Alright, the Sonic Mod for these MH463 as promised. I got my somics from a ebay seller that sold them with extra turtle beach pads and I use my ipod classic on "flat" EQ for all my listening. The reason why i felt these needed modding was the fact that despite they are a nice sounding set of fully open backs with a lot of bass, it lacks a lot of refinement in the highs and the lows. The mids on these are great, and instrument separation is pretty sweet due to the big open soundstage. The highs on these MH463s is somewhat veiled, meaning it has a very dry/dull/ lifeless quality to them. The lows while great in quantity in both the mid/ sub bass regions, it lacks control and lushness. There is no lushness or sparkle to the highs as well, which makes these sound not too refined.
The refinement in the highs and lows of Sony MH1Cs makes it a great comparison to these MH463s. The lows and highs of the MH1cs albeit kinda slow/ overly smooth is fairly lush and has a really refined quality to them. The highs and mids on the MH1Cs also has some nice sparkle to it as well. Sadly I can not say the same for these Somic MH463s. Although the soundstage/ airiness/ instrument separation is better on the Somics due to the open back, the lack of refinement makes you wish that these were more finely tuned. So with this in mind i attempted to mod these to bring out the highs as well as to tame the bass a bit so the sonic spectrum would be more balanced overall.
Sonic Mod:
..... as i stated above, the turtle beach pads that came with my somics makes them have a crazy amount of mid/ sub bass which literally rattles the ear cups of these cans. So yeah despite i enjoyed the ear/ brain massage, this sound didn't feel/ sound too refined to me. LoL I tried stuffing the turtle beach pads with cotton/ paper towels to bring out the highs/ control the bass but no stuffing combo sounded right to me. So i was like wait, maybe stuffing the stock pads might do the trick. Went back to using the stock pads, and they sounded worse than the turtle beach pads in terms of refinement. Overall sound was even more dull, esp in the highs, bass still lack lushness, etc. Then i noticed that both the turtle beach pads and the stock pads has this really thick fabric which covered the driver opening of these MH463s. I remembered from my JVC S400 mods that foam covers over the drivers helps a lot to bring out the highs. So i took the stock pads off/ flipped them over and cut all the strings that held the driver cloth cover off as seen in the pic above.
....this is joes pic of the stock pads still with the cloth driver cover intact.
..... both cloth driver covers has been cut out from my stock pads.
.... as shown in joes picture, there are 2 sets of bass ports on the top and bottom of the driver opening.
..... i used 2 small pieces of masking tape to cover up those bass ports. This helps to control the sub/ mid bass a lot. The bass is still deep and big but it no longer rattles the ear cups of these cans. This taming of the bass makes the overall sonic spectrum much more balanced and refined.
..... then i used the foam driver covering/ disk from my superlux HD681s, not exactly the same as in the above pic, but i assume any foam covering will do. That was just what i had, so feel free to try different types of materials. But foam types are probably best to bring out the highs due to it being more transparent.
.... after the bass ports are taped over and the foam diver disk covers are inserted, i proceeded to stuff the pads with some cotton. But you need to stretch the cotton balls out 1st, i used a total of 3 cotton balls for each pad.
.... stretch it out like so, one ball should be enough to make one full ring.
.... 3 cotton rings total, so make sure you stuff them tight so it will not block the driver opening.
.... then i remember some people use Q-Tips to help the stuffing stay firm and not get squished after prolonged use. I used 4 Q-Tips like the pic above with the cotton stuffing. This helps the cotton stay in place as well as not collapse when worn.
Well, that's it folks!!! A really simple mod really, all stock materials mostly.
With this mod the highs are well extended with even some sparkle to them, probably due to the foam driver covers and the cotton/ Q-Tip stuffing which allows the highs to breath a bit and also helped further open up the soundstage. The lows are much much more controlled due to the taped bass ports, mid/ sub bass no longer rattles the ear cups and is also more lush sounding as well. The mids are still as lovely as ever, so now the overall sonic spectrum is more balanced without any regions bleeding over or interfering one another.
.... full mod just looks like this.
Finally these Somics have some of the refinement of the Sony MH1Cs, and is sounding more like a headphone version of them with bigger soundstage/ better instrument separation and more transparency in the music due to the fully open back. Who knew pad/ padding material can change/ affect sonic properties so much. These MH463s are not as versatile or responds as well to simple mods as the JVC S500s but it does help refine their sound more with the mods shown above.
Sonic Mod Ingredients List:
Stock Pads, pair of scissors, masking tape, a set of foam driver covers, 6 cotton balls, and 8 Q-Tips, and you're DONE!!!
edit: Oh yeah forgot to state that this mod with "Jazz" EQ on the ipod classic is where it's at. It opens up the highs even more and the bass hits deep/ tight/ and big without it being cup shaking. Woot Woot, lovin' these Somic MH463 now!!!
Pheeeeew!
