[Saintkeat]

Viablues hardly weigh a thing. They may look hefty but they're surprisingly light.

And you're wrong about the stiffness. It's extremely supple with a loose braid. It's even more flexible than my tightly braided 29awg iem stranded silver cable. Loving the cable! No microphonics at all!

For once I'm very satisfied with my product =D

I'll post pics of the cable with the fully assembled Grados soon

 

[wje]

I went out during lunch and picked up the black zinc collar locks today.  They are ... well ... all black.  Black circular housing, black set screw, etc.  They might be great for a pair of "Stealth" Grados if someone were to go with a dark zebra wood, paint the chrome poles black and install these black zinc collars. 
 
I'm not sure if they've be too much of a contrast against the chrome rods on the regular Grados.  I might just swap a pair of mine out and see how they look.
 
 

 

[BossBorot]

Here is the first set of pics for how to go from partial liberated drivers to fully liberated drivers.
 
below you can see what we are going from on the right to what we are going to end up with on the left with the only tool we need. I got mine from a manicure kit but basically you will need something strong enough to cut plastic but delicate enough to fit between the 16 holes in the outermost circle. There is actually quite a bit of space between the bottom of the plastic and the driver but to be safe patience is key.
 

 
Below is a closer look at the driver when we are done with it next to the extracted piece of plastic.
 

 
And this is how we get started. I'll take more pictures as I progress.
 

 
 
This may look very dangerous but so long as you do not cut or poke the driver there is no chance of failure. Again there is a decent amount of space between the deepness I am cutting and the driver you can see this in the second pic. Therefore if you take it slow there should be no chance of breaking the driver.
 

 

[Dobrescu George]

did you got anything form this mod?... in sound departement?... i did something similar into some crap headphones, and not got anything better from the sound.... 

 

[BossBorot]

Quote:

did you got anything form this mod?... in sound departement?... i did something similar into some crap headphones, and not got anything better from the sound.... 

It sounds better but not by much. I would say that out of all of the mods done on the stock grados this one made the second biggest impact after poking 4 holes behind the drivers but again the change is minimal and may not be worth the danger of exposing the drivers to some. If you are not going to reshell your Grados this is likely not worth it. I am currently waiting on shells from bilavideo for which I want the least amount of plastic surrounding the drivers..
 
It was strange with one liberated and one not liberated. The headphones seemed unbalanced so there had to be some difference but it may just have been volume biased with all that plastic on one and not on the other one.

 

[BobSaysHi]

Quote:

Here is the first set of pics for how to go from partial liberated drivers to fully liberated drivers.
 
below you can see what we are going from on the right to what we are going to end up with on the left with the only tool we need. I got mine from a manicure kit but basically you will need something strong enough to cut plastic but delicate enough to fit between the 16 holes in the outermost circle. There is actually quite a bit of space between the bottom of the plastic and the driver but to be safe patience is key.
 

 
Below is a closer look at the driver when we are done with it next to the extracted piece of plastic.
 

 
And this is how we get started. I'll take more pictures as I progress.
 

 
 
This may look very dangerous but so long as you do not cut or poke the driver there is no chance of failure. Again there is a decent amount of space between the deepness I am cutting and the driver you can see this in the second pic. Therefore if you take it slow there should be no chance of breaking the driver.
 

I tried this a long time ago (on a dead driver) and I punctured the mylar. I don't recommend this AT ALL.
 

 

[BobSaysHi]

Quote:

What mono jack is that? It looks perfect for what I want. (jack, not plug. I see it's a viablue plug)
 

 

[BossBorot]

Cut around the holes in opposites so as not balance the cutting so you don't accidentally push the part you are cutting off into the driver.
 
Here we are after 4 hole cut
 

 
After 8
 

 
Go slower when you only have 4 holes left to cut as at this point the part you are cutting out is loosely held in place.
 
Stop when you only have one hole left to cut.
 

 
now pull the part we are removing away from the driver.
 

 
and twist it off. This is what you will have after the removal.
 

 
As you can see there is still a bunch of plastic left. Next we will take this off using the same tool.

 

[chrislangley4253]

Quote:

Here is the first set of pics for how to go from partial liberated drivers to fully liberated drivers.
 
below you can see what we are going from on the right to what we are going to end up with on the left with the only tool we need. I got mine from a manicure kit but basically you will need something strong enough to cut plastic but delicate enough to fit between the 16 holes in the outermost circle. There is actually quite a bit of space between the bottom of the plastic and the driver but to be safe patience is key.
 

 
Below is a closer look at the driver when we are done with it next to the extracted piece of plastic.
 

 
And this is how we get started. I'll take more pictures as I progress.
 

 
 
This may look very dangerous but so long as you do not cut or poke the driver there is no chance of failure. Again there is a decent amount of space between the deepness I am cutting and the driver you can see this in the second pic. Therefore if you take it slow there should be no chance of breaking the driver.
 

 


Quote:

Cut around the holes in opposites so as not balance the cutting so you don't accidentally push the part you are cutting off into the driver.
 
Here we are after 4 hole cut
 

 
After 8
 

 
Go slower when you only have 4 holes left to cut as at this point the part you are cutting out is loosely held in place.
 
Stop when you only have one hole left to cut.
 

 
now pull the part we are removing away from the driver.
 

 
and twist it off. This is what you will have after the removal.
 

 
As you can see there is still a bunch of plastic left. Next we will take this off using the same tool.

Hey mate,
 
sorry to be a buzz kill, but I really don't think this is the same difference as a full liberation.. This is just removing the plastic grille. Maybe if you did this paired with removing the driver from the inner sleeve... i think that might be the same as a full liberation, but I'm not sure. Someone help me out here.
 
- EDIT-  I now see that you did in fact remove the driver from the inner shell as well.. I'm still not 100% that this is a full liberation. Bah, i don't know.

 

[BossBorot]

Quote:

Hey mate,
 
sorry to be a buzz kill, but I really don't think this is the same difference as a full liberation.. This is just removing the plastic grille. Maybe if you did this paired with removing the driver from the inner sleeve... i think that might be the same as a full liberation, but I'm not sure. Someone help me out here.
 
- EDIT-  I now see that you did in fact remove the driver from the inner shell as well.. I'm still not 100% that this is a full liberation. Bah, i don't know.

 
You are correct that it is not the same as full liberation as it still has a bit of plastic on the edges however this is easy to shave down to be the same as full liberation. I am waiting until I get a new set of shells to do this though so that I can continue to use them in the meantime. You can see that I started to shave it off on the first driver (left) but stopped. If you take off that portion the driver will not fit well into the original shells which is why I am holding off for a few days.
 
 

 

[chrislangley4253]

Quote:

 
You are correct that it is not the same as full liberation as it still has a bit of plastic on the edges however this is easy to shave down to be the same as full liberation. I am waiting until I get a new set of shells to do this though so that I can continue to use them in the meantime. You can see that I started to shave it off on the first driver (left) but stopped. If you take off that portion the driver will not fit well into the original shells which is why I am holding off for a few days.
 
 

ah, I couldn't tell why it didn't quite look fully liberated.. Now I see why I was so confused. Once you remove it from the inner shell in it's entirety i'm sure it will be the same difference. nice trick.. any idea how you are going to protect the driver now? I know Big Bill has done some things similar to this, replacing this grille, with just a crossbar or two and then I think he just did a full on open mesh type thing.. Can't quite remember if that was him or not.
 
 

 

[BossBorot]

That is another reason why I am waiting to remove the last bit of plastic. If I keep the last bit of plastic I can use it to mount any mesh or metal screen and glue it to the plastic to keep it in place. Where as if I remove it fully then I would need to mount the driver cover to the wood that will be below the driver which should be harder to keep in place without affecting aesthetics or strength of protection.

 

[Saintkeat]

Quote:

What mono jack is that? It looks perfect for what I want. (jack, not plug. I see it's a viablue plug)
 

Its this supposed japanese made jack I picked up for 2 USD I think. I got it in a store locally.
 

 

[wje]

Quote:

Its this supposed japanese made jack I picked up for 2 USD I think. I got it in a store locally.
 

I've realized I might be living in the wrong county.  I need to be much closer to where these electronic deals are.
 
 

 

[Saintkeat]

Anything you need Wayne I'll help you out if I can! ; )