The driver mod certainly makes a difference. I did it and then was unmoved. I put them away for a few weeks and then tried them again. This time they sounded much better and clearer. I think now I am happy with them.
One piece of advice when re-assembling: pay attention to the writing on the cups when you are re-attaching. Yes, I managed to put BOTH on upside down. 
Nice.
What did you notice as far as changes?
Clarity. A very noticeable difference. It is not night and day, but noticeable.
I imagine it is like the cups. It would be a difference, but not a transformation. It rolls around on my head. I am curious, but not $500.00 curious! 
Haha!
The cups actually do a lot more than the Tune-Up kit does. They generally add more of everything. Soundstage, bass, and timbre are the biggest standouts.
I’m glad you’re enjoying them.
I just don’t think I want to pour that much money into them. I got a screaming deal on an open box pair and so I landed them for about $440.00. Then it was about $75.00 for the tune-up and then about $165.00 for the balanced cable.
I am okay with the sound for the price.
The cups are a MINIMUM $299.00. My landed cost would be a MINIMUM of $500.00, in Canuck bucks.
These, to me, are not a $1,200.00 headphone. 
A 610 owner!! Are these still being made? I love my TR-X00 Purple Hearts and Mahogany, but there’s a huge amount of grain in the mid range. Would you say this was fixed with the 610 or do you have to go the extra mile modding to remove the wonkiness? Also think this Fostex model might be discontinued.
The TH610 has the most anti-resonance materials stock, and it’s pretty neutral but the full mod take it to another level, imo.
I own the Focal Clear, sold the Audeze LCD-X (I wasn’t using them after I completed the mod), and have the Koss Porta Pros. The modded TH610 are by far my favorite headphones that I’ve owned. The timbre paired with the dynamics/decay is the most natural sound I’ve heard in a headphone. The detail is also very, very good. Better than the LCD-X and the Clear.
I’m still in the midst of pad rolling, but I should decide on my final combination in the next week or so. I’ll post a full review afterwards.
Kind of off topic but I recently got a pair of Fostex TH600 and commissioned my friend to mod these for me. Stock TH600 sounds… atrocious, bass is overwhelming, funky mids, and sharp treble peaks that made my ears hurts after one song.
Is that an Elise? 
I think that’s my friend’s Euforia anniversary edition
That’s awesome! Foster BioDyna’s are amazing, imo.
They do spectacular with modding. Let me know how they turn out. 
Yeah man I recently realized that I’m a bit of a Slam head. I heard my friend’s modded TH900 and was blown away by how dynamic it was yet not fatiguing even when I crank up the volume
The timbre is the most natural I’ve heard in a headphone. Add the speed and decay of my Rosewood cups… audio bliss to my ears.
Agreed. I love the timbre on biocellulose drivers, similar aspects in Auteur and Eikon. The Fostex drivers also quite resolving
Some updates on my modded “TH900”
cups are now sexy Monkeypod wood and modding is now complete! My friend will be dropping these off to me this weekend 
Very nice!
Looking forward to your thoughts.
I have a pair of TH-X00 purplehearts which I love, especially for listening to soul and R&B. I’m not looking to turn them into yet another pair of neutral headphones — I want them to keep their character — but I would like to clean up some of the grain in the mids, open up the soundstage, and tame the 3k notch.
I’m doing my initial research regarding the Lawton mods, and the problem I’m having is that Mark’s Type 1 thru Type 5 descriptions aren’t really doing it for me, and with a few exceptions the descriptions of the character of individual woods focuses mostly/entirely on appearance and not on the sonic effects of the wood paired with the Fostex drivers.
Based on what I described I’m trying to accomplish, can anyone suggest some woods I should consider?
@Thunder240 - Here are my observations and my own dilemma regarding the topic. Maybe it helps? I dunno.
I noticed a correlation between how Lawton categorizes the differences in his little sound circle as being warm and rich through clean and focused - type 1 through 5 - to the hardness of the woods used for each type. Type 1 woods are the softest, and 5 the hardest.
Type 1 - Mahogany and walnut. Janka hardness around 1000.
Type 2 & 3 - Maple, padauk, sapele, and koa. Around 1300-1600.
Type 4 - Rosewood and bubinga. Janka north of 1500.
Type 5 - Bocote, bloodwood, ebony. All severely dense and hard. Janka north of 2200.
My question to Mark Lawton would be: how much of the described sound differences between types is discernable in practice? Are we talking a 3 to 6% difference? 10 - 20%? Can I make a piercingly bright headphone seem dark? His marketing material seems to make it seem that way, and I don’t quite buy into it.
I’m not saying he is trying to mislead people, it’s just that audiophile terms are by and large crap. So are people’s descriptions of stuff when they’re trying to make a buck. (I’m more of a skeptic than a cynic, honestly!) That last bit applies to all markets, not just headphones. Anyway, I digress…
I am more inclined to believe that the damping and shape of the cup will affect tone and frequency response more than the wood will. In the world of ZMF, density of the wood affects decay and speed in slightly noticeable amounts, while the tone and frequency response is nearly always the same regardless of wood.
The TH-X line is NOT that way, however, as the TH-X00 ebony, purpleheart, and mahogany all have different bass and treble quantity. Measurably different. So… I’m at a loss. My experience with different wood on one headphone doesn’t seem to correlate to different wood on another. I don’t know what to think.
That’s half the reason why I’ve been super curious about the Lawton mods, but never pulled the trigger. I just have no idea what I’m actually going to be getting. I don’t like that.
Besides, the Teak + ZMF Univ Suede pads are nearly perfect to me, and I already own that, so why mess with it, ya?
If I were to offer any advice, I would say email Mark. See what he says. lawtonaudio@gmail.com I’ve contacted him a few times and he seems like a straight shooter.
I agree with @ProfFalkin, contacting Mark is the best way to go about it. He is a straight shooter in my experience.
I do feel that the wood type used matters more than many believe, especially when it’s a closed back (semi-open for the Foster driver headphones).
Pads are definitely a major factor in tuning these headphones. Material, shape, perforation, and using backing (Dekoni rings) all affect sound.
I’ve gone through a few combinations and I’ll be posting my results here in the near future.
Good luck!
I was thinking of commissioning someone to do a detachable cable mod on my pair because I wanted to use lighter and shorter cables for portable use. I ended up just doing it myself, because I didn’t want to part with them and would rather not risk shipping back and forth for such a one of a kind headphone.
This was my first time doing this type of mod. I used 3.5mm connectors for versatility since a lot of headphones use this type of connectors. I had to drill with a bit that was slightly wider than the original hole for the 3.5mm to fit (maybe 1-2mm wider?) The tricky part is you need to disassemble basically everything, which was a major PITA, but I got through it somehow lol
The part you need to watch out for is that once you drill the hole, you’ll have to pierce through some of the holes with paper dampening on it. This actually changes the sound quite a bit. I first covered the area with micropore tape since it had similar acoustic properties, but holy shit this made the can bright and lean, I PANICKED.
Then took off the tape and stuffed this charcoal foam used for the rear damping for JAR650 around the connector andddd whew, crisis averted! , back to slammy whammy headphone.
Looks pretty clean once I assembled everything together. I feel like doing the mod changed the sound a bit, but I’ll live with it for a bit before I say anything more concrete.
In hindsight, I wish I paid a bit extra for a version with detachable cable.
The moral of the story is… spend a little extra for the detachable cable version so you don’t end up going through the same troubles as me LOL Welp, there goes 4 hours of studying 
