Lightstream Posted October 18, 2017 Posted October 18, 2017 1 hour ago, Lansche plasma guy said: The better pads don't come with the headphones. You need to buy separately the focus pads. Addicted to audio and others sell them. The results with those pads are detailed all over the net but you get much better sound and far superior and deeper bass. They're cheap and this must be done to get great sound from the headphones. Also my experiments with removing the outside grills improved the sound tons. Much bigger soundstage, better top end and all the audiophile things you would expect. Don't leave them open though because they sound too thin. lpg Ok, I'm in! Gotta get me some of those. Will check in at Addicted To Audio tomorrow. And find the 'cable guy'. I'm a little confused about removing the outside grills but not leaving them open?
Lansche plasma guy Posted October 18, 2017 Posted October 18, 2017 Ok the grill thing. First you want to be reasonably careful in taking the grills off. They're there to protect the delicate membrane so no idiot moves with screwdrivers and the like. Anyway. Just carefully remove the thin plastic ring around the outside of the headphone. Once the ring has been levered out the grill comes out really easily. You then either peel the stocking style fabric from the grill and reinstall (improvement but not huge) or you leave the grills off and find something more open (think $2 paper waste metal mesh basket etc or similar). Then just trace around the old grill and put the new one in with a couple of dots of blue tac/ glue etc and your done. Better to listen to a few different ones first. If its too open my experience has been that the sound gets a little lean/ screechy and top end dominant. But the better ones will allow the headphone to breathe more while still giving damping to the diaphragm. The end result is much better top end (purer and more extension. I think the 400s stock is a little rolled off) and a much larger sound stage. Way more out of the head experience. Also cleaner and clearer. Be careful with the thin plastic rings holding the grill in. They have little plastic tabs and they suck. They almost always break. No big loss in my opinion. Once you do some of these mods you have a really well balanced and great sounding headphone thats cost peanuts. It's not going to give you top of the line sound but it sounds fantastic. There are many headphones i prefer these too overall including the Hd800 in most setups, Focal Elear etc. so it sounds really nice with the cable, pad and grill mods. Have fun. LPG.
Lightstream Posted October 18, 2017 Posted October 18, 2017 7 minutes ago, Lansche plasma guy said: Ok the grill thing. First you want to be reasonably careful in taking the grills off. They're there to protect the delicate membrane so no idiot moves with screwdrivers and the like. Anyway. Just carefully remove the thin plastic ring around the outside of the headphone. Once the ring has been levered out the grill comes out really easily. You then either peel the stocking style fabric from the grill and reinstall (improvement but not huge) or you leave the grills off and find something more open (think $2 paper waste metal mesh basket etc or similar). Then just trace around the old grill and put the new one in with a couple of dots of blue tac/ glue etc and your done. Better to listen to a few different ones first. If its too open my experience has been that the sound gets a little lean/ screechy and top end dominant. But the better ones will allow the headphone to breathe more while still giving damping to the diaphragm. The end result is much better top end (purer and more extension. I think the 400s stock is a little rolled off) and a much larger sound stage. Way more out of the head experience. Also cleaner and clearer. Be careful with the thin plastic rings holding the grill in. They have little plastic tabs and they suck. They almost always break. No big loss in my opinion. Once you do some of these mods you have a really well balanced and great sounding headphone thats cost peanuts. It's not going to give you top of the line sound but it sounds fantastic. There are many headphones i prefer these too overall including the Hd800 in most setups, Focal Elear etc. so it sounds really nice with the cable, pad and grill mods. Have fun. LPG. I see what you mean now, thanks LPG. I shall start with the pads and cables then work outwards Is it you that hand makes those cables, by any chance?
Lansche plasma guy Posted October 18, 2017 Posted October 18, 2017 Haha no. Its pico watson on this forum. if you look back to page one you will see him on one of the posts. Just send him an email. he's a super nice guy. I'm sure there are other great cables out there. But its a budget headphone so i'm trying to keep things to an equivalent budget. Also i've heard and am using his cable and it sounds fantastic. He is also a sna-er so prefer to support someone here and they are made really well. I would be surprised if you could do better at the really affordable prices he offers. LPG 1
Lightstream Posted October 18, 2017 Posted October 18, 2017 14 minutes ago, Lansche plasma guy said: Haha no. Its pico watson on this forum. if you look back to page one you will see him on one of the posts. Just send him an email. he's a super nice guy. I'm sure there are other great cables out there. But its a budget headphone so i'm trying to keep things to an equivalent budget. Also i've heard and am using his cable and it sounds fantastic. He is also a sna-er so prefer to support someone here and they are made really well. I would be surprised if you could do better at the really affordable prices he offers. LPG Hah! That's the guy. Excellent, thanks, LPG. I've found a number of pads on-line, including HifiMAN's own nice looking velour pads for the HE560, which apparently fit nicely.
Lansche plasma guy Posted October 18, 2017 Posted October 18, 2017 The pads which were tested to be a fantastic match and must have for the 400s is the focus pads. Any others will be a crap shoot. They may be better, they may be worse. Get the focus pads. LPG 1
Lightstream Posted October 18, 2017 Posted October 18, 2017 Thanks, LPG, they're exactly the ones I had chosen to buy! I'm not that fond of the feel of the stock pads, my 28 year old Senn HD540 Reference cans - bought new in 1989! - are far more comfortable and remain the most comfy 'phones I own. Even the Magni 3 drives them, not perfectly but rather well regardless, that's what the Valhalla 2 is for. New Amperex Orange Globe NOS 1968 valves on the way!
Batty Posted October 18, 2017 Posted October 18, 2017 If the OP would like an inexpensive but good headphone amp that has a line out, I have an MF X_CANv3 in the classifieds, it has had the Rock Grotto Mods (not the valve bases) done. Cheap plug I know. 1
onthebeach Posted October 19, 2017 Author Posted October 19, 2017 On 18/10/2017 at 10:33 AM, Lightstream said: Try the new Schiit Audio Magni 3, at an amazing price of just $209, simply astonishing performance! Alrighty....I'll keep my eye out for one. cheers
onthebeach Posted October 19, 2017 Author Posted October 19, 2017 15 hours ago, Lansche plasma guy said: Haha no. Its pico watson on this forum. if you look back to page one you will see him on one of the posts. Just send him an email. he's a super nice guy. I'm sure there are other great cables out there. But its a budget headphone so i'm trying to keep things to an equivalent budget. Also i've heard and am using his cable and it sounds fantastic. He is also a sna-er so prefer to support someone here and they are made really well. I would be surprised if you could do better at the really affordable prices he offers. LPG Thanks for all the info. I will contact him for sure. New cable will be great. I really don't like the stock cable.
onthebeach Posted October 19, 2017 Author Posted October 19, 2017 (edited) 5 hours ago, Batty said: If the OP would like an inexpensive but good headphone amp that has a line out, I have an MF X_CANv3 in the classifieds, it has had the Rock Grotto Mods (not the valve bases) done. Cheap plug I know. Thanks for that. I'm just about to leave the office and head out on a double header Midnight Oil weekend. Coffs tonight and Hope estate Hunter valley Saturday so I'll relook at things next week. Just looked at your ad. I'm gonna need something portable. cheers anyway. Edited October 19, 2017 by onthebeach
Lightstream Posted October 19, 2017 Posted October 19, 2017 19 hours ago, Lightstream said: Ok, I'm in! Gotta get me some of those. Will check in at Addicted To Audio tomorrow. And find the 'cable guy'. I'm a little confused about removing the outside grills but not leaving them open? Done! New pads on the way Cables next.
Lightstream Posted October 19, 2017 Posted October 19, 2017 Also just discovered the Brainwavz pads, anyone got them? They look pretty good too and not an expensive item to play around with. A few O/S folks seem to love them.
Lightstream Posted October 19, 2017 Posted October 19, 2017 5 minutes ago, Lansche plasma guy said: Buy them and let us know!! ? Lpg Probably will, got 'em lined up Have to buy new attachment rings from HiFiMAN as well. Be fun!
Lightstream Posted October 23, 2017 Posted October 23, 2017 (edited) Focus pads now installed ....... oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah! Now THAT's more like it! Never really liked the stock velour pads, they are ok, but not really COMFY and nothing remotely approaching the bliss of wearing my Senn HD540Rs. The Focus pads do everything I could want from them and all the good stuff reported about them. Far more comfortable, yet a touch firmer on the head, they quite obviously seal better. NOW we have transparency into the bass! Midrange and top end detail just opens out naturally. I was listening to Kate Bush's Aerial last night (stock pads) and it was just excellent, today though, Focus pad wowza All that slightly veiled bass detail has now joined the clarity of the rest of the range and added even more natural metallic detail and brassy shimmer to percussion. Her voice with explicit detail - moisture on the lips, the slightest lisp .. "Can you see the Lark ascendiiinnnnnggggggg .. " right into total fade out, so easy to follow such details. Follow any layer of sound, like focusing a camera lens .. in and out. Simply magnificent. The sort of detail with diction so naturally explicit that you can almost intuit what a singer in a foreign language is about to say next, say, Terakaft's superb album Aratan N Azawad, with it's swinging Saharan blues. This is using the Questyle QP1R DAP, pure class A out into the HE-400S. And now I can hear even more of how brilliant that DAP is. The bass guitar intro of Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love shocked me into jawdrop. Blimey! The Police telling me the "..bed's too big without you" with such punch and percussive transparency I'm in love with their music all over again. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother with the expense of headphone amps when the QP1R itself is just so good! Of course that's with the HE-400S cans, it certainly won't drive my 600 ohm Senn HD540R's. Pure power and soundstage size only, really and only sometimes at that. Even the power consideration is ameliorated significantly by the addition of the Focus pads, those seemingly minuscule 42mw versus 2W with the Magni 3 appearing to take on a new level of ability, the astonishing rhythmic accomplishment of the QP1R becoming further enhanced, damn I love this thing! It is simply the best individual bit of kit I've ever experienced in 44 years, if I could pick just one. All this while not sounding like all leading edges and dynamics led speed, unlike rather a lot of so-called high end gear. I think I used to enjoy more of that some years ago and now I just prefer a better balance, more like real music. Thanks greatly for the recommendation of these pads, LPG! Superb all round! Edited October 23, 2017 by Lightstream 1
Lightstream Posted October 23, 2017 Posted October 23, 2017 On 18/09/2017 at 11:18 PM, PicoWattson said: Swapped the stock cable on @Lansche Plasma guys HE-400s today for a custom one and the results were a resounding improvement. Now you may know LPG from the various modded projects he has undertaken on this forum and these headphones were another striking testimony to the fact that he can extract great sound from modest equipment. I wont steal his thunder on the subject but streaming Tidal from a tablet through an AQ Dragonfly the sound through those modded HE-400s 'phones were sublime to my ears. So to answer your original question it would definitely be worth upgrading the cable for a modest outlay and a definite improvement in sound, I would wager even fed by the A&K Jr. Mr PicoWattson sir, hello. What sort of price might you ask for the creation of that apparently wonderful cable for the HE-400S headphones? I now have the rather terrific Focus pads installed and am absolutely loving what they bring for such a modest sum. At the moment, the sound is so good (via Questyle QP1R DAP) that an even bigger improvement has got me wondering just how much better can I get here! Stunning so far, what might come after that? Look forward to hearing from you.
Lightstream Posted October 23, 2017 Posted October 23, 2017 Good GOD! I've just popped Tom Jones album Praise And Blame, the heavy drum beat on the intro to What Good Am I is has exposed an open jaw to various flying creatures. How much better can these HE-400S's get! Talk about a big drum skin moving air! So taut and detailed with weight and speed. Shaking my head ... I've never heard this album anything like this good on ANY gear, big or small. Phew. 1
onthebeach Posted October 26, 2017 Author Posted October 26, 2017 Hey where is the best place to pick up these Focus pads? Are they simple to change?
Lightstream Posted October 26, 2017 Posted October 26, 2017 Addicted To Audio in Melbourne, onthebeach, $55 and whipped out of the store at high speed You can just order them from the on-line store. I had no issues with changing them. To get the last (4th) clip in place you can use a credit card to ease it in place, but the last couple of times I didn't bother, just did it by hand with no problems. 1
onthebeach Posted November 2, 2017 Author Posted November 2, 2017 (edited) My Focus pads should be dropping in any day. I've contacted Picowattson last week but he hasn't read the message. Maybe a full inbox. Hey Lightstream did you end up ordering a cable from him? Edited November 2, 2017 by onthebeach
Lightstream Posted November 2, 2017 Posted November 2, 2017 12 minutes ago, onthebeach said: My Focus pads should be dropping in any day. I've contacted Picowattson last week but he hasn't read the message. Maybe a full inbox. Hey Lightstream did you end up ordering a cable from him? Yes I did, ought to be done sometime this week, he might be busy I'm still loving those Focus pads! 1
onthebeach Posted November 2, 2017 Author Posted November 2, 2017 Hey Picowattson. If you see this....I sent you a PM last week with some interest in grabbing a cable as well. let me know...cheers
PicoWattson Posted November 2, 2017 Posted November 2, 2017 Apologies, I've been been out of town for a week communing with nature. The red orb is glowing, the silkworms are spinning, and cable production is creaking back up to full production. 2
Lightstream Posted November 3, 2017 Posted November 3, 2017 No apologies needed, PW, I could do with a week in nature myself Probably more important than ever in these times to relax into our Nature Selves, become grounded. May the Silkworms be with you.
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