I made a hyper-engaging headphone with HD800S drivers

I'm experimenting with new 3D printing resin in order to increase the strength and durability of the shells. If that works, I think I can start printing prototypes with other pad mounts. Heck, maybe even with other drivers.

But yeah, once I get these to a state where they can take a beating, then I can ship the next pair off on a loaner.

Yeah... something like that. I wouldn't say it's dark. Not photographed but I also put a piece of speaker cloth on top... like the cloth that came with HD800/S. There's not much of a change in FR but subjectively, the cloth seems to tame upper midrange a bit so it's more calmed and... "boring". I can also listen to it without the cloth piece but some songs get pretty close to being unbearable.

This headphone is both brighter than my HD800S and darker than it at the same time. Relative to the 650, it sounds a bit less warm, but also slightly more laid back and with more sub bass.

 

Yeah, I'm erring on the side of "boring" because I understand the preferences of some folks here. Also I feel like I need some good/better gears than what I have now to drive this thing. It's a new young thing that I'm still getting to understand, and I know better than to tout measurements or even the novel idea of HD800 drivers in HD6XX enclosure.

Let's just say I'm being cautiously excited. And my being excited actually has more to do with "oh crap, I actually ended up finishing a workable prototype" rather than "oh crap, did I just make the best headphone ever". There are more things I want to try out after all. This is definitely not the end.

Maybe @CEE TEE will be able to tell you more after he hears it.

 

This is something very interesting and something that, probably, many of us wondered about doing, "what if i had those drivers here". It must be a fun feeling now knowing what it will become, little like Frankenstein headphones.

I think deep inside many of us, HD800 users/fans, wait for the day someone remakes them without the treble fckery and with extra bass quantity (i like the quality already).

 

Amazing work.
Maybe a bit of an offtopic, but.. does the grill fit the standard HD6x0 headphone?
I have an old HD580 modded with metal grills, but some rust is starting to develop on the diy grills

 

This is such a cool thread. Just sayin'

 

Man I'm running low on patience!
Paging @CEE TEE ?

 

Okay- First blush (only about 30 minutes on my head).

But...let's say that I am disappointed I can't just pull the drivers out of my HD800 and hand them over to Bill because my pair is not an HD800s.

NOT boring. Hyper-engaging.

This first proto changes tonality on different amps and is pretty phenomenal on my Moth 2a3. I want Bill to freeze this prototype version for a reference. (May just need a little better right to left channel matching in upper mids/low treble and treble above 10kHz.)

I want to try on more amps and over more time, but I could see many liking this just-as-is. I was wrestling with asking Bill to change anything in case it messed something else up. In the end, I kept asking him to just keep them as-is so we don't lose the first reference.

• Sound is fast but not unnatural (some electrostat/amp combos can sound TOO fast).
• Makes my modded HD800 sound a bit thicker and slower.
• Dynamic leading edge transient attack and beautiful decay.
• Just enough body with space between notes and lower level reverb beautifully represented.
• The slide guitar from Lyle Lovett and Beck plus the string instrumentation was glassy and smooth and resolving and euphonic with the 2a3.
• Really balanced tonally, seems very dependent on amp.

What really got me was the overall combination of factors as well: super lightweight, SUPER OPEN sound and lack of ear pressure, big comfy pads, fast, resolving sound with a nice amount of sustain. You can feel the big pads around your ears but it feels/sounds much more like earspeakers in space than in any kind of cups.

Sorta like combining great elements of Focal Elex/Utopia (have not heard Clear), Koss ESP950, HD800 wrapped up in one. From comfort and openness to sonic speed/weight with a balanced tonality.

I could see myself wanting a couple pairs of these with slightly different tonal tilts to fit different genres/moods/amps.

And then purging a lot of my open back collection.

VERDICT: Less boring than described. And NOT dark.

 

And another thread title change, rofl. I'm not getting my hopes up about ever hearing these (sigh) but I do hope these get around to more people as soon as @Bill-P is comfortable with the end-result just to satisfy curiosity; this is legitimately exciting, and I'm personally not mad at a measured trench around 9kHz

Haven't heard Elex yet but other than that... damn. Not sure if we share a similar vocab @CEE TEE but how's "texture" for vocals and instruments and microdynamics (e.g. acoustic guitar subtleties) compared to an Anax-modded HD800 or stock HD600? Dunno if you've heard HP-3 which is what I'm used to. Also sounds like these are crazy source-sensitive, wonder how middling rigs will fare.

 

Love the headphone mod and what you’re doing with the driver @Bill-P

I’ve always thought about “what-if” with the HD800 driver but you really made it happen.

Imagine if Senn would do a “what-if” the same way when Zach thought about possibly making an open Atticus. Which became a runaway hit - the Aeolus. I can’t help to feel that they’re sitting on a gold mine.

 

If this becomes available to non-headphone-DIY, I'm in.

 

I have access to a pretty nice fablab for the next year (cnc, laser cutter, 3d printer). Am happy to help fabricate prototypes if design files are shared.

 

Okay, I guess I can send these off to Marv so he can check them out, do measurements, and tell me what it needs.

Meanwhile, I'll get to work on the 2nd pair and improve whatever needs to be improved based on feedbacks. @CEE TEE's feedbacks are very helpful and despite him telling me "perhaps do nothing", I'll still... do something for the next version anyways!

Also, just putting it out there: may try to come up with a way to universally mount other driver types into the same housing and/or make other pad mounts. At which point, it may be open-source worthy. It makes no sense to tie people into exotic HD800S drivers and HE90 pads and Fostex headbands for an open-source project anyways.

 

Sorry, I glossed over the thread the last few days and didn't see these comments. I'll try to answer them now:

Thanks! Experimenting with casing material is actually what I'm doing right now. It does change the sound!

Also, the headphone is actually not as dark as measurements would imply. In fact, it would be downright bright and thin on different amps, as CEE TEE alluded to in his impressions. This is why I initially assessed it as "boring" and I'll still stand by that. Won't spoil what I have planned for the 2nd version but I'm tweaking parameters here and there... and it'll most likely measure differently.

Nope. It won't fit. It doesn't look like it from the photos, I guess, but this is like... massive. It's much bigger than HD650, including the earpad opening. If you have had the chance to see the HE90 or HE-1 in person, then... it's basically that size.

I can actually just draw up a design for HD580/600/650 grilles, though. I may try to print out a pair or two... just for aesthetic reasons, but I don't think they'll have much of an effect on the sound.

----

Oh, and just as a note, because I just found out I forgot to mention: the 1st prototype weighs roughly 275g. My modded HD800S weighs 390g on the same scale, for comparison. HD650 on the same scale is about 260g.

That's to add context to what @CEE TEE said. This is very very light in person despite how large it looks.

I'm drawing up a custom headband (Stax-style!) now to try with new flexible resin. If it goes well, I think I can drop another 40-50g, which will actually make the whole thing lighter than or at worst as light as HD650.

Why the obsession with weight? Well... I'm all about comfort as well, and I have way too many headphones that weigh a ton and feel like torture devices on my head. It also doesn't help that I wear glasses and I can't be arsed to take them off when I wear headphones. Making these light-weight is indeed an obsession of mine and that's causing potential durability issues with the 1st prototype. Hopefully... with my own headband design, I can mitigate "some" of the durability concerns and still keep weight down. So... we'll see!

 

THANK-YOU! This is how I feel, especially with planar headphones. They may sound wonderful but if I can't stand to wear a headphone for long sessions then it doesn't fly.

 

Have had a chance to listen to a slightly tweaked version of the prototype. Not as much as I would like, but spent over an hour yesterday.

Okay.

Now I should temper expectations back a bit:
From Boring…to Exciting…to Mids-Focused & in need of some bass and stage width.

The other night, I was comparing to my modded HD800 with Velour pads. I think I was trying the velour pads for a day because I was perspiring. Well, they sound worse than normal.

I lost the velours, have the sheepskin pads back on my modded pair and the bass + sub-bass are back.

Modded HD800 sounds smoother and richer than the prototype, though the mids sound a little veiled/dull/thick in comparison.

Modded HD800 not as immediate, clear, fast as the prototype in the mids but the proto sounds a bit rough at times and lacks bass weight/sub-bass impact.

Modded HD800 have a wider stage with more sounding outside of the head and also a more "fleshed out" and complete picture of the music that surrounds the vocals and mids instruments.

On the Black Widow solid state amp the prototype still shows these attributes.

So I went back to the Moth 2a3 and yes...prototype is much sweeter and smoother again. Cello/violins have no veil and vocals are very clear with no added weight. (Yes- guitar sounds good on the prototype @Lyander .)

The "Bill-P-rototype" likes tubes. Must try on Zana Deux this week.

If development can continue and we can get between the current prototype and modded HD800, I am hoping it finds the sweet spot and shares attributes of what Marv has been enjoying on Grados again (super-clear midrange) + retaining HD800 strengths.

Proto: Loses the veil, gains some speed, super light/comfortable.

Need to: Keep more of the bass/sub, keep some of the HD800 stage size, keep refinement up top.

Told Bill:
“Hahaha, you Grado-ized the 800s drivers!
Maybe we gotta put a Loki on this to add the bass back in…”