[Kojaku]

Sent my headphones off to Chris for a recable. Sent my sock mod pads too so you can take a quick listen and maybe give an outsider's opinion to the thread concerning my sock mod pads ...

Kojaku

 

[meltdown100]

My SR-60i has come a long way.
 

 
Hoping I could get some input from those of you who have been down this road for a while now - I'm still planning on replacing the headband and recabling.  But I got serious sticker shock at what 4-5 feet of pure silver cabling would run, and was wondering if there's a cheaper option that would also provide a hopefully noticeable audio quality upgrade over the stock cable.  What probably killed the urge to stick a $100+ cable onto this thing was going to a high-end audio store nearby yesterday and auditioning an RS-2.  It was immediately apparent to me that it has a level of refinement that my SR-60 does not deliver even after all these mods.  While I do like the more impactful/bassier sound I am now getting, it does get a little boomy with certain heavy/busy music and this noticeably cuts into the mids.  I'm only running 2 holes in the felt now and I have done the dynamat to the back of the driver.  The RS-2 made me realize that after the headband and silver cable I'll have spent enough to buy a nice used RS-2 on evolving my SR-60i but they still will probably not sound as good / detailed / refined, etc.  Damn I should have never put that RS-2 on, that was stupid, hehe...  
 
Anyway, I'm digressing...  Any thoughts on cable?  Would mogami quad deliver a noticeable improvement?  Any other really good bang for the buck options I should consider?
 
BTW, working my way through the original massive SR-60 mod thread (about halfway through right now) and will eventually get to everything, sorry if I am asking a question that has been discussed before. 

 

[joydivisi0n]

Quote:

My SR-60i has come a long way.
 

 
Hoping I could get some input from those of you who have been down this road for a while now - I'm still planning on replacing the headband and recabling.  But I got serious sticker shock at what 4-5 feet of pure silver cabling would run, and was wondering if there's a cheaper option that would also provide a hopefully noticeable audio quality upgrade over the stock cable.  What probably killed the urge to stick a $100+ cable onto this thing was going to a high-end audio store nearby yesterday and auditioning an RS-2.  It was immediately apparent to me that it has a level of refinement that my SR-60 does not deliver even after all these mods.  While I do like the more impactful/bassier sound I am now getting, it does get a little boomy with certain heavy/busy music and this noticeably cuts into the mids.  I'm only running 2 holes in the felt now and I have done the dynamat to the back of the driver.  The RS-2 made me realize that after the headband and silver cable I'll have spent enough to buy a nice used RS-2 on evolving my SR-60i but they still will probably not sound as good / detailed / refined, etc.  Damn I should have never put that RS-2 on, that was stupid, hehe...  
 
Anyway, I'm digressing...  Any thoughts on cable?  Would mogami quad deliver a noticeable improvement?  Any other really good bang for the buck options I should consider?
 
BTW, working my way through the original massive SR-60 mod thread (about halfway through right now) and will eventually get to everything, sorry if I am asking a question that has been discussed before. 

I think you'd actually be better off getting magnum drivers in those cups.  The consensus seems to be that those drivers, which go for $120 I believe, surpass the RS-2 and are more on the RS-1 level.  That's quite the bang for your buck!  And that always leaves the option for a cable upgrade down the road should you want to improve the sound a bit more.  But don't let me talk you into it, check out this thread for impressions: http://www.head-fi.org/t/576717/grado-modders-go-magnum

 

[meltdown100]

 

Wow, that degree of improvement for $120 is a serious no-brainer.  That's the second time I'm getting that recommendation.  I'm playing catch-up here, I've spent hours reading through the original thread (on page 203 right now) so I didn't miss anything good.  I'll definitely check that link - thanks!
​

 

 

[wje]

Quote:

My SR-60i has come a long way.
 

 
 
Anyway, I'm digressing...  Any thoughts on cable?  Would mogami quad deliver a noticeable improvement?  Any other really good bang for the buck options I should consider?
 
 

Nice looking cups - I guess these are some from Marty?  I don't think you'll realize a big difference with the Mogami quad - which is a copper-based cable.  Instead, check out some already braided and terminated silver cables from: http://www.headphonelounge.com
 
Also, it seems quite a few of us are using vintage gear to power our Grados - receivers and amps from the late-70s / early-80s that sound superior to today's gear, for the most part.  I haven't owned a great headphone amp, so I can't compare a $400 amp to a $100 vintage receiver to see who would win the war.  However, I do know that using my Sony Walkman when paired with my FiiO E11, does sound good - but, not great like my Sansui 881 receiver.

 

[GravitySmacked]

Folks is there any benefit of adding a tube headphone amp into the below mix?

I'm currently running my SR60i's straight from my Creative X-Fi soundcard. I modded the op-amps to give a warmer sound but having listened to tube amps in the past I'm curious to know if one would help if I run it from the soundcard?

I'm thinking of the the Schiit Valhalla but I'm sure I read somewhere that running them from a soundcard was a bad idea.

 

[Chris_Himself]

Quote:

 
Anyway, I'm digressing...  Any thoughts on cable?  Would mogami quad deliver a noticeable improvement?  Any other really good bang for the buck options I should consider?
 
BTW, working my way through the original massive SR-60 mod thread (about halfway through right now) and will eventually get to everything, sorry if I am asking a question that has been discussed before. 

Cables make a difference, unless you're particularly in love with the way a recable looks, the Rhydon Magnum drivers will deliver more bang for your buck fo' shizzle. It's just that last 5% which is honestly about the difference between models on Grado except for the SR-225 jump which is like 10% IMO. Although I will say as a Grado user, it's super nice to be able to wear them outside with a shortened 4-5' cable that doesn't weigh as much as the backpack I'm cramming the extra 2 feet into.
 
Thanks Wayne, always makes me happy to know I have supporters
 

 

[Nightslayer]

Ditto on the upgrade to the Magnums, most no-brainer mod you can put into your headphones. Would also like to throw my digressive opinion into the cable fray though, since no one has quite voiced out this possibility: Cables do not make any difference aside from aesthetic and utility value, if say you wanted a more pliable, less unwieldy or simply shorter cable. I did, and my Canare L4-E6S is serving me fantastically right now. Before you blow the hundred on silver, you might want to slow down and see if you can try out headphones with upgraded cables and see if you can tell the difference. If you can, all power to you, go right ahead and improve "that last 5%" which you're still missing

 

[jinteddy7]

Do rhydon's drivers fit perfectly into cabillas's cups?

 

[meltdown100]

wje - those are indeed cups from Marty.  Macassar Ebony.
 
GravitySmacked - In my opinion an amp will almost always help a decent pair of headphones sound better, but you would want to feed the cleanest possible line-level signal into the amp, not the amplified signal.  If your card has a way that you can just use it for the DAC, then it might make sense to try pairing it up to an amp.
 
As for the silver, there's certainly a lot of debate on whether silver cables or better copper really add something or not.  I think just based on conductivity the silver, or better/thicker copper, will make a difference - maybe just not a huge one.  Grado themselves add dual wires to each terminal on their better models, so I'm sure it's for a reason.  
 
I'd just do the recable with silver and not think twice - I have pure silver interconnects between my DAC and amp that I made a while back - but silver has gotten expensive to the point where I really do have to think twice now.  I considered building a removable cable that I could unplug from the Grados and use for multiple headphones, but adding more jacks/connections to the signal chain would defeat the purpose - I have little doubt that a soldered connection is better than a jack for throughput.  5% doesn't sound like a lot, but to me that is actually a big difference in the world of sound quality and what I want to hear from my recordings.  If it can be gotten for like $40 - $50, versus well over $100...
 
Let's hear some impressions on those V4's once they arrive, I'm pretty psyched to see what those of you who ordered them think - once they're broken in and everything.

 

[wje]

Quote:

Thanks Wayne, always makes me happy to know I have supporters
 

Never a problem, Chris.  The issue I have with upgraded cables is that while I could put a superior silver cable on my Grados such as yours, but then I have 15' of a headphone extension cable to deal with.  For me, the extension cable is mandatory because of how I use my headphones between the living room and the study in our home.  If it was as simple as just needing a 4.5' cable, I'd have one or two silver cables in use right now.
 
The 15' extension cable that I have is braided 16 or 14 gauge copper, which was extracted from one of the 40' extension cords from Lowes.  It was a Utilitech extension cord, which many people in the audio community have compared to high end speaker cables with quite a good outcome.  However, my wife often questions the aesthetics of a 15' braided extension cable of green, white and black wires.  So, eventually, I'll look into some techflex to cover the braided wire to make it more visually appealing.
 

 

[meltdown100]

I made a real breakthrough - rather than try to re-felt the back of the driver I cut 2 disks of felt (cheap sheet I bought at Wal-Mart) and placed them inside my cups against the screen mesh.  Much easier to do, no glue required to at least try it out, and I'd seen a few folks do this in the earlier thread with good reported results.
 
Wow, it works.  The bass still slams, but now the mids and highs don't sound nearly as suffocated anymore.  I think of the air behind the driver and how freely it moves as a 'suspension system' of sorts, and I think there is a magic spot in the air resistance where you can get the right amount of bass.  Just my opinion here, of course.  I'm playing Nightwish tracks (symphonic metal) which really slam and it is sounding really nice.  Guitars and cymbals sound like they went from 128Kbps to 320 Kbps or better, best way I can describe it.  Massive improvement.
 
Gonna try sticking a third layer of felt in there just to see what happens... 

 

[GravitySmacked]

GravitySmacked - In my opinion an amp will almost always help a decent pair of headphones sound better, but you would want to feed the cleanest possible line-level signal into the amp, not the amplified signal.  If your card has a way that you can just use it for the DAC, then it might make sense to try pairing it up to an amp.

OK I'll have a look into it, cheers!

 

[Chris_Himself]

Quote:

Never a problem, Chris.  The issue I have with upgraded cables is that while I could put a superior silver cable on my Grados such as yours, but then I have 15' of a headphone extension cable to deal with.  For me, the extension cable is mandatory because of how I use my headphones between the living room and the study in our home.  If it was as simple as just needing a 4.5' cable, I'd have one or two silver cables in use right now.
 
The 15' extension cable that I have is braided 16 or 14 gauge copper, which was extracted from one of the 40' extension cords from Lowes.  It was a Utilitech extension cord, which many people in the audio community have compared to high end speaker cables with quite a good outcome.  However, my wife often questions the aesthetics of a 15' braided extension cable of green, white and black wires.  So, eventually, I'll look into some techflex to cover the braided wire to make it more visually appealing.
 

16 or 14AWG? Thats BEEFY, can't not have the stock cable thickness and weight eh? Actually believe it or not, there is no "superior" cable there is all sorts, they have their nuances. I like silver with Grados per se, but the same thing can't be said for LCD-2's, HD-800's, K701's, and DT-880's from my experience. I've been playing it all by ear but for Grados they're receptive to both treatments.
 
15' of cable is roughly about 65+ feet of wire depending on your braid, it's still completely doable, it'd just require nearly an entire spool
 
If you need techflex get in touch with me if you're keen to the MDPC-X stuff, I'll gladly share some of the MDPC-X stuff with you no problem just pay shipping, it's a bit scratchy to use on the go (any sleeve is), but if you're Wayne, and you have a 15' pipeline across your living room, should be just fine haha! I could use some decent pictures of the stuff anyway, I can't quite capture what it looks like.

 

[166848]

i would like to ask a question. if something ever goes wrong with a driver after we put them in one of Marty's ect..  cups what would be the safest way of getting the out. the reason im asking is i will be getting my phones back from marty soon and i have always been "glass is half empty" kind of guy. so i am worried about that know cant even enjoy a pair of phones i dont even have yet because im worried what will happen when/if they ever die on me