DIY $31 Grado-style Metal Headphone with $22 Elfinear drivers
Now I’ve never listened to a multi-kilo-buck headphone but I can imagine that they sound amazing because my humble DIY headphone project completely dwarfs my $200 Sennheiser MassDrop 6XX and $450 Sennheiser 660S/660S2 plus $300 OCC cable.
I noticed in most photos of headphones they use a thin stranded wire to connect the headphone driver. Flexible wire isn’t important to me, so I used solid core OCC NeoTech 18AWG wire. Wrapped in copper tape for shielding and wrapped again in red vinyl electrical tape. And soldered used Cardas Quad Eutectic silver solder.
I borrowed ideas from modding threads that use sorbothane for vibration control and cork material for upper frequency sound tuning and open cell foam for bass control.
For this kit I initially purchased nice drivers $55 off aliexpress, but theyre too thick for the headphone housing, so I had to settle for amazon quick delivery, I chose the $22 elfinear driver, which is much thinner. Being thinner, I was able to glue pieces of sorbothane around the edges to serve as a gasket. I saw a video of ZMF headphones and they construct their headphones with something that serves as a gasket between driver and housing. Sorbothane pieces on outer housing grill. And sorbothane zip tied around headphone jack plug.
These drivers, in an open back, have too much bass. It gets even worse if your pads are dense memory foam with leather. My pads are super cheap open cell foam “bowl” style with velvet material. The bowls I cut down 40%, they push the drivers too far away from my ears. I used the left over open cell foam to cut and stuff one of the vent holes in the driver. The second vent hole I lightly covered foam, but did not push it into the vent. If both vents are filled, the bass dissappears. But maybe that may be ok with leather pads.
1/8” inch cork material with adhesive glued to the sidewalls of housing and on top of driver magnet. This improved vocals and details. Didnt do anything to the bass.
The metal housing isn’t light, they do weigh a little bit. But weight to me isn’t an issue. I also needed length. So I built a 10 meter (30ft) cable using 16AWG stranded wire using a highly flexible cable from Javex. Sometimes I like my music on the front porch.
These are now my new reference headphones. Listening to these, I’m much closer to the sonics. Resolution, details, imaging, moving into/background and project the sound to the foreground, maybe not so much on the left to right movement of soundstage… The manufactured Sennheisers are nice, and very well balanced in their tuning, particularly the bass doesn’t overpower the overall topography (the Elfinear drive bass is a little sloppy, not as refined as the Sennheisers.), but I feel like there is now a veil or haze over over everything compared to the DIY headphone. Where I enjoy the Sennheisers is for comfort. The DIY metal cans need more cushioning on headband, and I’ll have to experiment with more comfortable memory foam pads and tuning the bass.
Velvet Bowl style cushions open cell foam - cut down by about %40.
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256...t_main.95.47bc1802jjYkIu&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa
Elfinear drivers
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0924MDQ9B?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title
javex cable
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PPLYSYY?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title
cork coaster with adhesive
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08YVPDB94?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title
Grado- style metal headphone
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256..._main.101.47bc1802jjYkIu&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa
