wualta

Steve, you're going to open them up like JazZ's woodie Lambdas? Interesting. Aren't there a bunch of unwanted T30s floating around in the orthoweirdo community? A couple of those drivers per side, and a well designed bass aperture... yasss... I'm waiting for one of you enterprising types to make a headphone entirely out of foaming wall filler. However it turns out, open or closed, do keep us keenly-interested types posted on the Hammacher-Schlemmer dual-driver job. A socalled bass lens may be necessary, but that's just a hunch based earlier attempts at multi-driver setups. * * * * * * "I'd Love To Be A Head-Case Ortho Weirdo" sung to the tune of the Oscar Mayer wiener song-- lyrics under contruction.

I think DAC's bass diagnosis is correct. I wonder if it would be possible for Audeze to offer different pads for different applications and tastes. This would be in the spirit of the ortho headphone being the ultimate customizable type. If the LCD-1 opens up easily and there's no risk of stripping threads in cheezy plastic, Audeze could also offer owner-install accessories (damping pads, reflex elements, glitter stickers with pink ponies on 'em, etc.) And yes, glass or rock wool makes a much better absorber than foam.

Nice review, DAC. Have you tried going part way on the earpads swap, and doing what some people did to their AKG K501 pads, putting vinyl tape around the outside of the pads to create a kind of bass dam? If the LCD-1 pads are velour, they could be more bass-porous than they should be and the tape tweak might be just the thing. Oh, and what were the results of the bass boost test?

Two non-squealers here..

Duggeh, would you be so kind as to take a nice macro photo of the counter? If it's just an odometer with a square button next to it and not in any way electronical, it's a mechanical device that simply counts revolutions of the feed spindle. Better than nothing but still not very precise. I recall the A77 as old enough to precede the days of what we excitedly called Real Time Counters with their cool VF and LED displays. Which means that it's probably a cheap little stringy rubber belt that's perished. Dig around inside, find it, measure it, and find some online places that specialize in belts and I'll bet you'll be counting reel revolutions inside a fortnight. There were some expensive add-on mechanical real-time counters made by Lyra and others BITD, but they're beyond the pale for such as we. Speaking of BITD, we used to record very low-frequency (~20 Hz) tones between tracks as we produced a tape. 3 bleeps meant the third selection, and so on. The idea was that the playback operator would fast-forward with the machine in "cue" (ie, with the tape pushed almost but not quite against the playback head) and listen for and count the beeps, now at a midrange frequency. The same idea was later adopted by VCR and cassette mfrs to bookmark tracks for their auto-search features. Ah, the good old backinthe days. Don't play nothin' important on that machine until you get yourself a good head demagnetiser and learn yourself how to use it properly.

Wee suggestion: to test the LCD-1's bass, plug it into a home amp with a good tone control ( = EQ) circuit and see how it responds to deep bass boost. If it doesn't rattle and roll, it's properly controlled and you can simply dial in the bass you want electronically. On the other hand, if the boost makes the bass all splatty and boomy, there's some modding to be done.

Whimsical designers. I can deal with that.

You think this will be their first time hearing the results of the grass roots Team Ortho effort? I like it. Speaking of which... While you're there, look 'em in the eye and ask "Are you guys crazy?" No, don't say that. But do try to get them to talk about what happened that made them decide to market an ortho 'phone. It's not like they could expect to make oodles of bucks anytime soon from such a product. The fact that there are two companies marketing new-from-the-ground-up designs just this model year is pretty freaky. It would be interesting to find out what got them started down this freaky road. Just a thought.

Hey, did anybody at any point in the design/debug process ever hand the Audeze guys a properly damped HP-3 or whichever and say "Here! listen to this!"?

Oh, go ahead and ask him again. He won't mind. I've never picked his brains about modification of the big-driver Fostexen (T30, T50, Aiwa, NAD, Sansui), but it would be interesting to hear (or read) his thoughts. And I'll just betcha that anything that works for those drivers will be at least partially applicable to the LCD-1.

Oh, and Don B. is the Zen Master of the Big Thread, so if you need an Ortho Guru, I'd ask him.

Yeah, the T50v1... I wouldn't touch 'em. When something's that well-developed, your chances of making it sound worse rather than better go up exponentially. Tell yew whut, though... Someone get Kabeer to tell us how his genuine T50v2 compared to his Aiwa, which was close enough to the T50v1 to be the T50v0. Problem is, they're all of 'em as rare as VFETs. The word "moot" comes to mind. Now, is the T50v1 the be-all and end-all headphone? No, it's just the one that sounded good out of the box. It was finished, in other words. All the necessary work had been done. There are no false moves, no bullshit, no voodoo, in it. It was the best ortho anyone made, and maybe the best anyone could make, in 1978. Still, like any headphone, it's far from perfect. The bass could be tightened up and there's a ittybitty peak waaay up in the treble that sometimes makes itself heard. Headstage is nothing compared to even the Sony ECR-500, which cost less. Do I think we can make our "lesser" headphones sound just as good in most respects? Yes. I don't think Fostex did anything magical or unique, they just sweated the details. And many of you wouldn't even like the sound-- it would be too bright, and the headstage would be kind of meh. So it's not sour grapes to say "Hey! Maybe I can't own a YH-1k or Aiwa or T50v1, but I can sure tune the ortho I've got to a fare-thee-well so it sounds the way I want it to sound! I can sweat my own details, thenk yew veddy much!" The nice thing is that for folks who'd like a T50v1, there's now the Audeze, which costs not much more than the T50v1 cost in 1978! From all I've heard about the LCD-1, it sure looks like they're giving it everything Fostex tried to give the T50v1. But if you insist on modding the Fostex, you'll find it difficult, and not just because it's already doing about as well as it can. There's also the higher than average diaphragm tension. The design just doesn't have the wiggle room that, say, a YH-100 has. Not saying it can't be improved, but the effort expended will be out of proportion to the benefits. You'd be better off yanking the drivers out of a T30 or a NAD and experimenting with them. That's my two cents.

Dang, that's shiny. A pre that makes it necessary to have good furniture.

That's not a Death Star, that's a moon-sized reflex dot. But is it under the damping film, where true blue dots live, or is it on top, as in Smeggy's photo?

Maybe someone with a damped T50RP in MPWI's city or state can swap with him and provide a kind of baseline that MPWI can then work from.. Just a thought.

Cackle cackle! Yes, now you're doomed to do what Smeggy and I have been doing for years: prowl up and down the housewares and auto accessories aisles in department stores and hardware stores and dollar stores, looking at everything as potential damping or absorbing material, buying strange assortments of stuff, filling boxes with it at home, and finding that most of it is no more effective than plain ol' felt, yea, even unto eternity. "Picture of a latter-day Flying Dutchman.. sailing.. into the Twilight Zone." And yes, enclosure reflections are considered to be a big problem for precisely the reasons stated. Peter, you don't by any slim chance have relatives who live or lived in Buffalo NY, do you?

Well, a broad notch isn't a notch any longer, but never mind. The felt's not acting as a filter in the sense that its effect can't be duplicated by any EQ, no matter how sophisticated. The bass-reflex analogy isn't valid, I'm afraid. The idea is to draw out and absorb the stored energy in the diaphragm that's due to its fundamental resonance. The felt acts preferentially to reduce the Q of that resonance. Its other effects, luckily, are what just about every ortho-type headphone driver we've come across needs. But you're right, the more the diaphragm tries to move, the greater the effect of the felt. The response curve does change-- it flattens out-- which could also be done with EQ. But without the felt, the bass would continue to be poofy and slamless. This lack of diaphragm control extends into the midrange, but by the time we're into the treble, the diaphragm is barely moving and the felt's effect as a shock absorber is nil. It does reflect some treble energy but not much. It probably absorbs more than it reflects. The bass reflex idea applies to a side effect of damping with felt-- moving the fundamental resonance upward in frequency due to the compliance change caused by the tiny trapped volume of air between the diaphragm and the felt. Overdamping starts to lop off the bass, akin to overtensioning an electrostatic diaphragm.

Thanks for the info on the mini-Maggies. I assume they're push-pull, as are the Monsoons, unlike some (all?) of the big Magneplanars. I wouldn't pay more than $100 for the MM-702. The question now is whether you'll find one at auction for that price anytime soon.

I don't know what scary prices you'll find in online auctions, since Monsoons have become thin on the ground, but try to find the successor to swt61's iM-700, the MM-702 (or the iM-702 if you can find it). The woofer design was better and the amp had more power. I had the 700 myself and the difference in woofboxes is day and night, plus the 702 has upgraded planars. The 702 sounds great but in my opinion it needs EQ to sound its best. With a good sound card, it's amazing. The trick, as always, is not to pay too much for the damn things. The 500 and 502 use smaller planars and fill in the spectrum with cone midranges, whereas the bigger panels in the 700 and 702 go all the way down to 200 Hz. The magnetic structure of the 500 series is less astute as well. I also have an MM-1000 and the 702's woofbox beats the 1000's. The satellites are about the same, but the 702's have adjustable tilt.

Felt's just a cheap, convenient way of getting a reasonably consistent amount of acoustic resistance-- ie, resistance to air flow-- to control the broad resonance hump of the typical Orthodynamic (and orthodynamic) driver, which comes without any damping of any kind, unlike even the cheapest dynamic driver. This resonance is centered in the upper bass but extends smoothly well into the midrange and give the headphone a warm, mellow, treble-lite sound. Since the diaphragm is moving most at this bass resonance, the felt can act as a shock absorber. It has little effect on frequencies where the diaphragm is barely moving. Absorption of mid and high frequencies is something else-- the mechanism is different and the materials are different. Fiberglass or rock wool are the preferred materials, though felt is much better than nothing. Low frequencies are difficult to absorb at all. If you've found something that's denser than a high-quality felt, try it in the Fostex T20v2 or maybe even the YH-100.

Pliers? Something is defanateley wrong chez Fostex. Get your headphones now before they forget how to make 'em.

That's great! I didn't know you'd done that. What did you use for the back grille? Is that "bin screen" again?

First, congrats on getting a T30. The two headphones couldn't be more different internally. The T30 has an open back and a huge (~60mm) driver, and the T50RPv2 (which is not the same as a T50v2) has a little driver with about the same surface area as the little SFI driver (38mm) and a closed back with a little vent. The T30 is bassy and the T50RPv2 is midrangey. Neither is perfect, both need work, but the T50RPv2 will need less work to get it sounding good and is easier to work on. A real orthonut should have both.

We're going to have a whole new burn-in 'sperience with the T50RPv2 because the old earpads wouldn't let you hear the results, and the new pads will, plus the T50RP diaphragm (which is now universal across the Fostex RP headphone line) is unlike any other ortho/iso. It's square, it's finely zigzagged, it's copper and it's small, and it sits in the most powerful magnetic field ever used in this type of driver. So expect the unexpected. It's a brave new diaphragm. Yes, it's going to need some sort of treble assist. Even the Queen Goddess Yamaha Herself needs something for her saggy top. This can be anything smooth and reflective and thin. You could use a dime or a little square of sticky tape as dBel says or a little slip of aluminum foil. I've never experimented with long, thin shapes to see if they create a different sound, so if any of you try that, let us know your results. By all means, dip the locking cup-plug in contact cleaner. Fostex has used this arrangement for more than 20 years, and only recent headphones have had trouble. Just don't use WD40. Ludo, I loooove your teeny ghetto 1/40th-wave transmission-line knockoffs. You can miniaturize a big speaker for computer-speaker use, but if you want something that doesn't tend toward the treble-heavy, try changing the shape of the cabinet. To support the midrange, you want a decent sized baffle, at least 30cm wide-- audio wavelengths don't miniaturize well. Of course, the big flat sections of cardboard will need bracing, so it's a tradeoff. And a line source array isn't a bad idea at all. Buy a bunch of SFIs and spell out your name on a false wall behind your computer, stuffed with fiberglass. Make little cardboard dodecahedrons and put an SFI on each face. But I've said too much already. Those of you happy with your T50RPs should send thank-you cards and little cupcakes to Faust 2/3D. He Took One For The Team and freed you from the tyranny of the SFI. Just a thought.

Hey! where are the pictures?