Comments on Profile Post by E_Schaaf

No official arrangement, not through Upscale, just a personal venture for my closeted basshead friends. I really want to ship a loaner but truly can't bring myself to let go of mine (not to mention they're kind of beat up and I'd like to have a clean and fresh pair as a loaner)

Me, me, me, I have been damn interested in your mods!!

I would! Having heard your mods I'm interested in where you could take those headphones.

I’m definitely curious!

can confirm it's a super fun and immersive headphone. I hope more friends get to hear this mod

Sign me up. How much do you think the final cost will be?

Can you describe how the sound changes compared to the stock TH900, assuming you already have/had a prototype?

PM me for questions about cost. In terms of sound, tonally it's very divergent from stock. Here are some measurements really zoomed in so you can get a sense. Before: https://i.imgur.com/BPYHnx0.png
After: https://i.imgur.com/4KUVrbc.png

Despite the drastically reduced treble, there's actually LESS damping on the rear side of the driver (no front damping either) on the modded pair vs the stock pair. Similar levels of cup decay. I was aiming for HE6 macrodynamics, trademark TH900 bass, Atticus-like cup effect, Eikon-like mid tone and timbre.

Whether or not I achieved those things, I'll leave to future loaner impressions! Don't want to gloat too much over my own work but I am very pleased with them and they are my primary driver for analog listening (50/50 split with my Senns for digital)

If you want to compare to a bunch of other headphone measurements on the same rig/same comp, here's a thread to reference https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/ears-fr-measurement-dump-zmf-focal-audeze-extras.8087/
And here's a graph with matched parameters of the modded 900 https://i.imgur.com/ppbxijo.png

Your positioning split between analog/digital listening sounds interesting. How differently would you demand each? More forgiving for digital and aggressive/resolving for analog?

It's really just playing to the strengths of my sources. TH900 excels at tactility first and foremost, which gives a unique experience with lightly saturated tape (and the saturation profile somehow makes the 3k area feel more even, probably due to the upper mid growl of the tape), and the granularity and slight leanness/upslope of my MC cart feels more fleshed out too. Senns and digital better for casual listening.

IDK how far the mod has progressed from the pair I heard at CanJam, but it was frikin' amazeballs.

@Jinxy245 it's completely different now! The pair you heard was from phase one of the modding experimentation, which is when I was thinking "what happens if I completely damp the shit out of it to get a perfect target FR?" Wasn't 100% pleased with the dynamics after comparing to some other phones, so I started all over and now have a MUCH more dynamic phone with a little more color, but a similar target.

It did take a leap of faith to make that shift, because once they got back to me from CanJam I started the irreversible mods. Thought I fucked it up quite a few times, but finally settled where it is now after many months of daily tweaking