I derive a fair amount of enjoyment from modifying my gear. Headphones, amps, DACs, cables, etc.
I imagine there are some other folks here that do the same.
My most recent modification effort was replacing a bunch of caps, the DAC chips, and the input transformer on an MHDT Labs Istanbul DAC.
Here’s a gif of the transformation:
Anyone else have fun with modding?
Modding stuff is fun. I’m working on an angled T50 mod right now. The glow in the dark yokes and pads really get rid of some of the peakiness of the L300s.
A lot of the headphones I use are modded. I’ve sent my HD800 to be painted so I’ve been roughing it with my modded stuff and frankenphones.
My daily driver lately is a frankenphone I’ve made with a T1 driver and DT770 frame. I spent a lot of time trying to boost the midrange with damping but eventually I just decided to embrace it and use the LCD2 as a tuning reference, but with much more bass. They make a fun complement to the HD800 and they’re kind of a “sleeper”
Measurements here:
I also have modded an OPPO PM2 usig BillP’s mods as a guide but diverged a bit. I don’t think they’re perfect by any means but they make nice portable headphones when I want to hear my surroundings. Measurements here:
I’m also continually working on modding a pair of Nighthawks but they may be sort of a lost cause.
What I’m most proud of is a headphone I cobbled together with TH900 drivers and a cheap Chinese headphone frame. It sounded awesome but the frame was terrible and the jacks failed. I’ve sent them off to a friend to do some mods of his own and I’m excited to see what I end up with.
Measurements:
Audeze LCD Headband Comfort Mod
This headband mod will add some much needed space between the leather suspended band and the metal headband, which can cause unnecessary hot spots on the top of your head.
This is what the mod looks like once you’re done. If you choose to, you can cut off the bit that hangs over and it will look essentially stock. (I will be doing this)
The flat face of the headphone yokes is facing forward. Remember this as it will be important for determining the order for reassembly. To remove the yoke from the collar, you must use a flat head screwdriver and gently turn the plastic screw at the top of the yoke. Again, this plastic so be GENTLE!
The metal collars that the yokes “click” through have a flat side which matches the flat side of the yoke.
This whole operation is much easier if your remove the yokes from the collars.
Use a phillips head screwdriver to remove the the four screws holding the headband to the yoke assembly.
The funny thing about these plates are that they both say L and R on either side so they can be mixed up or swapped and it doesn’t matter.
This is what the leather band will look like after making the new holes. The old holes are the sets farthest to the right (the top right, bottom right, second top row on the left and the second bottom row on the left). The new holes that you will make are as follows: Top left, Bottom left, Second Top hole inward, Second bottom hole inward.
To make the holes in the correct location, use the metal side plates as a guide. Line the bottom of the plate up with the top of the old holes and make marks through the metal plate’s hole onto the leather below. Then you can use an awl to pierce the new holes or if you happen to have a leather punch of the correct size, you can use that for a cleaner cut. Now reassemble, but make sure your yoke collars are in the correct orientation when you reassemble or you will have your R and L indicators on backwards.
Hope this helps! This mod made my LCD-2c feel so much more comfortable. Now I can wear them longer than 2 hours without getting a hot spot on the top of my head! 
I also did the detachable cable mod to both my Beyerdynamic DT-770 pro and DT-990 pro headphones with great results. Very simple if you know how to solder.
Did you find a good how-to for this that you would recommend?
Cheers
I don’t have a step by step that includes pictures, but it’s pretty simple to accomplish. I will try to describe the process.
Tools needed:
Instructions:
That’s all there is to it!
I love the idea of a “sleeper” headphone. They look kind of cool, all roughed up, but if they sound like you say they do, that is an amazing combo. Great job! :)
Nice stuff!
This isn’t headphone related (still audio, though!), but here’s a guitar pedal I built a couple of weeks ago. Snapped this before I cleaned the little DPDT board on the right and got annoyed at the burnt white input wire (replaced it).
And another I built sometime last year:
Thanks! I’m not going to pretend that they’re amazing, but they do the job pretty nicely considering how little work I’ve put into it. I’m going to try to reduce the bass a bit. But as of now, I think it sounds better (technicalities are less fuzzy, etc) than the two actual T1’s I’ve owned which admittedly isn’t a really high bar but it’s still a good feeling
Awesome… that’s perfect. Thank you man
Pimeta with Treads power supply. Used with my Sennheiser HD580.
I dont know if this counts as a mod cause its aesthetic only but here are my brand new 4xx with a touch of royal blue on the cups
Also quick question if i take out the fabric mesh that’s glued on the inside face of the grill will it affect the sound and if yes what kind of difference should i expect?
Hello all. I’ve lurked here for a bit but this is my first post. I thought I’d introduce myself with a simple mod I did.
I live in California, and work as an IT analyst. I am by no means an expert in any aspect of audio, much less headphones. Who doesn’t love good sound quality though?
Below is the first mod I’ve ever done on headphones. My girlfriend has worked in a studio for nearly 20 years. Her current pair of Sony MDR-7506 had clearly seen better days:
The permanently-attached curly cable had become hopelessly tangled and distorted. The cable connecting left and right driver was fraying and causing all sorts of sound quality issues. The ear cups were quite worn too:
Since she needs the headphones for her job, and I wasn’t entirely sure I could do what I wanted without destroying the headphones, I ended up buying her a new pair of MDRs to use while I worked on these.
My goals were simple:
I am quite bad at soldering. Though I have some high quality Mogami cable and Neutrik jacks/plugs in my supply box, I would never try to “roll my own” for a production unit. So I had to sacrifice some of the fun of doing that in the name of practicality. I bought a few of these Tensility 3.5mm female to 3.5mm female cables, and these Brainwavz cups:
The MDRs are quite easy to disassemble - pop the cups off, and 4 basic phillips screws stand between you and the driver:
I don’t have any “in progress” pictures of the rest, but the basic process went like this:
The end result is hardly world-changing, but nice nonetheless:
I probably made the new assemblies a bit too long, but still, these will never get tangled. They require an additional cable to work, but replacing that when it gets worn is simple. They can also be driven on a balanced amp now!
I had enough fun fixing hers that I ended up doing the same thing to my own, with different cups, and fun colors on the sheathing/heatshrink:
That’s about it! The Sony MDR-7506 is far from the nicest set of headphones, but they’re a studio standard and a solid workhorse. She swears they even sound better. I’d attribute it to the Tensility cables being higher quality than Sony’s factory-standard, but it’s probably just her being biased. 
Thanks for reading!
That is a beautiful job there. The contrasting pad colors add character.
While I do not own Sony MDR-7506, I have enjoyed auditioning my brother’s pair and thought they were great for the money and I could see me using them for semi-portable use. If I recall, they exhibited Sony boomy bass that I crave when driving my portable headphones from inexpensive DAPS of yesteryear. My portable headphones are usually a variant of Koss mostly in clip format which also exhibit boomy bass. With your modification, one could easily switch out to a shorter cable when on the move making these headphones even more mobile friendly. Very cool.
With your drivers still operational, it is evident that your soldering skills incorporate an abundance of gentle care, suggesting your evaluation of bad soldering might have been a bit harsh on yourself. Thank you for sharing the fantastic photos of your modification. They are inspirational. What a welcome addition this post is to our community. I look forward to seeing more of your future posts and modifications.
Thank you for the kind words.
I agree about the bass on the Sonys: it’s very punchy and quite nice! I wear them specifically when I want to feel the punch of my music/movie/game. Most of my other sets are open back which I feel don’t have that same “oomph”.
I’m considering doing this same sort of mod on my Grado SR60x. Talk about a set of jumbled cables!
Is it possible to customize an old headphone? replacing old speakers with new and current speakers?
Hi.
I came here to discuss wireless audio, but first I’d like to share a little mod I did to a pair of Boss Waza air headphones.
It’s nothing sophisticated. Since I’m not experienced with soldering, but I know my share of 3D modeling that’s what I used to get the job done.
One thing that never quite worked for me - as much as i love this fantastic piece of gear - are the way too small ear pieces.
More specifically they are just not deep enough for my ears, so I was touching the metal grill and it was hurting my ears.
After many hours of research I had to accept the fact that while the ear pieces are genius in the way that they’re magnetically attached there’s just this one size to be had as a replacement. Big missed opportunity there, Boss! [image]
But I noticed the magnets are attached to the leather as a separate piece, so I figured I could insert something in between and give my ears some more space.
So I arrived at a solution that I would like to share in case someone might have the same issue.
I scanned the ear piece and used the image as a reference to commission a 3D print of the piece I needed.
In a 3D software I built the required shape, meticulously matching it to the scan and confirming the measures by checking on the actual headphones.
Today the prints arrived. Two light weight pieces of plastic, and I’m happy to say they fit as I was hoping they would.
So I carefully separated the magnets’ plastic plates from the leather pieces, lifting them with my nails here and there until they came off.
(As you can see Boss used tape, not glue, which was helpful. Be warned though: the tape will take damage, so this process may not be reversible)
Finally I reassembled all three pieces and put on the headphones without even gluing them.
Problem solved, the Waza Air just became so much more comfortable. For what I can tell the sound was not affected.
Weather or not I‘ll use permanent glue, tape, Fixogum or maybe none at all I‘ll see.
For now the Waza works both on my head and on the stand.
Since I’m a new use I can only post one image, so here’s the printed pieces:
I don’t see why not. You’ll just need to find a place that does the mod for you. The few times I tried to find these kinds of services I was out of luck, so if you find a solution I’d be interested to hear about it.
Just as an example: here’s vendor that offers detachable cable mods:
