[The Big Sleep]

Im seeing an overwhelming amount of modded "X" cans lately and am really curious as to how much of a return there is on things like recabling, wooding, damping, balancing, yada yada yada. My main question lies in that Im looking to buy a Denon D7000 soon here, and I've seen all this hype about the LA versions, but the price to do the whole mod is way out of my range. 
 
Would I see more improvement from just doing the basic MarkL mod, buying LA wood cups, J-Money pads, or recabling them? Im a little leery about investing $250-$300 into a cable though, it just seems nonsensical if you ask me.  

 

[KingStyles]

You will get the most improvement with the pads and the mod. Then the wood cups would give you a little more improvment. The cable makes the least improvement. Getting the LA7000 lites will give you 95% of the full LA7000. The last 5% is the cable and it is the most expensive part of the whole mod. I hope this helps your decision.

 

[The Big Sleep]

Quote:

You will get the most improvement with the pads and the mod. Then the wood cups would give you a little more improvment. The cable makes the least improvement. Getting the LA7000 lites will give you 95% of the full LA7000. The last 5% is the cable and it is the most expensive part of the whole mod. I hope this helps your decision.

Isnt it ironic that the easiest/cheapest mods provide the biggest difference? I had the feeling this was always the case and have heard from people who invested $300+ in recabling that the difference can be negligible at times. Ill probably just do the markL mod myself and get the jmoneys and see how that changes the sound. Thanks for the input

 

[Ham Sandwich]

EQ is also a mod to consider with the Denons.  Very tweakable and completely reversible if you don't like it.

 

[Ypoknons]

Quick theoretical thoughts:
Recabling: depends on what you think about cables. Or if the headphone has really bad crosstalk, I think that helps.
Wooding & cups: For closed headphones, the acoustics of the cups is paramount - material, shape, all make a difference.
Dampening: The theory is there, haven't tried.