HiFiman HE1000 MODS

Yes,
Here I am again,
as a reminder that no headphone is immune to the inevitable...

 

You ever tried slapping a pair of Audeze Vegan pads on them? I did on the first day of the beta and it dramatically improved the sound. I eventually gave up as I could not get the same raw energy that the HE-6 has. Even with @thune's work with DSPs which made the HEK sound like my modded HE-6. I could share this with you so know where's my reference point.

 

Has anyone tried damping/stiffening the cup itself? That was my gut feeling with the HE-X on what it needed.

 

Very interesting please feel free to post share here if possible.

The pad swap is also an excellent idea,
but from my experience with the PM2 & ETHER,
It does not adress what the rear damping does,
which I believe your "raw energy" will come from..
Do you have pics of pads?

 

Do you have idea where exactly you would like to see damping?

I have not removed the pads to locate areas but the unit seems fairly solid to me,
Unlike the hd800 which I did damp and have yet to post.

 

These were some early pics but I ended up sealing the airgap that the pads could not cover.

Link to the DSP. You'll need the convolver plug-in for foobar. Under the DSP manager, you'll need to select a Resampler and set a target sample rate with quality set to best. You'll then select the Convolver plug-in and select the impulse file (I liked 1o3_octave_2sec and dmin) with the same sample rate as what you selected for the Resampler. Untick the volume adjustment box. Enjoy, your HEK will sound like the previous revision of my modded HE-6 except without the same impact.

At the end of the day, I figured the lack in raw energy was a property of the driver. It didn't have the same amount of exertion possibly from the distance of the magnets to the diaphragm. Just throwing out some ideas for you as you seem enthusiastic but my headphone journey as been long over.

 

It's an unsubstantiated feeling from when I had the HE-X on tour... but I just felt like there was this plasticky tone to the entire enclosure. The grill too would ring when tapped.

 

Solid is not exactly a word I'd use to describe it...

You can see the internals from my old thread: http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/he1000-disassembly-internals.603/

 

What ate you using now?

 

Excellent info for my next round of mods thank you!

 

My modded HE-6

 

My personal experience with 'livening' up the sound of the HE1000 involved using Tyll's EQ, plus the Zoetic cable from Norne. But I'm curious about this mod.

Could you point me to an Amazon page for the exact felt sheets you used?

 

I'm super curious what this does. Is it doing time-domain stuff instead of frequency-domain boost/cut?

 

It's made using measurements from 2 headphones. Has to be measured from the same setup though. It's an FR emulator.

 

Same exact sheets used in my PM2 mod thread.

 

Remember that signal processing/EQ/DSP is an adjustment after the fact, like pedaling faster to compensate for a wrong gear on a bike.

Rear damping is like setting the gear for the driver to "pedal" properly.

Same goes with pads, it is an after effect, to help compensate for what is already done by the driver.

Correction at the source is best, IMHO.

 

Thanks to "ohhgourami" I can open this baby up without fear and do some real damping!

Need to recruit some modders...
Too bad most guys that have experience with this,
are the same guys that make their own headphones and so "can't help the competition"

 

Uodate:
I edited the end of first post,
for some clarification.

As the mod does seem rediculously simple.
But that's actually a good thing. .

Adding a touch rather than messing with what is almost perfect.

 

As I noticed with pad mods on the Stax 007, 009, and Fostex TH900, they do have a measurably big effect on tonality and energy distribution. However, this mod and your thery behind sounds plausible. It's very easy to try.

Have you tried different densities, thicknesses and makes of wool felt? I have tried like a dozen or more types with my mods and all sounded different. In principle, the natural, matte surface, non coloured versions sound best. The self adhesive layers in the way of sound waves are usually detrimental. Try to insert wide enough stripes, or better, use an adhesive tape with glue on both sides and glue one side of the felt stripes.

 

I see what you mean, but wider non-adhesive strips may interfere with soundtage & tonality.

I have not tried different felt.
Only various combinations to settle on those four,
which increase in effect with number choice.

Using double sided tape or spray glue on ends is an idea, although I have not tried.

The even micro-layer of glue on these self adhesive strips,
are not detrimental.
Yet I can see how flipping the material on its non adhesive side may cause it to have more treble absorbtion and less rear air pressure.

Not good, not bad, just different and untested.