[lantian]

I finally got around to comparing the filter foams, to positive effect.
Testing with the 560II due to aforementioned issues with the 540II at the moment, but assume the same will carry over. I've been using the more transparents filters with them for as long as I've had them, and whilst I find these headphones to be linear, fast and very lifelike in their performance, if I had to pick holes, I would say that they are a little cool, slightly shy on the bass, and a little analytical. Not major problems, as I like my sound to be clear and accurrate first and foremost. Changing to the denser filters seems to address exactly those holes I've picked, and in exactly the right way. First thing I noticed was increased bass presence and a fuller midrange, but with no negative tradeoff, the bass was still quick and articulate, and the midrange didn't get bloated, it just became a bit warmer. And while there was not a trace of the detail or microdetail being reduced in any way, somehow it made it both less analytical, and more realistic at the same time.
The spacial information was still there, and the depth was still good, but it seemed like it was somehow a bit more effortless, I wasn't being shown that depth as something slightly separate, it was... unified?
Overall I agree with lantian, there's clearly something missing using the currently available official sennheiser filters. It just goes to show, you never know until you try

Super happy for your amazing experience,
Pretty much how those filters should be. Those are the ones you got from Mr. Wang?

 

[Whitigir]

Have had same thought process myself many times to be totally honest.
Just like you am pretty much 100% certain this is a case of cost savings, or giving them a bit of credit cost savings because performance increase is almost negligible (but my philosophy is all small things eventually add up to the whole, no matter how negligible they might seem) compared to price increase X amount of times.
There would no doubt be performance benefits using silver. If memory serves right @Whitigir has some experience using silver plates for shielding in his dap mods, and reported actuall improvements in sound quality with his hd800s.
Pur gold would be the best option ever, though almost unaffordable. Replaced my luxmans internal wires for signal with 3n pure gold 0.2mm. With pure gold in chain, like a whole nother dimension and textures beyond imagination have appeared .
Though gold is incredibly easy to burn with the temperature needed to solder, would say almost as finicky as voice coils in these headphones, but doable.
Getting everything made of pure silver is second best, and probably only viable option.
Also can recommend using mundorf solder with4%gold in it. Getting pure silver RCA plugs should be no issue if you can order from UK. Check out hifi collective. Those are my go-to guys for audio grade components for diy or repairs, have amazing stock.
Getting pure silver 6.35 jack's , believe futuretech might have something, but not sure.
But as for headphone plug itself pretty sure only option is to buy some pure silver rods in that diameter, file and cut them to size by oneself and get someone to 3d print the smaller size casings for it.
If I knew anyone who has a 3d printer would have already done this myself.
Sorry for getting so carried away and this is all readable.

I agreed whole heartedly. Also allow me to add my opinions

Pure gold is the best if you can afford it. I know a lot of people would love to assume that gold has less conductivity rating, it sounds muddy or lacking of bass…whoever assume that has never ever heard the performances of pure gold. I don’t blame them, because Gold is a lot more expensive than Gold plated silver conductors. People also assume gold plated silver or copper are very close to pure gold, which is absolutely wrong

Plugs that has the best silver and rhodium plating would be Cardas. Base materials are always brass though. There are very few silver as base materials because they are not strong enough. Furutech is the best for plugs when you love durability, performances, and Rhodium plated. I vouch for both Cardas and Furutech. If you love pure copper and gold plating or silver, you should be using Neotech or Pentaconn

 

[Backsplash7]

Super happy for your amazing experience,
Pretty much how those filters should be. Those are the ones you got from Mr. Wang?

Yes these are the ones from Mr. Wang. I just listened to another album, something heavier, and there is something else that has changed. These didn't use to have bass punch before, and now they pack an absolute wallop, flipping heck! Do you have any other tweaks you're hiding up your sleeve? Haha

 

[Backsplash7]

I agreed whole heartedly. Also allow me to add my opinions

Pure gold is the best if you can afford it. I know a lot of people would love to assume that gold has less conductivity rating, it sounds muddy or lacking of bass…whoever assume that has never ever heard the performances of pure gold. I don’t blame them, because Gold is a lot more expensive than Gold plated silver conductors. People also assume gold plated silver or copper are very close to pure gold, which is absolutely wrong

Plugs that has the best silver and rhodium plating would be Cardas. Base materials are always brass though. There are very few silver as base materials because they are not strong enough. Furutech is the best for plugs when you love durability, performances, and Rhodium plated. I vouch for both Cardas and Furutech. If you love pure copper and gold plating or silver, you should be using Neotech or Pentaconn

You're right, I would have assumed that gold would sound worse because of its poorer conductivity. To be fair I've never seen a pure gold cable around to try it, but I'd pretty much be open to trying anything and letting my ears be the judge

 

[sennsay]

You've gotten me thinking more about plugs, and general attention to detail. I'm now trying to find occ silver 4 pin xlr plugs, but so far have only found occ copper, or 99.9% gold/rhodium plated silver. And your remark about shielding got me thinking as well... I've noticed that in a lot of rca cables the manufacturers quite often use a mismatching metal for the shield, so the cable might be silver plate but they use a copper shield, or use pure silver wire but with silver plate shielding. I imagine this must be a purely cost-saving exercise, but I imagine that this must create some issues. Would using a matching pure silver wire for shielding make a difference do you think?

The only form of shielding I've done is with the short ribbon silver cable I mentioned previously, and I just made a simple plait there (carefully) using three strands per channel. Two strands for the earth return.

 

[lantian]

Yes these are the ones from Mr. Wang. I just listened to another album, something heavier, and there is something else that has changed. These didn't use to have bass punch before, and now they pack an absolute wallop, flipping heck! Do you have any other tweaks you're hiding up your sleeve? Haha

Thanks, super happy another person can actually appreciate and enjoy what these phones where meant to be.
Unfortunately have no more tweaks, or rather fortunately,in my opinion this is all one needs.

 

[Backsplash7]

So with some further searching, I've found some much wider and thinner 99.999% silver foil, and 1% gold/silver foil, which is also much cheaper than the silk and oil stuff, offering multiple times the total surface area for less money, with wider foils available too. I'm sure that braiding something like that would be quite challenging, but I'm curious about it nonetheless. This is non-insulated though, so I'd have to try and work out what I could wrap it with.
Has anybody tried 1% gold silver before? I've heard comparisons on youtube, but obviously that is of limited use

 

[Backsplash7]

Decided I'd have a go at troubleshooting my 540's again, as I have noticed the odd sharp edge on my 560's and 700's too, so I thought I would try to cover any bases I may have overlooked before from all the changes I made, so I checked everything. One thing I had forgotten to swap back from my power cable testing, was a silver plated bussman fuse from the power cable feeding my pc, so I swapped that back for the regular sem fuse that was in there to start with. No apparant difference.
The next thing I thought of was some sort of interference from the computer, and after some reading I installed equalizer apo, which is supposed to be able to bypass the standard windows audio engine stuff and reduce noise. I didn't notice any really obvious differences, maybe a little lower noise floor, as it seemed to make everything else just a little bit smoother, meaning that the sharp S sound stood out just a little more from the rest when tested with the 700. It seemed to depend on the recording though.
So, deep breath, on to testing the 540's. Its still painful there, so the fuse and the equalizer thing didn't help.
I went with the suggestion of the foam type in the earpads being a possibility, so popped the wang pleathers in. More bass, more body, smaller soundstage, no difference in S.
What else hadn't I tried? I eyed up my silver cable. Could it be as simple as going back to the stock ofc cable? Unfortunately not! Still there, maybe a couple of percentage points lower in some verses, still as sharp as a knife on others. At least it doesn't point to the silver cable being a problem, which is a relief, but I'm feeling the mental drain from it so I'll stop testing for today.
So, next things to try and rule out would be general computer based noise and/or the dac in my soundcard. I'll see if I have a cd or dvd player with rca outs to hook up directly to the amp and see what happens then.

 

[sennsay]

Decided I'd have a go at troubleshooting my 540's again, as I have noticed the odd sharp edge on my 560's and 700's too, so I thought I would try to cover any bases I may have overlooked before from all the changes I made, so I checked everything. One thing I had forgotten to swap back from my power cable testing, was a silver plated bussman fuse from the power cable feeding my pc, so I swapped that back for the regular sem fuse that was in there to start with. No apparant difference.
The next thing I thought of was some sort of interference from the computer, and after some reading I installed equalizer apo, which is supposed to be able to bypass the standard window audio engine stuff and reduce noise. I didn't notice any really obvious differences, maybe a little lower noise floor, as it seemed to make everything else just a little bit smoother, meaning that the sharp S sound stood out just a little more from the rest when tested with the 700. It seemed to depend on the recording though.
So, deep breath, on to testing the 540's. Its still painful there, so the fuse and the equalizer thing didn't help.
I went with the suggestion of the foam type in the earpads being a possibility, so popped the wang pleathers in. More bass, more body, smaller soundstage, no difference in S.
What else hadn't I tried? I eyed up my silver cable. Could it be as simple as going back to the stock ofc cable? Unfortunately not! Still there, maybe a couple of percentage points lower in some verses, still as sharp as a knife on others. At least it doesn't point to the silver cable being a problem, which is a relief, but I'm feeling the mental drain from it so I'll stop testing for today.
So, next things to try and rule out would be general computer based noise and/or the dac in my soundcard. I'll see if I have a cd or dvd player with rca outs to hook up directly to the amp and see what happens then.

Since you've tried everything else, it has to be something in the electronics pathway. I have no trace of edginess in my HD540s, not even with the ultra-revealing pure silver ICs. My chain is simple though, iMac with iTunes (AIFF files mostly, some AAC), Kimber USB to MusicStreamer II+ USB DAC, silver ICs to Magni 3+. The MusicStreamer II+ DAC is Asynchronous in operation, eliminating any noise from the iMac. Since HIFI News mag reviewed a lot of various USB cables some years back (hence I bought the Kimber after a ripper review), maybe your USB cable is part of the problem too? Just looking to help out here if I can. The other brilliant USB cable was the Chord Silver +, both are/were around the $100AUS mark. I went back to a stock USB cable that came with the Audio-gd R2R-11 a while back and the difference was marked! The stock one sounding grainy, a little edgy and just plain noisier.

 

[Backsplash7]

No usb connection in this case. PC soundcard has rca out straight into the amp. I play wav files almost exclusively (sometimes I dont have the choice, but its wav when I do). So it goes ae-pe > qed qunex 3 30th anniversary > sennheiser hdva600. Had previously tried swaping back to my acoustic research copper interconnects, incase the silver plated copper qed's were doing something. Frankly I expect that the main issue could just boil down to the amp showing the weakness of the dac, as its in such a higher class, but there might be some little tweak elsewhere that I hadn't thought of yet which might alleviate things a little.
I think what had happened was that I'd just gotten used to thesharpness beforehand and my hearing had been coping, up until I tried playing with different power cables that made it worse, after which I couldn't cope with it and I couldn't un-hear the problem after that. Only other thing I can think of is that I changed my fridge freezer at some point last year?

 

[sennsay]

No usb connection in this case. PC soundcard has rca out straight into the amp. I play wav files almost exclusively (sometimes I dont have the choice, but its wav when I do). So it goes ae-pe > qed qunex 3 30th anniversary > sennheiser hdva600. Had previously tried swaping back to my acoustic research copper interconnects, incase the silver plated copper qed's were doing something. Frankly I expect that the main issue could just boil down to the amp showing the weakness of the dac, as its in such a higher class, but there might be some little tweak elsewhere that I hadn't thought of yet which might alleviate things a little.
I think what had happened was that I'd just gotten used to thesharpness beforehand and my hearing had been coping, up until I tried playing with different power cables that made it worse, after which I couldn't cope with it and I couldn't un-hear the problem after that. Only other thing I can think of is that I changed my fridge freezer at some point last year?

Right, so may the circuitry in the DAC isn't so grand. Maybe a move to an external DAC may solve the issue, do you have one you can play with?

 

[Backsplash7]

Right, so may the circuitry in the DAC isn't so grand. Maybe a move to an external DAC may solve the issue, do you have one you can play with?

I think it uses a sabre 9038, but as they say, its the implementation. I think there's a sabre 9016 in my cambridge amp, but I dont think it has an rca output... let me go check that.
Edit: it has a pre-out, not sure if I could use that

 

[moriez]

Sound gets destroyed if I do that, the material is the main thing in here, thickness is only second. Just like all foams in these headphones, they where selected after carefull RnD process to be as transparent as possible. Sennheiser no longer has or produces it. Pretty sure might be the case of it no longer being produced by anyone because of costs/ health reasons. As with most of the stuff from that decade.

I happened to receive a 250 Linear with thicker less transparent foams. Do these appear the same to you as og 540 foams? On the right what's currently for sale (part 032950)

 

[lantian]

I happened to receive a 250 Linear with thicker less transparent foams. Do these appear the same to you as og 540 foams? On the right what's currently for sale (part 032950)

Pretty sure those are the ones, atleast look very similar

 

[lantian]

Decided I'd have a go at troubleshooting my 540's again, as I have noticed the odd sharp edge on my 560's and 700's too, so I thought I would try to cover any bases I may have overlooked before from all the changes I made, so I checked everything. One thing I had forgotten to swap back from my power cable testing, was a silver plated bussman fuse from the power cable feeding my pc, so I swapped that back for the regular sem fuse that was in there to start with. No apparant difference.
The next thing I thought of was some sort of interference from the computer, and after some reading I installed equalizer apo, which is supposed to be able to bypass the standard window audio engine stuff and reduce noise. I didn't notice any really obvious differences, maybe a little lower noise floor, as it seemed to make everything else just a little bit smoother, meaning that the sharp S sound stood out just a little more from the rest when tested with the 700. It seemed to depend on the recording though.
So, deep breath, on to testing the 540's. Its still painful there, so the fuse and the equalizer thing didn't help.
I went with the suggestion of the foam type in the earpads being a possibility, so popped the wang pleathers in. More bass, more body, smaller soundstage, no difference in S.
What else hadn't I tried? I eyed up my silver cable. Could it be as simple as going back to the stock ofc cable? Unfortunately not! Still there, maybe a couple of percentage points lower in some verses, still as sharp as a knife on others. At least it doesn't point to the silver cable being a problem, which is a relief, but I'm feeling the mental drain from it so I'll stop testing for today.
So, next things to try and rule out would be general computer based noise and/or the dac in my soundcard. I'll see if I have a cd or dvd player with rca outs to hook up directly to the amp and see what happens then.

Have a bad feeling that in your case the hd 540 has a damaged driver.
So far have owned 4pairs of 540rg 600ohm, 1 pair of hd540 rg 300ohm version. 3 hd 540II, 1 hd 250, 1 hd 560 Ovation, 1 hd 560 ovationII, 2 hd 480s and a hd 480classic. All of them where in ideal condition except for hd480 classic. All of them also had the impedance pretty much as advertised, except for the hd480 classic which reports 20ohm less than what it's supposed to be. The sound it produces at lower levels is ok with a bit pronounced s sounds, but once you get to normal listening level it's painful and unbearable. Both drivers are broken, have no idea of exactly how, but suspect voice coil may have developed shorts or something. No modding or dampening can fix this, only a new headphones.
Best bet is if you know anyone with a pair aswell go to them and compare to yours, these headphones should not have any issues like that.
Another way to see if it's dampening/pads at fault is to remove the pads and all foam and have a listen holding them closer to your ears, if they sound good it's the materials of foam that are at fault, if not the drivers are faulty.