather interesting, if you compare them to the measurements of the stock PX100 and the different stock Grados and the SennGrado you will see that, the driver suddenly have the same sharp peak as the Grados at 2 KHz. Tyll says that this comes from the Grado pads, but I guess that it comes from the baffles too, so perhaps it would be an idea to narrow the baffle for the SennGrados. Another thing is that the impedance peak of the Sennheiser driver is higher in the SennGrado than in the stock PX100II, perhaps it's an idea to have some foam damping at the back of the driver.
I bought a pair of PX100 to do the SennGrado mod, but I have come to think that the driver is actually well placed in the original housing even though it sounds some what muffled stock. I received some cheap pads from China yesterday, that seems more acoustic transperant than the stock ones, and they have allready brought the treble forward. Next I will try some different holes in the pads(quarter mod etc.) and then I will remove some of the dampening foam at the back of the driver. And finally I will add some felt to the edge of the driver to get rid of some of the diffraction.
I bought a pair of PX100 to do the SennGrado mod, but I have come to think that the driver is actually well placed in the original housing even though it sounds some what muffled stock. I received some cheap pads from China yesterday, that seems more acoustic transperant than the stock ones, and they have allready brought the treble forward. Next I will try some different holes in the pads(quarter mod etc.) and then I will remove some of the dampening foam at the back of the driver. And finally I will add some felt to the edge of the driver to get rid of some of the diffraction.
ipdtt
Head-Fier
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- Apr 8, 2007
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Hi, burgunder,
When you refer to: "I guess that it comes from the baffles too" are you talking about the wood cups, i think yes?
"I bought a pair of PX100 to do the SennGrado mod, but I have come to think that the driver is actually well placed in the original housing" i do too, so i bought two PX100-II one to mod as is and one for the SennGrado mod.
For my mod i used two 1/8"x 3/8" pieces of; http://www.foq.jp/foqhp_e/product/ta32.html on the back side of the plastic driver housing, one on each side next to the pivot arm and a circle/ring 1/4" ID x 3/8" OD that i placed around the
hole in the middle of the black cover on the front of the driver. This high-performance damping tape cleared up all of the muffled/muddiness of the bass midrange and treble frequencies. Just this small mod of 3 pieces of damping tape
gave the PX100-II's focus and clarity, it balanced the midrange and treble to the bass, it has more slam and transparency.
I did one more mod to the PX100-II's cable, i wrapped a 3/8"x 5/8" piece of the damping tape around cable just before the strain relief at the driver, and one in the middle of the cable, and one around the jack.
See Examples of how TA32 is used; http://www.foq.jp/foqhp_e/product/phone.html this is one of the BEST MODS EVER !!! and i have been modding for over 45 years.
In the US, http://www.lotusgroupusa.com/foq.html
The Lotus Group Phone Number: 415-897-8884
And NO i don't work for them...I wish i did.
~D
When you refer to: "I guess that it comes from the baffles too" are you talking about the wood cups, i think yes?
"I bought a pair of PX100 to do the SennGrado mod, but I have come to think that the driver is actually well placed in the original housing" i do too, so i bought two PX100-II one to mod as is and one for the SennGrado mod.
For my mod i used two 1/8"x 3/8" pieces of; http://www.foq.jp/foqhp_e/product/ta32.html on the back side of the plastic driver housing, one on each side next to the pivot arm and a circle/ring 1/4" ID x 3/8" OD that i placed around the
hole in the middle of the black cover on the front of the driver. This high-performance damping tape cleared up all of the muffled/muddiness of the bass midrange and treble frequencies. Just this small mod of 3 pieces of damping tape
gave the PX100-II's focus and clarity, it balanced the midrange and treble to the bass, it has more slam and transparency.
I did one more mod to the PX100-II's cable, i wrapped a 3/8"x 5/8" piece of the damping tape around cable just before the strain relief at the driver, and one in the middle of the cable, and one around the jack.
See Examples of how TA32 is used; http://www.foq.jp/foqhp_e/product/phone.html this is one of the BEST MODS EVER !!! and i have been modding for over 45 years.
In the US, http://www.lotusgroupusa.com/foq.html
The Lotus Group Phone Number: 415-897-8884
And NO i don't work for them...I wish i did.
~D
kramer5150
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2004
- Posts
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- 247
Long read warning... grab a cup of coffee and soak it all in. Its been a LONG time since I modded anything on HF, so this is a kind of coming out party for me.
I've been playing around with my SennGrado mod for a couple weeks now and I am pretty impressed with how its all going. Just a few more tweeks and I think I've got it nailed. Overall goal is to keep the OEM appearance of the Grado SR60i... everything from the 1/8" TRS to the logo button. The Grado-steampunk house look is one I have always liked and preferred, anything else on my head over the last decade to me just looks and feels wrong. (personal preference).
Some goals:
>Smooth balanced spectrum, no serious peaks, spikes or valleys. I normally use a 3db boost at 32Hz on the iTunes EQ, so I do not mind EQ-ing things a little to taste.
>Detail and clarity resolution
>Imaging and soundstage
We are all tone chasers... enthusiasts with an always elusive "perfect sound" in our heads. If I had to describe my perfect sound... it would be a lighter, easier to wear K701, but without the plastic-ey, synthetic/artificial at times sounding upper midrange. A "more organic" K701 if you will. A little more bass oomph would be nice too, but its not a must-have.
Cans of reference are in no particular order... HD650, K701 (Austrian version), RS1, HF1, Koss A250. Just how well will my SennGrado build scale up this ladder...???
My build is the most simple of any you see here, it literally is just a PX100II driver inside a tweeked Grado SR60i housing. With some well known Grado mods thrown in.
>SR60i Earcup inside walls are lined with a small "strip" of blu-tac and fleece fabric pressed over that to damp resonances.
>PX100II drivers are "suspended" into the plastic rings with strips of craft foam. My intent here is to damp driver frame/earcup resonances and vibrations. So at least for now they are being held in place with pressure from the foam and small pieces of gorilla tape. It sort-of works but admittedly its not a permanent thing. I like the foam damping effect, but I need to find a rubber-adhesive to more permanently fix the drivers to the cup rings. My opinion is the PX100 driver diaphragm performs best when its frame is damped as much as possible. IMHO it starts to sound murky and congested if its driver frame is surrounded by inferior resonant materials. Which is why so many have reported the sonic benefits of different wood-tone enclosures. As a guitar player I am no stranger to the concept of "tone woods", and their sonic benefits. For my build I am taking the complete opposite approach... in my efforts to DAMP vibration, resonant acoustics. I want to try and let the PX100II driver diaphragm shine and play at its cleanest. One things for sure... pick your earcup materials wisely and you will be rewarded, like so many have with their woody selection.
>Along those lines I covered the driver magnets with a lump of blu-tac. Not sure about everyone else, but Sennheiser chose to apply a thin clear disk of adhesive rubber damping "tape" on my magnets, so I think they also realized the importance of taming driver resonance. Going back and forth, A/B with and without the blu-tac theres a slight but noticeable difference in midrange clarity. For me it sounds best with the blu-tac so it remains.
>SR60i logo buttons are damped with blu-tac and fleece fabric disk adhered over that. I am trying my darn-est to keep the logo buttons... I might still ditch them for a more open back. But I like the look too much. We'll see how that works out. For now Johns original design remains.
>For pads I am using modded S-Cush (comfy) pads. I mod them with a US quarter size hole and I have foam spacer rings inside to push the earcups out and away from my ears. It still sounds like an S-cush pad but its more open sounding and less "squished" sounding. I have some Ear Zonk G-cush and L-cush pads incoming so I still have some tuning work to do in this regard.
!!LETS BOOGIE!!!
>Holy bass-slam batman!! No kidding these things are thumpy dumpy to the max. I have to turn down the bass sliders on the iTunes EQ by a good ~3 dbs, and its still a little more bass-heavy than my cans of preference. Too much bass for my tastes for home use. Portably however... this is a GREAT sounding can straight out of the iPhone. I have always found open cans lose at least 4-5 dbs of bass when used in a portable (commuter) environment. So this is an EXCELLENT out & about can in this regard.
At home with the bass eq'd down a little, bass is authoritative, detailed and very textured. No doubt this is a very dynamic driver, fully capable of resolving very high levels of lower frequency detail. Better than my HD650 in this regard (by a noticeable amount). It goes toe to toe with my RS1. If it had better imaging and soundstage (better pads) I think it could come close to my K701 in the bass-department, but with a little more slam and impact. With the S-cush pads (even with my pad mods) its still a heavy-weighty kind of bass. It just doesn't have the sense of "air and breath" around bass tones that the K701 has, even with the EQ sliders to tone it down a bit.
>Midrange is smooth, energetic and very "real" sounding. It has an organic, lifelike quality that I look for. As far as energy and engagement goes its very similar to my RS1/HF1, but less pointy-spikey in the overall spectrum. It is a more "dry" sounding midrange than either the HF1/RS1, without being flat or boring. I would suspect this is the by-product of all the driver and acoustic damping measures I have taken. Tyll in his review sample measured some ~2khz spikes that I am just not hearing. This is a very critical area in terms of vocal accuracy. Too much boost in this 2Khz range and it results in a "nasal" kind of character that I find a bit off-putting.... like singing through a toilet paper roll with your nose plugged. Very good detail resolution too. Fast and engaging.... Grado midrange slam without much of the "shouty" nature that at times can be out of place in Grado-land. Better mids than my K701. That plastic-ey, synthetic kind of character that rears its annoying head in my K701 simply put does not exist in my SennGrado. AWESOME, this is a great vocal / midrange headphone.
>Treble response is articulate, smooth and extends nicely. Treble spikes above ~6khz trigger my tinnitus, even at lower volumes so I have to be very careful with what I listen to in this realm. So cans like the DT880 and HD7/800 remain out of my collection... despite their many strengths. I'm happy to report I remain tinnitus-free from my SennGrado build. At the same time I would not consider this headphone to be severely rolled off in treble response. As far as treble goes, its very lively, articulate, ever-present and HIGHLY detail revealing without boosting treble tones. Overall excellent midrange to treble transitions too. I don't get the impression of boost or attenuation in the critical midrange to treble junction areas around 4k-6.5khz. I know some of you are "treble-heads" who enjoy a slight treble boost over the mids... I don't think the SennGrado would appeal to this crowd.
Overall I am VERY pleased with this build. No Kidding!! I sit here in a heavy foot stomping Grado-Groove session with the Dreamtheater Octivarium Orchestra CRANKED... Tinnitus be dammed. This no doubt is a VERY "fun" headphone to listen to. No way is it cold, analytical, despite being more tonally accurate and flatter than my Grados. Despite its smoother spectral response the SennGrado in no way lacks Grado slam / energy factor.
One thing about the SennGrado thats TOTALLY different from any of my other cans... is how CLEARLY it resolves the difference between right and left channels. I am not sure what it is... speed, accuracy, detail resolution, S-cush pads.??? I can very clearly hear in a pronounced fashion the difference between the right and left channels in a recording. So channel balancing is paramount with this headphone. If you are a low volume listener, this headphone will highlight channel imbalances in your amp circuit... even the slightest. So poorly balanced/tracking volume pots will be punished with a very off center image. There have been several times I thought my amp or RCA cables were faulty... NOPE that channel imbalance is in the recording, being revealed to me for the first time. Very strange, and its something I have had to get used to with live concert recordings where instrumentation can be spread out and present an off-center image.
The L-Cush, G-Cush pads, and maybe ditching the SR60 button (cringe) are my next steps in its evolution. Depending on how that opens up the soundstage, I could easily see the HD650 and K701 getting a lot less listening time. As with many things in audio... the end results here FAR exceed the sum of its parts.
Just for kicks/giggles, heres what I paid for everything:
>$50, PX100II new on Amazon
>$55, SR60i Used on the BST forum.
>$0, Blu-tac, felt, Gorilla tape, craft foam... this is all stuff I was able to salvage from around the house.
>$35, Ear Zonk G-cush, L-cush pads (incoming)
I bought a set of the $9 Vivitar DJ cans for the headband mod... but again, I am trying to remain true to the OEM SR60i appearance.
Pics...
Heres how I mod my S-cush comfy pads. I use this kind of pad on all my Grados. The yellow craft foam pushes the drivers out away from my ears, it also alleviates pressure from the little central cartilage piece that sticks out from the middle of my ears.
I've been playing around with my SennGrado mod for a couple weeks now and I am pretty impressed with how its all going. Just a few more tweeks and I think I've got it nailed. Overall goal is to keep the OEM appearance of the Grado SR60i... everything from the 1/8" TRS to the logo button. The Grado-steampunk house look is one I have always liked and preferred, anything else on my head over the last decade to me just looks and feels wrong. (personal preference).
Some goals:
>Smooth balanced spectrum, no serious peaks, spikes or valleys. I normally use a 3db boost at 32Hz on the iTunes EQ, so I do not mind EQ-ing things a little to taste.
>Detail and clarity resolution
>Imaging and soundstage
We are all tone chasers... enthusiasts with an always elusive "perfect sound" in our heads. If I had to describe my perfect sound... it would be a lighter, easier to wear K701, but without the plastic-ey, synthetic/artificial at times sounding upper midrange. A "more organic" K701 if you will. A little more bass oomph would be nice too, but its not a must-have.
Cans of reference are in no particular order... HD650, K701 (Austrian version), RS1, HF1, Koss A250. Just how well will my SennGrado build scale up this ladder...???
My build is the most simple of any you see here, it literally is just a PX100II driver inside a tweeked Grado SR60i housing. With some well known Grado mods thrown in.
>SR60i Earcup inside walls are lined with a small "strip" of blu-tac and fleece fabric pressed over that to damp resonances.
>PX100II drivers are "suspended" into the plastic rings with strips of craft foam. My intent here is to damp driver frame/earcup resonances and vibrations. So at least for now they are being held in place with pressure from the foam and small pieces of gorilla tape. It sort-of works but admittedly its not a permanent thing. I like the foam damping effect, but I need to find a rubber-adhesive to more permanently fix the drivers to the cup rings. My opinion is the PX100 driver diaphragm performs best when its frame is damped as much as possible. IMHO it starts to sound murky and congested if its driver frame is surrounded by inferior resonant materials. Which is why so many have reported the sonic benefits of different wood-tone enclosures. As a guitar player I am no stranger to the concept of "tone woods", and their sonic benefits. For my build I am taking the complete opposite approach... in my efforts to DAMP vibration, resonant acoustics. I want to try and let the PX100II driver diaphragm shine and play at its cleanest. One things for sure... pick your earcup materials wisely and you will be rewarded, like so many have with their woody selection.
>Along those lines I covered the driver magnets with a lump of blu-tac. Not sure about everyone else, but Sennheiser chose to apply a thin clear disk of adhesive rubber damping "tape" on my magnets, so I think they also realized the importance of taming driver resonance. Going back and forth, A/B with and without the blu-tac theres a slight but noticeable difference in midrange clarity. For me it sounds best with the blu-tac so it remains.
>SR60i logo buttons are damped with blu-tac and fleece fabric disk adhered over that. I am trying my darn-est to keep the logo buttons... I might still ditch them for a more open back. But I like the look too much. We'll see how that works out. For now Johns original design remains.
>For pads I am using modded S-Cush (comfy) pads. I mod them with a US quarter size hole and I have foam spacer rings inside to push the earcups out and away from my ears. It still sounds like an S-cush pad but its more open sounding and less "squished" sounding. I have some Ear Zonk G-cush and L-cush pads incoming so I still have some tuning work to do in this regard.
!!LETS BOOGIE!!!
>Holy bass-slam batman!! No kidding these things are thumpy dumpy to the max. I have to turn down the bass sliders on the iTunes EQ by a good ~3 dbs, and its still a little more bass-heavy than my cans of preference. Too much bass for my tastes for home use. Portably however... this is a GREAT sounding can straight out of the iPhone. I have always found open cans lose at least 4-5 dbs of bass when used in a portable (commuter) environment. So this is an EXCELLENT out & about can in this regard.
At home with the bass eq'd down a little, bass is authoritative, detailed and very textured. No doubt this is a very dynamic driver, fully capable of resolving very high levels of lower frequency detail. Better than my HD650 in this regard (by a noticeable amount). It goes toe to toe with my RS1. If it had better imaging and soundstage (better pads) I think it could come close to my K701 in the bass-department, but with a little more slam and impact. With the S-cush pads (even with my pad mods) its still a heavy-weighty kind of bass. It just doesn't have the sense of "air and breath" around bass tones that the K701 has, even with the EQ sliders to tone it down a bit.
>Midrange is smooth, energetic and very "real" sounding. It has an organic, lifelike quality that I look for. As far as energy and engagement goes its very similar to my RS1/HF1, but less pointy-spikey in the overall spectrum. It is a more "dry" sounding midrange than either the HF1/RS1, without being flat or boring. I would suspect this is the by-product of all the driver and acoustic damping measures I have taken. Tyll in his review sample measured some ~2khz spikes that I am just not hearing. This is a very critical area in terms of vocal accuracy. Too much boost in this 2Khz range and it results in a "nasal" kind of character that I find a bit off-putting.... like singing through a toilet paper roll with your nose plugged. Very good detail resolution too. Fast and engaging.... Grado midrange slam without much of the "shouty" nature that at times can be out of place in Grado-land. Better mids than my K701. That plastic-ey, synthetic kind of character that rears its annoying head in my K701 simply put does not exist in my SennGrado. AWESOME, this is a great vocal / midrange headphone.
>Treble response is articulate, smooth and extends nicely. Treble spikes above ~6khz trigger my tinnitus, even at lower volumes so I have to be very careful with what I listen to in this realm. So cans like the DT880 and HD7/800 remain out of my collection... despite their many strengths. I'm happy to report I remain tinnitus-free from my SennGrado build. At the same time I would not consider this headphone to be severely rolled off in treble response. As far as treble goes, its very lively, articulate, ever-present and HIGHLY detail revealing without boosting treble tones. Overall excellent midrange to treble transitions too. I don't get the impression of boost or attenuation in the critical midrange to treble junction areas around 4k-6.5khz. I know some of you are "treble-heads" who enjoy a slight treble boost over the mids... I don't think the SennGrado would appeal to this crowd.
Overall I am VERY pleased with this build. No Kidding!! I sit here in a heavy foot stomping Grado-Groove session with the Dreamtheater Octivarium Orchestra CRANKED... Tinnitus be dammed. This no doubt is a VERY "fun" headphone to listen to. No way is it cold, analytical, despite being more tonally accurate and flatter than my Grados. Despite its smoother spectral response the SennGrado in no way lacks Grado slam / energy factor.
One thing about the SennGrado thats TOTALLY different from any of my other cans... is how CLEARLY it resolves the difference between right and left channels. I am not sure what it is... speed, accuracy, detail resolution, S-cush pads.??? I can very clearly hear in a pronounced fashion the difference between the right and left channels in a recording. So channel balancing is paramount with this headphone. If you are a low volume listener, this headphone will highlight channel imbalances in your amp circuit... even the slightest. So poorly balanced/tracking volume pots will be punished with a very off center image. There have been several times I thought my amp or RCA cables were faulty... NOPE that channel imbalance is in the recording, being revealed to me for the first time. Very strange, and its something I have had to get used to with live concert recordings where instrumentation can be spread out and present an off-center image.
The L-Cush, G-Cush pads, and maybe ditching the SR60 button (cringe) are my next steps in its evolution. Depending on how that opens up the soundstage, I could easily see the HD650 and K701 getting a lot less listening time. As with many things in audio... the end results here FAR exceed the sum of its parts.
Just for kicks/giggles, heres what I paid for everything:
>$50, PX100II new on Amazon
>$55, SR60i Used on the BST forum.
>$0, Blu-tac, felt, Gorilla tape, craft foam... this is all stuff I was able to salvage from around the house.
>$35, Ear Zonk G-cush, L-cush pads (incoming)
I bought a set of the $9 Vivitar DJ cans for the headband mod... but again, I am trying to remain true to the OEM SR60i appearance.
Pics...
Heres how I mod my S-cush comfy pads. I use this kind of pad on all my Grados. The yellow craft foam pushes the drivers out away from my ears, it also alleviates pressure from the little central cartilage piece that sticks out from the middle of my ears.
Long read warning... grab a cup of coffee and soak it all in. Its been a LONG time since I modded anything on HF, so this is a kind of coming out party for me.
I've been playing around with my SennGrado mod for a couple weeks now and I am pretty impressed with how its all going. Just a few more tweeks and I think I've got it nailed. Overall goal is to keep the OEM appearance of the Grado SR60i... everything from the 1/8" TRS to the logo button. The Grado-steampunk house look is one I have always liked and preferred, anything else on my head over the last decade to me just looks and feels wrong. (personal preference).
Some goals:
>Smooth balanced spectrum, no serious peaks, spikes or valleys. I normally use a 3db boost at 32Hz on the iTunes EQ, so I do not mind EQ-ing things a little to taste.
>Detail and clarity resolution
>Imaging and soundstage
We are all tone chasers... enthusiasts with an always elusive "perfect sound" in our heads. If I had to describe my perfect sound... it would be a lighter, easier to wear K701, but without the plastic-ey, synthetic/artificial at times sounding upper midrange. A "more organic" K701 if you will. A little more bass oomph would be nice too, but its not a must-have.
Cans of reference are in no particular order... HD650, K701 (Austrian version), RS1, HF1, Koss A250. Just how well will my SennGrado build scale up this ladder...???
My build is the most simple of any you see here, it literally is just a PX100II driver inside a tweeked Grado SR60i housing. With some well known Grado mods thrown in.
>SR60i Earcup inside walls are lined with a small "strip" of blu-tac and fleece fabric pressed over that to damp resonances.
>PX100II drivers are "suspended" into the plastic rings with strips of craft foam. My intent here is to damp driver frame/earcup resonances and vibrations. So at least for now they are being held in place with pressure from the foam and small pieces of gorilla tape. It sort-of works but admittedly its not a permanent thing. I like the foam damping effect, but I need to find a rubber-adhesive to more permanently fix the drivers to the cup rings. My opinion is the PX100 driver diaphragm performs best when its frame is damped as much as possible. IMHO it starts to sound murky and congested if its driver frame is surrounded by inferior resonant materials. Which is why so many have reported the sonic benefits of different wood-tone enclosures. As a guitar player I am no stranger to the concept of "tone woods", and their sonic benefits. For my build I am taking the complete opposite approach... in my efforts to DAMP vibration, resonant acoustics. I want to try and let the PX100II driver diaphragm shine and play at its cleanest. One things for sure... pick your earcup materials wisely and you will be rewarded, like so many have with their woody selection.
>Along those lines I covered the driver magnets with a lump of blu-tac. Not sure about everyone else, but Sennheiser chose to apply a thin clear disk of adhesive rubber damping "tape" on my magnets, so I think they also realized the importance of taming driver resonance. Going back and forth, A/B with and without the blu-tac theres a slight but noticeable difference in midrange clarity. For me it sounds best with the blu-tac so it remains.
>SR60i logo buttons are damped with blu-tac and fleece fabric disk adhered over that. I am trying my darn-est to keep the logo buttons... I might still ditch them for a more open back. But I like the look too much. We'll see how that works out. For now Johns original design remains.
>For pads I am using modded S-Cush (comfy) pads. I mod them with a US quarter size hole and I have foam spacer rings inside to push the earcups out and away from my ears. It still sounds like an S-cush pad but its more open sounding and less "squished" sounding. I have some Ear Zonk G-cush and L-cush pads incoming so I still have some tuning work to do in this regard.
!!LETS BOOGIE!!!
>Holy bass-slam batman!! No kidding these things are thumpy dumpy to the max. I have to turn down the bass sliders on the iTunes EQ by a good ~3 dbs, and its still a little more bass-heavy than my cans of preference. Too much bass for my tastes for home use. Portably however... this is a GREAT sounding can straight out of the iPhone. I have always found open cans lose at least 4-5 dbs of bass when used in a portable (commuter) environment. So this is an EXCELLENT out & about can in this regard.
At home with the bass eq'd down a little, bass is authoritative, detailed and very textured. No doubt this is a very dynamic driver, fully capable of resolving very high levels of lower frequency detail. Better than my HD650 in this regard (by a noticeable amount). It goes toe to toe with my RS1. If it had better imaging and soundstage (better pads) I think it could come close to my K701 in the bass-department, but with a little more slam and impact. With the S-cush pads (even with my pad mods) its still a heavy-weighty kind of bass. It just doesn't have the sense of "air and breath" around bass tones that the K701 has, even with the EQ sliders to tone it down a bit.
>Midrange is smooth, energetic and very "real" sounding. It has an organic, lifelike quality that I look for. As far as energy and engagement goes its very similar to my RS1/HF1, but less pointy-spikey in the overall spectrum. It is a more "dry" sounding midrange than either the HF1/RS1, without being flat or boring. I would suspect this is the by-product of all the driver and acoustic damping measures I have taken. Tyll in his review sample measured some ~2khz spikes that I am just not hearing. This is a very critical area in terms of vocal accuracy. Too much boost in this 2Khz range and it results in a "nasal" kind of character that I find a bit off-putting.... like singing through a toilet paper roll with your nose plugged. Very good detail resolution too. Fast and engaging.... Grado midrange slam without much of the "shouty" nature that at times can be out of place in Grado-land. Better mids than my K701. That plastic-ey, synthetic kind of character that rears its annoying head in my K701 simply put does not exist in my SennGrado. AWESOME, this is a great vocal / midrange headphone.
>Treble response is articulate, smooth and extends nicely. Treble spikes above ~6khz trigger my tinnitus, even at lower volumes so I have to be very careful with what I listen to in this realm. So cans like the DT880 and HD7/800 remain out of my collection... despite their many strengths. I'm happy to report I remain tinnitus-free from my SennGrado build. At the same time I would not consider this headphone to be severely rolled off in treble response. As far as treble goes, its very lively, articulate, ever-present and HIGHLY detail revealing without boosting treble tones. Overall excellent midrange to treble transitions too. I don't get the impression of boost or attenuation in the critical midrange to treble junction areas around 4k-6.5khz. I know some of you are "treble-heads" who enjoy a slight treble boost over the mids... I don't think the SennGrado would appeal to this crowd.
Overall I am VERY pleased with this build. No Kidding!! I sit here in a heavy foot stomping Grado-Groove session with the Dreamtheater Octivarium Orchestra CRANKED... Tinnitus be dammed. This no doubt is a VERY "fun" headphone to listen to. No way is it cold, analytical, despite being more tonally accurate and flatter than my Grados. Despite its smoother spectral response the SennGrado in no way lacks Grado slam / energy factor.
The L-Cush, G-Cush pads, and maybe ditching the SR60 button (cringe) are my next steps in its evolution. Depending on how that opens up the soundstage, I could easily see the HD650 and K701 getting a lot less listening time. As with many things in audio... the end results here FAR exceed the sum of its parts.
Just for kicks/giggles, heres what I paid for everything:
>$50, PX100II new on Amazon
>$55, SR60i Used on the BST forum.
>$0, Blu-tac, felt, Gorilla tape, craft foam... this is all stuff I was able to salvage from around the house.
>$35, Ear Zonk G-cush, L-cush pads (incoming)
I bought a set of the $9 Vivitar DJ cans for the headband mod... but again, I am trying to remain true to the OEM SR60i appearance.
Pics...
Heres how I mod my S-cush comfy pads. I use this kind of pad on all my Grados. The yellow craft foam pushes the drivers out away from my ears, it also alleviates pressure from the little central cartilage piece that sticks out from the middle of my ears.
I found I liked the L-Cush pads the most in the two senngrado builds I have, The one in Red Cedar which has the bass that you describe in yours and one in Cherry that has less bass but more clarity.
I think you're going to like the senngrado even more with your new pads. Although I'm not a fan of the earzonk pads.
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I didn't like the earzonk pads either. The Chinese ones from eBay ended up being better.
burgunder
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kramer5150
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The one problem I have always had with OEM Grado pads is the surface texture of their foam. Its just too abrasive for my ears and makes them sore. Its not helping too that I wear glasses and so the L-cush pads press my ear cartilage against the ear hook part of my eye glasses. One of you guys was saying the Zonk pads do not have the dual layer of foam, its all one consistent material like the S-cush. So... we'll see how this goes.
Stay tuned for further impressions.
Stay tuned for further impressions.
ipdtt
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A practice set in some scrap Walnut before Clinton does my cups in Bubinga; www.amazonexotichardwoods.com/TB-BUB/T34-663.html for Beyerdynamic black velour pads 
kramer5150
Headphoneus Supremus
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!!! WOW those are scrap - practice parts?
Can I ask which one of you all is Clinton?... I wonder if he would consider making another pair?
thanks!!
ipdtt
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Hey Kramer, i am Darris, and this is Clinton; https://www.etsy.com/shop/YewWoodworks Go to Contact Shop Owner on his page
and ask him about the cups for me (Darris) i know he will, he is one hell of a nice guy!!!
~D
and ask him about the cups for me (Darris) i know he will, he is one hell of a nice guy!!!
~D
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