My original post above with such high praise about the stock HP 100 was written kind of vaguely. What I really meant was that,
with the right amp, these headphones really do have the potential to equal or even exceed other flagship headphones costing much more. My above praise was exclusively based on it's pairing with the CDM (Continental Dual Mono portable tube amp / DAC), which wasn't mentioned in that exact post but which I have posted on many occasions.
I have since been to 3 more headphone meets and tried the stock HP 100 on at least a dozen wildly varying amps including the ones at home, and out of all there was only
one amp that made the stock version sound good enough for normal use - and I'll tell you with the CDM, the stock version does sound hands-down glorious, so much that a mod would hardly even be desirable. I furthermore realize that that post from last year was written somewhat hastily, because now after more experience trying other closed flagships, I realise that in fact several headphones including the Denon TH-900, ETHER-C, DT-1770 to name a few are quite superior to the stock HP 100. Unfortunately I wasn't able to afford the CDM, and from all other amps, the general sound signature I have found from the HP 100 has been very fatiguing on both ends of the spectrum - not quite V or U shaped because this mids are still good, but with bass that sounds very uncontrolled / unrefined / boomy, and treble that is not only artificial sounding but also very piercing to my ears.
Especially for me, since for this past year I have added to my arsenal an HD 650, DT 100, modded my SRH 940, gotten my AH-D 1001 back and gotten a Koss electrostat headphone with Stax amp - there was definitely no place at all for the HP 100 in my setup... this and considering the general unrefined sound I was getting out of the HP 100 - yeah it sure was at the bottom of my drawer for this past year, and I even have scratch marks on the case to show for that.
I was holding onto it though because I saw potential in the HP 100. I thought maybe a better amp may come along to allow these beauties to shine - however it turned out that a combination of internal mods and conversion to balanced was what really had done the trick. I had become familiar with a local headphone modding guru by the name of Lyova (
@Packdemon) from recent meets I attended, and since I have a balanced amp I thought I'd ask him to convert it to balanced for me, with a hunch this would help refine the sound. I also threw in the challenge of modding to fix the spiky highs and flabby bass... and I'll tell you with utmost certainty, the difference from this mod was nothing short of revolutionary!
It went from being an unused headphone to something that I now often prefer to the flagship HD 650 headphone, which is something I really never expected from this headphone!
This idea paid off BIG TIME, and it's a truly night / day difference! Now there is spine tingling lushness in the mids, tamed down treble and BASS that never fails to impress with it's clarity and fullness... coupled with the earpads he used that increased the soundstage and isolation, and I believe these also played a roll in evening out the FR. You can see in this graph below an official measurement taken at Can Jam which shows the difference before / after this mod. And notice the red line at the bottom, that was bass distortion I was hearing which has been cleaned up so well that it actually measured better than numerous closed headphones of other types.
I am genuinely only telling you folks about this for my love of the hobby, and to give my friend a little recognition. This would be too good to keep to myself, so I would be happy for others to experience this same amazing sensation from the modded HP 100 (more in my link above). And yes, I'm trying to get the word out that the user Packdemon can do this mod for you, but I wouldn't call it 'advertising', as this is to help out a friend in need... I'm returning the favor to a friend who has selfelessly helped me out of the kindness of his heart multiple times, and allowing you guys to try something that is groundbreaking.
Looking forward to new stuff