lindrone
King Canaling
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2003
- Posts
- 3,887
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- 27
So, here goes the story: About a few weeks ago, I started noticing that on the left side of my CD3000, I'm getting this weird buzz/resonance when certain notes are being played. At first, I thought it might have been a piece of hair, so I did the best I could to remove the pad, examine the driver and remove some small fragments of hair here and there. The problem I'm having with the left driver didn't go away. I contacted Sony about getting some sort of repair done, but all they could offer me is a $390 'exchange' program for the headphone. Of course, I pretty much hung up the phone right then. I decided it's time to hunt out a new pair of CD3000, or maybe try something else.
This is about the same time that a sale on a already modified CD3000 cropped up on Head-Fi. The owner (whose name on the forum is "cd3000"... just so no one gets confused.. heheheh) lives not far away from me. I went to audition the headphone, and decided to get it right on the spot.
The CD3000 has already been modified by Larry of Headphile, with maple wood R-10 style wood cups, as well as headphone upgrade to replace the single sided cable of the CD3000 with a dual-side cable.
The improvement over stock CD3000 is very apparent, particularly in the midrange. Some people has characterized CD3000's midrange as being distant, hollow, the upgrade completely changes these characteristics. The midrange is fuller and richer, with a slightly warmer tonality. It is also much more forward and present. This in term, shrinks the cavernous soundstage of the CD3000 just by a tiny margin. However, even with the slight loss of soundstage, the CD3000 is still easily one of the most spherical soundstage still. The detraction of soundstage is completely made up by the extra presence of a beautiful and fluid midrange.
Not only that, the bass region seems to have gained some extra extension as well as overall power. On some bass heavy tracks, the CD3000 is now able ot reach almost as deeply as my 2X-S.
All of these improvements comes without any additional congestion of sound nor loss of detail. The brightness of the CD3000 is pretty much still retained, except that the midrange is richer, so it in no way modifies the CD3000 to sound more like Sennheiser or anything else.
Before the upgrade, 2X-S outperforms CD3000 in detail, midrange richness, and bass extension. After the upgrade, CD3000 now matches up very well in midrange richness and bass extension, although the detail is still not quite up to par. However it still compensates by having a much larger soundstage than the 2X-S. After the upgrade, this modified CD3000 really does match up very, very well against my 2X-S. Enough for me to not reach for the 2X-S everytime I want to listen to music.
But... if they're so good.. why am I selling them?
So to get something very clear first, I do like this headphone very, very much. However, it isn't without other flaws.
The wood cup modification adds some extra weight to the CD3000. Originally the CD3000 is a very light headphone, with very little clamping, since the headphone just sits on your head, and doens't require much of any clamping force at all. The extra weight of the wood cup means that it "sinks" down a bit from what I was used to as a comfortable position for the CD3000. If there were some more clamping force, the headphone will still stay on just fine, but since the clamping force is not adjustable, it just doesn't feel very secure on my head.
I have to say, the extra weight is not that much of a difference. However, I've been spoiled completely by how comfortable and light CD3000 used to feel. Even though the extra weight is probably just a few grams, it feels weird to have it hang on my head the way it is right now.
Additionally, the wood cup also seems to seal in more heat than the original CD3000 cups. As with all closed headphones, heat build-up is inevitable; but CD3000's original design did a pretty good job of dissipating heat, thus allowing for long listening sessions disregarding the slight heat build-up. The wood cup definitely gets hotter.
On top of that... I just don't know if I want to keep this expensive headphone around, since even though this is a nice compromise from my 2X-S, I still prefer the 2X-S over it in most respects. Mostly because of the extra level of detail and realism that 2X-S presents. So it still remains a secondary headphone that's mostly used to impress others rather than myself. So it's hard to justify keeping this expensive thing around just for that reason. Although I can't help stare at the beautiful wood cup finish....
Anyway, if no one is interested in the headphone, I'll keep them indefinitely anyway... just because they're... pretty & sounds great. I'm getting to that point where I do feel like branching out a bit and try some other headphones to see where that leads me.
I think I'm going to put A1000's down next for my shopping list...
This is about the same time that a sale on a already modified CD3000 cropped up on Head-Fi. The owner (whose name on the forum is "cd3000"... just so no one gets confused.. heheheh) lives not far away from me. I went to audition the headphone, and decided to get it right on the spot.
The CD3000 has already been modified by Larry of Headphile, with maple wood R-10 style wood cups, as well as headphone upgrade to replace the single sided cable of the CD3000 with a dual-side cable.
The improvement over stock CD3000 is very apparent, particularly in the midrange. Some people has characterized CD3000's midrange as being distant, hollow, the upgrade completely changes these characteristics. The midrange is fuller and richer, with a slightly warmer tonality. It is also much more forward and present. This in term, shrinks the cavernous soundstage of the CD3000 just by a tiny margin. However, even with the slight loss of soundstage, the CD3000 is still easily one of the most spherical soundstage still. The detraction of soundstage is completely made up by the extra presence of a beautiful and fluid midrange.
Not only that, the bass region seems to have gained some extra extension as well as overall power. On some bass heavy tracks, the CD3000 is now able ot reach almost as deeply as my 2X-S.
All of these improvements comes without any additional congestion of sound nor loss of detail. The brightness of the CD3000 is pretty much still retained, except that the midrange is richer, so it in no way modifies the CD3000 to sound more like Sennheiser or anything else.
Before the upgrade, 2X-S outperforms CD3000 in detail, midrange richness, and bass extension. After the upgrade, CD3000 now matches up very well in midrange richness and bass extension, although the detail is still not quite up to par. However it still compensates by having a much larger soundstage than the 2X-S. After the upgrade, this modified CD3000 really does match up very, very well against my 2X-S. Enough for me to not reach for the 2X-S everytime I want to listen to music.
But... if they're so good.. why am I selling them?
So to get something very clear first, I do like this headphone very, very much. However, it isn't without other flaws.
The wood cup modification adds some extra weight to the CD3000. Originally the CD3000 is a very light headphone, with very little clamping, since the headphone just sits on your head, and doens't require much of any clamping force at all. The extra weight of the wood cup means that it "sinks" down a bit from what I was used to as a comfortable position for the CD3000. If there were some more clamping force, the headphone will still stay on just fine, but since the clamping force is not adjustable, it just doesn't feel very secure on my head.
I have to say, the extra weight is not that much of a difference. However, I've been spoiled completely by how comfortable and light CD3000 used to feel. Even though the extra weight is probably just a few grams, it feels weird to have it hang on my head the way it is right now.
Additionally, the wood cup also seems to seal in more heat than the original CD3000 cups. As with all closed headphones, heat build-up is inevitable; but CD3000's original design did a pretty good job of dissipating heat, thus allowing for long listening sessions disregarding the slight heat build-up. The wood cup definitely gets hotter.
On top of that... I just don't know if I want to keep this expensive headphone around, since even though this is a nice compromise from my 2X-S, I still prefer the 2X-S over it in most respects. Mostly because of the extra level of detail and realism that 2X-S presents. So it still remains a secondary headphone that's mostly used to impress others rather than myself. So it's hard to justify keeping this expensive thing around just for that reason. Although I can't help stare at the beautiful wood cup finish....
Anyway, if no one is interested in the headphone, I'll keep them indefinitely anyway... just because they're... pretty & sounds great. I'm getting to that point where I do feel like branching out a bit and try some other headphones to see where that leads me.
I think I'm going to put A1000's down next for my shopping list...
