[JamesMcProgger]

Hello all.
This should be awarded with "best thread" in head-fi. im reading it backwards and so far is awesome x 10.
 
I dont own a sr60, so first i was thinking to perform some of the mods to my ms1, but after a while with them i decided i like them too much to make some changes that might affect the sound, so now I'm thinking of moding the sr80i. I am scared to ruin them tho, as for the cups (the part with the grill) , can i apply to hot spoon to remove that part as well?
 
how drastic does the wood in the cups change the sound? when you say "warmer" does it means the sound signature got warm or only warmer than before but still slightly noticeable?

 

[mksuen]

Read the first 15 or so pages of the thread FORWARD and that should help answer a lot of questions =P
Also you should definitely mod those sr80's, nothing quite like it.
Quote:

Hello all.
This should be awarded with "best thread" in head-fi. im reading it backwards and so far is awesome x 10.
 
I dont own a sr60, so first i was thinking to perform some of the mods to my ms1, but after a while with them i decided i like them too much to make some changes that might affect the sound, so now I'm thinking of moding the sr80i. I am scared to ruin them tho, as for the cups (the part with the grill) , can i apply to hot spoon to remove that part as well?
 
how drastic does the wood in the cups change the sound? when you say "warmer" does it means the sound signature got warm or only warmer than before but still slightly noticeable?

 

 

[Bilavideo]

 

Hello all.
This should be awarded with "best thread" in head-fi. im reading it backwards and so far is awesome x 10.
 
I dont own a sr60, so first i was thinking to perform some of the mods to my ms1, but after a while with them i decided i like them too much to make some changes that might affect the sound, so now I'm thinking of moding the sr80i. I am scared to ruin them tho, as for the cups (the part with the grill) , can i apply to hot spoon to remove that part as well?
 
how drastic does the wood in the cups change the sound? when you say "warmer" does it means the sound signature got warm or only warmer than before but still slightly noticeable?

I'll keep my comments brief (or at least brief for me).  I'm more interested in hearing what others have to say on this issue.
 
That said, I don't think these mods - if properly applied - make the cans "warmer."  In some ways, they clean up the presentation.  A lot of sound artifacts, stemming from plastic, are reduced.  Bass has more punch to it but without a midbass "ring."  It's one of several mods, used together, to get better sound, including quarter- modding the pads and removing the grill cloth, replacing the plastic rear grill with aluminum and removing the big plastic button in the middle of the rear grill, damping the magnet plate and/or recabling with a four-wire braid that splits the groundwire and reduces crosstalk.  There are some other cool tricks worth exploring, including an EVS device Ecclein clued us in on and doubling the copper (eight wire with pairs for each of the four lines) or switching to pure fine silver (99.99% pure silver core).
 
Grado uses mahogany to line its top headphones.  While mahogany is a nice wood to use, it would lose a knife fight to cocobolo, Brazilian rosewood or East Indian rosewood.  

 

[Danthrax]

I don't think that the mods make them warmer I just think that once they burn in a little they become warmer naturally. Grados are definitely a warm headphone. I also want to mention that the Allesandro MS1i's sound better to me than my sr80i's. There are definitely more details present and overall just don't sound the same.

 

[JamesMcProgger]

Quote:

 
 
quarter- modding the pads
removing the grill cloth, 
replacing the plastic rear grill with aluminum 
and removing the big plastic button in the middle of the rear grill
 
damping the magnet plate 
and/or recabling with a four-wire braid that splits the groundwire and reduces crosstalk
 

 
Thanks Bill, you made all that sound so simple, that makes me believe i can do it easily. except for the last two from which i have not read about, yet.
 
but yes i have to find time to do it. sr80i it is then!
 
and wooden cups looks fantastic btw

 

[Big Bill]

Quote:

........."I don't think these mods - if properly applied - make the cans "warmer."  In some ways, they clean up the presentation.  A lot of sound artifacts, stemming from plastic, are reduced.  Bass has more punch to it but without a midbass "ring."..........

 
 
 
Well said Bill!!

 

[JamesMcProgger]

Quote:

I don't think that the mods make them warmer I just think that once they burn in a little they become warmer naturally. Grados are definitely a warm headphone. I also want to mention that the Allesandro MS1i's sound better to me than my sr80i's. There are definitely more details present and overall just don't sound the same.

 
hey!  totally agree with you on the ms1 over the sr80. and i was eskeptic when i decided to buy the ms1, but now im glad i did.
 
and i used "warmer" as an example, but meant to say any change in the sound signature. can a wood cup alone change the sound signature of a grado?

 

[KneelJung]

 
Quote:

 
 
and i used "warmer" as an example, but meant to say any change in the sound signature. can a wood cup alone change the sound signature of a grado?

In a word yes.
 
Most of the mods are very easy. The big thing is getting over the fear of dismantling them first, but the cups come apart super easy. I used a hair dryer, punching the holes is no big deal either. Bill recommends a ball point pen for this task and it works very well. The plastic driver chambers slide right into their new wood home very easily. I had to shim mine up a bit but other than that pretty simple. Alot of people have removed the grill cloth but mine remains intact, I also recabled mine but that's something you can do later...if you just want to see what sort of difference the wood versus the plastic makes first, and it's pretty significant.

 

[estreeter]

Quote:

.if you just want to see what sort of difference the wood versus the plastic makes first, and it's pretty significant.

Even with the plastic still in place, the 'BV60i' has given me a lot of encouragement to save for the Grados I should have bought on day one - the Ms-PRO.
 

 

[Melvins]

 

[KneelJung]

Hey Bill (or anybody really) you wouldn't happen to know the height (head to cup) of the Jumbos would you? I'm still working on replacing that wire, but once I do, I need to get those things cut to a reasonable height.

I don't have my jumbos anymore.  If memory serves, I sold them to KneelJung.  I'd guess they have a diameter of four inches and a height of about two inches.  But I could be completely Rainmanning the whole thing.  "How much is a candy bar, Raymond?"  "Fifty dollars." 
 
 
Actually I got mine from Todd at TTVJ, but I do remember you offering up yours in the thread a while back. We did swap some PM's on our impressions. I like them more now then I did then, but I'd still love to have something that sonically is a compromise between the bowls and the jumbos, so maybe you can work on that sml1226. Anyway I did some measurements. The jumbos are 3" at the base and flange up a 1/2" to a 4" diameter that is 7/8" tall on the outside and bowl shaped on the inside The total height is 1 3/8".
 
I think there is a lot going on with this thing other than the dimensions though. The bottom and the top are both pretty rigid, probably for structural integrity purposes, but it probably influence the sound as well; and I'm sure the density of the foam and the shape of that inner bowl influences the sonic presentation.
 
BTW if one of the black helicopter guys from Grado is lurking I think there is a market for the compromise between the sonics the bowls provide and the sonics the jumbos provide, just saying.
 
 

 

[Bilavideo]

 

hey!  totally agree with you on the ms1 over the sr80. and i was eskeptic when i decided to buy the ms1, but now im glad i did.
 
and i used "warmer" as an example, but meant to say any change in the sound signature. can a wood cup alone change the sound signature of a grado?

In a way it does.  Grados are open and unfiltered.  This gives them remarkably flat mids and percussive treble but the big hole in the back sucks out the bass.  That's why it matters what the air chambers are made from.  The K1000 is the classic example of "open" sound, just "ear speakers" hanging in front of your ears like shutters on windows, but it's tough to get much bass from your own dynamic version of a Magnepan "Maggie." To get bass from a kind of "driver-only" platform, you need to suppress the treble (cue the filter) and create an extremely resilient driver, one capable of rumbling out this "driver-only" bass.  The HD800, which doesn't have much slam to it, has remarkable grumble because it's built for driver-only bass.  Sennheiser invested in ring magnets and redesigned the HD800's driver to have no cone.  After all, it's hard to suffer cone break-up if you have no cone.  One question observers might want to ask if why Sennheiser felt a sudden need to get rid of cones.  Why was Sennheiser so concerned about cone breakup?  Answer: Because Sennheiser's approach of hanging the driver in the wind is fairly hard on drivers.
 
Most dynamic headphones give the driver an assist in capturing as much bass as possible.  So-called closed cans use the back to bounce the back wave into your ear.  The bass isn't as tight but the quantity of bass is much improved.  Truly open cans put all the weight on the driver, itself, but semi-open cans (which introduce something in the shell to help amplify the bass) either restrict or partially block the rear grill or use the sides of the air chamber to selectively produce a bass-heavy resonance.  This is where it matters whether the chamber is made from aluminum, wood, plastic or some other material.  The chamber, itself, becomes a kind of mirror reflecting back certain frequencies.  It's an acoustic version of a bass boost.  Some woods, like mahogany, deliver highs and lows.  Some, like maple, are known for their bright reflections.  Some, like East Indian rosewood, Brazilian rosewood and cocobolo, are known for their bass response.
 
Now, if you improve the bass response, you've got a game changer.  Why?  Because you're not cranking up the master volume to get enough bass.  Not cranking up the volume means that certain HF spikes either don't happen or are more easily absorbed.  Having enough bass can mean having less of something produced as a side-effect of the search for more bass.
 

 

[eclein]

JamesMcProgger--Hi, send Bill (bilavideo) a message about the shells, he makes them and can easily hook you up. I read through the mods way back when I bought some used SR60's and said to my self "no way". The scariest, hardest part and once you done it you'll say that was easy!! Is taking the shells apart from the driver tray-all your doing is warming up glue and ungluing the two pieces. The rest is easy, easy, easy and a great way to customize the sound of your Grados'...so it was only a few months back when I started and I now have these:

 
They are the best sounding headphones I ever heard- I'm 53, retired professional drummer and I've heard a few..then a friend sent me his SR125's and an hour later I made these and listened to them everyday while hospitalized for a month:

 
The moral of the story is Mod my friend!!!!  To Mod is Good, To not Mod means you should!!!!

 

[Melvins]

agreed sir.

 

[JamesMcProgger]

OK then, Thank you all for the replies. so the trick is the reflection of the waves, and it depends on the material providing such reflection. nice explanation bilavideo!
 
and eclein those looks nice, lets see where am I in 2 or 3 months from now. And i will get some wood cups, but first i must read more and find out which ones i want. I have seen some pretty awesome mods in this thread, I must confess got hooked by the look, that was why i started reading it.