[MrLazyAnt]

Hello DIYer's of Head-fi. I am mulling over an idea which for now I think best to keep close to the chest,but please bear with me. If you are so inclined I would greatly appreciate help with these questions. To confirm or deny my own findings, and to further my knowledge in general. Thanks again.

1) Aside from 40mm, what are the most common driver sizes?

2) To which degree do you consider yourself DIY? Build everything from scratch, buy variuos parts then mix and match, or just modding over the counter headphones to improve them/mold them to your needs?

3) Aside from the T50RP, which planars are often modded?

4) For those of you who build everything from scratch, which materials do you prefer to use and why?

5) If you have links to pictorials of builds from scratch, or just builds around a pre-purchased driver that would be fantastic.

Thank you for your time, and hopefully help.

Olivier

 

[tomb]

Hello DIYer's of Head-fi. I am mulling over an idea which for now I think best to keep close to the chest,but please bear with me. If you are so inclined I would greatly appreciate help with these questions. To confirm or deny my own findings, and to further my knowledge in general. Thanks again.

1) Aside from 40mm, what are the most common driver sizes?

2) To which degree do you consider yourself DIY? Build everything from scratch, buy variuos parts then mix and match, or just modding over the counter headphones to improve them/mold them to your needs?

3) Aside from the T50RP, which planars are often modded?

4) For those of you who build everything from scratch, which materials do you prefer to use and why?

5) If you have links to pictorials of builds from scratch, or just builds around a pre-purchased driver that would be fantastic.

Thank you for your time, and hopefully help.

Olivier

 
1) 50mm, but they're often an unusual selling feature.  Obviously, there are many that are smaller than 40mm as well (portables).
2) Personally, I don't consider modding headphones as DIY, but many people will disagree with me.  Those of us that produce amps and DACs start with nothing more than a schematic.  It's pretty hard to classify that as "modding."
3. None that are new manufacture - with a very few exceptions.  I think there are people out there modding the Oppo's and Audeze, but it's tweaking around the edges and not something that could be considered manufacturing, IMHO.  The problem is that outside of the T50RP, you're usually talking $1000 and up.  That makes it very difficult to sell as a "homemade, DIY" product at a higher price.  Some people would consider a modded headphone as an improved used purchase that should be somewhere above 50% list.  Needless to say, that often makes it an unacceptable risk.
 
With the T50RP, you have something cheap enough in the market that you can literally take the drivers out and create a new headphone and sell it at a much higher price.  There are several out there doing that.
4) solder and Mouser-sourced electronic parts
5) My goodness - use the search engine.  There's a thread right on this page that's titled "Post Pics of your Builds."  There's also an extensive thread on DIY-ing electrostatics.  There are other threads that can touch on almost anything.
 
Keep in mind that often this is electronics-based, not headphone manufacturing.
 
I hate to be discouraging, but the plastic molding required to produce a general market headphone has exorbitantly high investment costs.  Look at Audeze.  They were one of the few in the last few years to be successful without extensive plastic molding techniques.  Even after several years of being on top of the planar market, they only now have the financial capital to produce a plastic-molded headphone.  Most headphone startups start with a lot of wood or modding with parts from various other headphone models.

 

[MrLazyAnt]

1) 50mm, but they're often an unusual selling feature.  Obviously, there are many that are smaller than 40mm as well (portables).
2) Personally, I don't consider modding headphones as DIY, but many people will disagree with me.  Those of us that produce amps and DACs start with nothing more than a schematic.  It's pretty hard to classify that as "modding."
3. None that are new manufacture - with a very few exceptions.  I think there are people out there modding the Oppo's and Audeze, but it's tweaking around the edges and not something that could be considered manufacturing, IMHO.  The problem is that outside of the T50RP, you're usually talking $1000 and up.  That makes it very difficult to sell as a "homemade, DIY" product at a higher price.  Some people would consider a modded headphone as an improved used purchase that should be somewhere above 50% list.  Needless to say, that often makes it an unacceptable risk.

With the T50RP, you have something cheap enough in the market that you can literally take the drivers out and create a new headphone and sell it at a much higher price.  There are several out there doing that.
4) solder and Mouser-sourced electronic parts
5) My goodness - use the search engine.  There's a thread right on this page that's titled "Post Pics of your Builds."  There's also an extensive thread on DIY-ing electrostatics.  There are other threads that can touch on almost anything.

Keep in mind that often this is electronics-based, not headphone manufacturing.

I hate to be discouraging, but the plastic molding required to produce a general market headphone has exorbitantly high investment costs.  Look at Audeze.  They were one of the few in the last few years to be successful without extensive plastic molding techniques.  Even after several years of being on top of the planar market, they only now have the financial capital to produce a plastic-molded headphone.  Most headphone startups start with a lot of wood or modding with parts from various other headphone models.

Thank you very much for the in depth answer.

I did try googling and came up with very little. As for the "Pics of your Builds" thread, it has near no headphone builds, at least not from scratch. Mostly amps,some DACS as far as I can tell.