I've revisited pad stuffing and listened intently over the course of an hour. I packed the material more densely than in previous trials in an attempt to recreate
miceblue's splendidly detailed tutorial. I cycled the recommended paper towels and cotton rounds -- my go-to stuffing material -- with near-identical results. I then went back to the stock configuration, revisited the same content for another 30 minutes, and contrasted my results.
Comfort
When cold, the increased rigidity of the pads caused unpleasant pressure around my ears. However, comfort became tolerable after the pleather warmed a bit. No part of the pad nor driver housing touched my ears at any point with the pads "fully" stuffed, so it was a give-and-take from stock.
Sound Signature
Contrary to what I had previously experienced with my minimal stuffing scheme, there were substantial audible changes with the "full" modifications in place. On the whole, the presentation moved forward and gained some immediacy; it was enough to make me listen at a lower volume than with stock. Because of this, it's difficult to determine if the overall soundstage space changed. If it did, I would strain to say it did so meaningfully. In addition to what others had previously described as a loss of bass, I felt that the lower-midrange had also lost weight to a degree. Troublingly, I found that articulation suffered in these frequencies. To cite an example, Matthew Dear's guttural drawl on
Fighting is Futile often became indistinct from the underlying bass groove, but laudable tonal separation returned with the removal of the excess materials. Furthermore, what I feel is the absolute standout performance area of the M-100 -- the upper-midrange/lower treble rendering/timbre -- was highly altered. As with the lower frequencies, a loss of nuance was detected along with a definite upward push in tonality. As another specific observation, Hanne Hukkelberg's assertive vocalizations on the rawly-produced
Noah took on a nasally sheen that crossed the threshold into outright aggressiveness. As a result, the unsettling anticipation felt by the repeated toeing of that particular line was lost. I'd go so far as to state that this is a direct sampling of why a chain of quality audio components is necessary for one to achieve a proper emotional connection with their preferred music, but I'll opt to digress that argument for now.
Synergy, of course, is of the utmost consideration. My basic setup is as follows:
Macbook Pro -> Audirvana Plus (Direct, Exclusive, and Integer activated) -> FLAC -> Audioquest DragonFly-> M-100
Depending on one's own equipment, content, and tastes, the
stuff mod changes could be considered an improvement. For me, however, it's back to stock for the time being. That said, another big 'ol THANK YOU to
miceblue and other like-minded individuals who dare to boldly experiment. Bravo!
An extreme aside, but I've played the heck out of both
Beams and
Featherbrain and am coming to the realization that they'll both most likely crack my personal top ten (of '12) before the year is out. Huh...
Quote:
Well I played a bass-heavy song switched to mono and it was pretty clear with that. Trying that test tone though, it seems like it probably is just my ears...it's ~70hz where it suddenly drops out in my left ear. Thanks for showing me that. I'm gonna need to test someone else with this too though!
It has some handy quick reference tools. It's also hilariously fun to throw some headphones on an unsuspecting victim and play the binaural knocking. (as I did to my girlfriend... her motioning toward the door followed immediately by a look of confusion was priceless)
