Ok so quick update.
Stock White baffling added to my current combo (Lawton level 1, and dampening disk to position 2) added an overall decrease in everything. Kind of like EQ drop across the board. A slight muffling if you will. Some highs stayed nice and present. It was strange.
It sounded more closed, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Makes sense considering that it baffles some air movement. Maybe it made things tighter...??? IDK. I wouldn't say tighter, but just different and not good to my ears. I took it back out.
Sounds like too much damping in the cups. The lining (paper tape) mainly helps damping the treble and slightly the mids. The polyfill gets rid of a strong, high and sustained 3 kHz ridge in the CSD (cumulative spectral decay plot), which gives a livelier sound perception, except when it's ringing with the music (like with brighter piano recordings). This is one area where my ears have tricked me during the mods, as I also preferred the livelier and apparently more spacious sound of the ringing cups when playing other instruments, and needed measurements to see clearly what is happening.
So my advice to everyone doing the mods is to keep the original white polyfill, eventually at 3/4 thickness, but 1/2 thickness was already not enough.
The Lawton basic mod contains a paper disk, and a foam disk, plus the side dampers. Together they replace the stock white filling and sound a bit more spacious. When you remove 1/4 of the white polyfill then it sounds almost exactly like the basic Lawton mod, except the basic Lawton mod also helps taming the treble.
My mods include a 2-3 mm thick and about 73 mm diameter wool felt disk in the cup, that sounds better than either of the above, but wool felt is not consistent, so I don't advise it, you need to try a lot of makes and diameters until finding the optimum, which does not ring and doesn't sound muffled or overdamped.
IMHO the EZ paper tape cup mods are the best ones so far to tame the treble, and they are the cheapest as well -- but based on my measurements the 3/4 amount of polyfill is still needed. Make sure the paper coating is not too thick, especially on the contact surface with the driver frame, where it should not be more than one layers thick. I noticed the best is if they have some ridges on the inner surface of the cups, i.e. it's not a neat flat job. The EZ cup mods are not so easy after all than the rest, so I'd put them among the more advanced mods, especially when you need to unmount the cups. Take a lot of care and very light hands with that.
If unsure, leave the cups alone and use the other EZ mods.
glad you are enjoying it the way it should be
as it will help others out as well
