How would I go about getting more mid range from some 80's ? Is this a possibility?
Thanks, I'm not looking to tame the highs as such, just that after modding my 225's (which of course my friend has nicked off me). I have decided to take on his 80's. I found with the 225's that the bass was improved with the woodys but I wanted more detail (especially mid). I may just be too used to my rs-1's and hoping or too much? I'm sure Bill will have something up his sleeve.
Grado's choice, in using mahogany, is probably rooted in mahogany's ability to punch up the high and low ends. It's not as rich, in the bass department, as cocobolo, Indian rosewood or Brazilian rosewood. It's just a beautiful wood that's relatively easy to cut and unlikely to overwhelm the listener. When you move up among the tonewoods, the bass is so much more productive but the balance of mahogany is lost. Just as the aluminum cans needed flats to obtain any warmth at all, shells made from these premium tonewoods produce so much bass that you will end up in need of larger pads. But that's a good thing. The quality of your bass ultimately determines the quality of your soundstage. Anemic bass requires a very tight ear/driver distance and a lot of effort to hold in the bass through a very tightly-fit pad architecture. When the bass is more than enough, you have the luxury of pulling back. The presentation is less compressed. You get a wonderfully dimensional presentation. By escaping the flats, you escape "the flats."
But most of the time this isn't possible, especially because the larger cushions aren't just increasing ear/driver distance. They're increasing the length of porous sidewalls that bleed bass. It takes a lot of pent up bass to go the distance with these, which is why most Grados don't take very well to the jumbos. Ironically, another way to get there is to add length to the rear chamber. Before creating longer drivers, I assumed they would provide me deeper and more impressive bass. To my surprise, they lowered the basement of the bass but reduced midbass, which increased the sense of soundstage.
AH I see I see..could you provide a picture pointing out the "basket"?
This is what it looks like on a loudspeaker.
This is what it looks like on a Grado. Look past the Mylar film, the voice coil and the magnet. That whole structure (with the holes in it) that is designed to provide a back to the headphone is the basket.
In this ancient pic from the early days of Bilavideo modding, the plastic that sits behind all of the adhesive foam (which I no longer use to damp the driver back) is the plastic basket with holes in it.
My point, in attaching so much damping material to the basket (outside of the holes that vent the drivers) was to minimize vibrations created along the full back of the driver. We already knew that damping the magnet plate worked wonders, in terms of ending the buzzing artifacts that sometimes show up after venting the driver. I wanted to see if additional damping, along the rest of the driver back, would do any good.
I'm happy to say that it has transformed my headphones, giving them the tightest bass.
