Blitzwolf BW-ES1 (Update: improved mod by tgx78 in post #43)

I will continue the quest! These are worth finding the right tips for.

 

Sometimes you just need to be creative with silicone tips and try a few things. The difference in sizes between the ususal S, M and L is often too large to achieve a perfect fit with any of them. Or, as in my case, even the L tip is sometimes slightly too small. For example, the 'gel' tips I recommend for the BW-ES1 fit my left ear perfectly from the start, but the right side kept bugging me, since it tended to work loose at the slightest movement of my head.

I decided to play around a bit, and in the end, the remedy was very easy. I cut a small ring out of some spare silicone tip's cap and wrapped it around the gel tip's stem. This provided a smidgen more support for the gel tip cap, and now the right side fits me just as securely as the left side. Problem solved.

 

Success on second attempt. To aid the process, I pulled apart the ones I'd previously wrecked to see just how much room there was between front vent and driver (slicing a couple of fingers in the process; the knives on those lil' Leatherman Squirts are sharp). Didn't bend the needle as James suggested, but wrapped electrical tape around it 2 mm up from the tip, and angled it towards the nozzle as per the instructions.

Again, I used my favourite long-thin-tube tips and didn't put alter the front filter. The result is probably a bit more V-shaped than the 'proper' mod, but to me is a good complement to my (non-membrane-pierced) Fostexes with their light but fast bass and will be more comfortable on long flights (where the extra bass won't hurt, either).

And now I have a spare zip case to house the Fostexes, too.

 

On longer listening, I found the treble still a bit hot - so tea-bagged 'em (Dilmah single-origin Ceylon ) . With the Shure tips they're now maybe a bit rolled off, but their speed and dynamics are such that I think I'd otherwise find them fatiguing.

 

Can you share a few pictures of the autopsy?

 

I ended up going back to the Comply tips without wax guard and found that a shallow seal relieved a lot of the issues I was having with these. I dug around and found a pair with the wax guard that I will try and see how it compares. I've mostly been playing this out of the GOV2+ but I will try it again using the iPhone dongle as well.

 

Did some more cutting to have something to photograph.

Warning: do not attempt to disassemble these unless you're prepared to lose them! If you're a microsurgeon or do this sort of thing routinely you might have success, but if your co-ordination and eyesight are anything like mine, good luck.

There are two reasons you might want to pull these apart: to check if you did in fact puncture the driver (very unlikely if you used @james444 's bent-needle technique); or to remove a front-vent mesh which came loose on one side or was dislodged completely when you were trying to pierce it (more likely). In the latter case you should try to extract it by going in via the nozzle first (scroll to bottom of post).

There's a danger with the bent-needle technique that instead of piercing the mesh (which is actually fairly strong), you'll end up levering it away from the shell on one side or detaching it completely so that it flaps or rattles around inside the chamber when the bass is moving a lot of air - which could be audible. This happened during my first attempt when I enlarged the vents with a fat nail and following up with a straight needle: on one side the mesh became partly detached, on the other, completely.

To make sure the mesh is pierced rather than detached, a sharp, straight needle with something around the shaft to prevent it going in too deep is I think a better technique than going in sideways. Some tape or a piece of plastic twist-tie coating as used by james444 in his Fostex mod, no more than 2mm up from the tip, will work. If the needle is pointed slightly towards the nozzle (perpendicular to the outside of the shell), there's actually more than 3mm before you get to the driver so you can poke away repeatedly to make sure the hole in the mesh the same diameter as the vent.

If you do decide to disassemble, there are two stages: 1) opening the shell, and 2) extracting the driver assembly. Opening the shell is easily reversible if done carefully but the driver assembly is stuck very firmly into the front half, so getting to the chamber in front of the driver is much more risky.

When following this, also consult the exploded-view diagram in the OP. Note that the front vent mesh is not shown on that picture.

Here's the right side with driver assembly still in one piece and wired up, and the left driver with front plate detached (damage sustained while extracting from the shell). Not the greatest photos, but I hope you can see the important details.



Open the shell by firmly holding the nozzle and wiggling/pulling the front and back halves apart. They're stuck together pretty firmly; I used pliers around the nozzle and it was easy enough, but because my first pair were already sacrificed I didn't mind if the nozzles got squashed in the process (which they did). Once you've got the two halves separated a little, you can use a knife blade to prise them the rest of the way (mind your fingers, but). Be careful as they come apart, because the driver is stuck to the front half whereas the wire comes in through the back. The wire slides easily through the strain relief but you might break the connections if you pull the halves apart too hard and fast.

The driver assembly is glued into the front chamber, recessed below the lip along which the front shell fits into the back. The glue isn't hard, it's some sort of soft gelatin- or silicone-based stuff, but my attempts at extraction from that side were unsuccessful. I instead did it from the front, using a flat-bladed jeweller's screwdriver to push on the metal driver cover between the holes (you'll first need to clear the nozzle by removing its cover and foam insert). This is the really risky bit - if you slip and the screwdriver goes into one of the holes, bye-bye driver and everything behind. Once I'd got the hang of this (after screwing up the left driver cover by levering it out rather than just pushing) it went ok for me, but I'd earlier chopped off the nozzle to see better into the chamber so I had more room and visibility to work with.

If your problem is detached mesh, before disassembly try going in through the nozzle with a bent needle to see if you can pull it out - it's really much safer than the full monty, and you can put the foam nozzle filter back if you don't want to do the sorbothane mod. Sadly though I don't give much for your chances, because you can't see or access much of the chamber through the nozzle and the gooey glue on the mesh seems to want to stick to everything except what you're trying to extract it with.

Whatever you try, good luck!

 

Awesome post @Biodegraded!

Just one comment on your "front mesh technique", my own experience has been that poking directly at the mesh involves a higher risk of detaching it than going in sideways between the mesh and housing with a bent needle. So, to those who decide to poke straight in, make sure that your needle is really sharp, because, as @Biodegraded says, this mesh is fairly strong.

Then again, if you opt for the bent-needle technique to go in sideways, do not enlarge the vent, but use a needle that just fits in and poke only once or twice towards the nozzle. IME this minimizes the risk of detaching the mesh, so that it flaps around. Note that the hole you poke needs not be quite as large as the vent, since there's also airflow through the mesh itself.

I can only agree with that last line in @Biodegraded's post, whatever you try, good luck!

 

Readers will I hope consider the relative experience levels here: I've only done the two pairs.
Seriously loving the ones I didn't screw up though. Thanks again for sharing your results, @james444 !

 

Just looking at a picture of the driver, does it even has a trace of graphene in it?

It looks like a plain old polymer composite diaphragm.

 

I don't know - what does a graphene driver look like?

These ones are extremely thin, but seemingly quite strong (for their thickness) transparent films. Texture seems like really thin cling-wrap. So maybe you're right!

 

Doing more listening with these, I’ve found that comply tips with the wax guard help take just the tiniest bit of edge off the treble. The shallowest fit I can get while still retaining a seal helps even more.

And by far the best synergy I’ve found is with the GOV2+. The sound is terrifically balanced and rarely strident, with excellent detail and instrument separation. It’s as addictive to me as the Andro/ZX2 combo, at times moreso because of the texture and tactility that the Blitzwolf imparts. It makes me wish these weren’t hardwired so I could swap in a balanced cable, both because the IEMs like power and the GO sounds best from the balanced output.

I listen to this pairing enough that I’m considering one of those little $100 DAPs from Massdrop with the digital out option to pair with the GO instead of my phone.

 

If anything, it's probably just the coating. I vaguely remember someone explaining to me that vapor depositioned coating on an IEM diaphragm is hard to tell with the naked eye... however, I don't remember who it was (Tomscy?).

What I can say from my own experience, is that this driver is more reactive to damping than others I've modded. Which seems to indicate that the diaphragm must have unusually low mass.

 

So... I tried a bit more experimenting and busted my driver. Oh well...

And I went and ordered another two pairs to mod, one as replacement and another for a friend. Did the mods by the book again on one of them, this time with the recommended Sennheiser ear tips as well. And now I wished I had done this earlier, cos unlike with the stock tips, there was no need for any additional front damping like I recommended in one of my earlier posts. No strange treble sizzle, and much more comfortable as well, so its probably a much better seal than the slightly more conical stock tips (for my ears at least. Merrick had no such luck from what I understood).

The other pair hasn't been modded yet, as I suspect it might be a defective pair and am in the midst of negotiating a replacement with the ebay vendor. Normally the stock earphones have an overpowering wall of bass. This third pair though sounded almost anemic, much like the results of a pierced diagphram and/or dislodged front vent mesh. The right channel was also much softer than the left. So just a word of warning that quality control on the BW-ES1 might not be great, as one might expect of the price. Although seeing that I'm the first one here with such an experience, it's probably not that horrible either. For the cautious, I'd recommend buying them through an official vendor, or at least one who offers hassle-free replacements or returns.

 

Thanks to James, I now have three pairs lol. I modded one flat, second one slightly warmer and third one slightly treble tilted for classical music. Now james needs a pair of periodic BE to perform his magic on its pure beryllium foil driver.

 

That's exactly what I suspected with regards to strange treble. Personally, I just can't get a reliable fit with stock tips, so I'll refrain from passing judgment on those. But with these Sennheiser compatible gel tips, I get perfectly well-behaved treble, even with a shallow fit.

I've been curious about the Periodic BE, but they're not easily available in Europe. How would you compare their stock sound to the modded BW-ES1?

Side note: coincidentally, I just ordered a pair of beryllium driver IEMs today. Not the Periodic ones, but these:
http://evossound.com/headphones/in-ear/palais/palais.html
Amazon Germany had them discounted to 79 euros, so I couldn't resist... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

BE compared to the modded BW-ES1(flat) :

BE is slightly warmer but I feel it sounds more tonally pleasing and cohesive than BW-ES1's somewhat analytical presentation.
Bass: Both exhibit very similar amount of texture, speed and decay, but Be has more quantity and dynamic contrast hence I perceive slightly more micro detail and clarity.
Mids: Lower mids are full bodied on BE and modded BW-ES1 is slightly thinner in comparison. Both have really good separation and mid range resolution are really good for DD. Because of the slightly thinner and airy presentation BW-ES1 has better forward projection and perceived depth. Vocals are rendered more dense and naturally weighted with the BE though. Listening to classical music, timbre accuracy is slightly better with the Be as well.
Treble: Be is somewhat similar to my andromeda here having slight bump around 2-3kHz to make up for the fact that IEMs bypass pinna another small bump at 5kHz to give enough sparkle. I personally find it inoffensive and detailed enough without going overboard. You may find it too much and prefer the modded ES1 here.

Overall, I think BE is slightly more enjoyable listen than BW-ES1 but price/performance ratio is through the roof better on BW-ES1. I paid around $300 for BE and $16 for the BW-ES1 (I could buy 15 more BW-ES1 and try all sorts of modding + experiment with tips / re-wire etc.)

 

Thanks for your comparison, now I have a pretty good idea of how the BEs sound.

If you want your BW-ES1 with slightly warmer / fuller low end and less analytical signature, make the rear vent pinhole just a smidgen larger. This will increase mid/upper bass and warmth... but be careful, because even 1/4 millimeter will make a difference. Since a larger hole reduces damping, the result will also sound a tad more dynamic.

 

Wow this is very cool how BW-ES1 reacts to even slightest changes in pinhole diameter.. now bass is near perfect for my taste.



Track #2 and #4 is my go to bass test tracks and with a slight enlarged pinhole, sub-bass to mid-bass balance,
speed of attack & decay is best I've heard in IEM now. Be now sounds little mid-bass elevated and smidgen slower. Thanks james.

 

Just ordered 3 more at $10 each with free shipping from HK (ebay.ca).

Gifting a modded pair to friends and seeing their reaction is quickly becoming a ritual.