Modding Planars: Voodoo, Alchemy, and Science

@ultrabike, thanks for the link to this head-fi post, I forgot I had done such investigation ;-).

@Bill-P, good luck digging yourself out of this hole, I haven't read such far fetched ideas in a while .

Arnaud

 

Haha, thanks!

Honestly, I would rather think stupid thoughts and try/experiment with stupid things while I still can, so that I can understand for myself why something is wrong/not possible, than having not done anything at all.

Stagnation is a scary thing.

 

You can't just pick and choose when the laws of physics apply or how they work Bill.

It is physically impossible for the lighter diaphragm to be "pulling" the housing. It just doesn't happen without a space reality distortion field. The diaphragm has force applied via the electrical traces and it moves quickly because it weighs practically nothing. We get equal and opposite forces acting on the magnet assembly and thus housing on which it is connected (which creates acceleration, of which there is minimal due to massive weight difference). There is an additional resistive force due to air resistance, but again that should be marginal at these small scales. I don't even know where you got this "sideways" notion from.

No the diaphragm will never be "strained" unless you're abusing it with power (and it will probably hit the magnet assembly itself before that ever happens).

I mean, sure it's cool to experiment and muck around with stuff. I remember you were shoving copper piping or something into headphones at one point to weight them down which is not a bad thing necessarily. Some of your theories are sheer cockamamie though. Just because you thought of something, then did a thing and found a change, does not mean your theory is correct.

 

I never said that the diaphragm that would be used in my scheme was "light" though. And yes, efficiency would shoot right out of the window as soon as "light" is no longer an attribute/property of the diaphragm, but that's also why I (jokingly of course) posted that high voltage headphone video.

On that note, Audeze headphones do have quite a lot of clearance between the diaphragm and magnets, by the way. Or at least the LCD-2 does. And the diaphragm is pretty "loose" as well. You can see this simply by taking off the ear pads and blowing lightly on the diaphragm using a blower or something. The diaphragm wobbles back and forth! This is something you really have to see to believe. The difference in diaphragm tension between some Audeze headphones I have seen versus, say, the average HiFiMAN stuff is pretty insane. Granted, LCD-2 and most LCD headphones do have the impact to prove for the looseness, but I think in general, most HiFiMAN headphones sound "faster," and that's where I got this "idea" (or theory) from.

Yes, admittedly, I am wrong on a few things above. Writing it out like this helps organize my thoughts and also helps me to hash the idea out more, as well as to get corrections from you. That's why I wrote what I wrote above. I'm not trying to be right. I just want to learn. (on that note, thanks for sticking with me this far and for pointing things out)

 

holy balls, the thread title change. Amazing!

 

One man to ask about deep punch bass is Nick n who made the t50rp mod.
they made a thread called Nickerfelds t50rp mod over at headfly, I mean heafi.

I tested them and they were very impressive, deep bass!

So I started making one with his instructions last year ...


I custom painted and custom headband it,
But due to my life having two changes in residence,
I had placed it on hold..

But I believe his mod is also over there in that other big t50rp thread,
If you can still find it lol.

 

Hahaha, oh man, thanks for the high praise!

Seriously, sometimes I do know how crazy certain things are, but I also enjoy that part about the hobby. You can also see that I continue to be as crazy as ever! I've just recently found so much enjoyment with Andromeda that I've somewhat lost touch with the rest of the world.

Perhaps I should come by and visit you this weekend or some time soon. Beats us having to ship things back and forth. I don't really live 6 hours away anymore. Plus I have an interesting Andromeda for you to try and measure, too.

 

yeah I also noticed certain things can be said better .
We don't want to stifle those (like Bill-P) looking for new Solutions,
to be thinking outside the box ...
Which is especially useful for creating new designs.

So that trait is actually a great asset, compared to just thinking from the norm , which doesn't have all the answers .

At some point we have to admit that the current state of HiFi still does not have all the answers, which is why we have "sound/science" for.

Anywas I am going to post my findings on damping soon, with some nice material tips.

 

"Scientific development depends in part on a process of non-incremental or revolutionary change...The usual prelude to changes of this sort is, I believed, the awareness of anomaly, of an occurrence or set of occurrences that does not fit existing ways of ordering phenomena. The changes that result therefore require 'putting on a different kind of thinking-cap', one that renders the anomalous lawlike but that, in the process, also transforms the order exhibited by some other phenomena, previously unproblematic."
— Thomas Kuhn

 

Nice post..
,complicated thought process ...
Yet, " the more complex the mind, the greater the need for simplicity in play."
Spock, from "Star treck"
Ha


Ok, so here are my tips of some of what I have learned in DIY & headphone damping.
They are my personal conclusions from observation,
and I so don't claim to know anything more than my own general knowledge.


First off my conclusions:
I feel the most proper way to go when "correcting" how most drivers perform,
is to correct internally...

I much rather correct how a driver actually performs (internally),
rather than "covering up" and masking , "after the fact",
Which is essentially what all the front damping and ear pad altering methods are...
To me, those external "driver side" solutions are just like "Bandaids", enabling and "covering up" for bad characteristics.

I am finding that most cans need modding,
Because the manufacturers are always making compromises & stupid sound signatures...
Like the common V shaped, mid-centric, & bassy.. types, Rarely neutral.

As for the Ortho cans, I cannot comment on the T50rp yet, but for the PM2 I can.
We need the hole area to move uniformly,
therefore more damping in Center is what I did to PM2.

So, to increase the subbass, I used less or different lesser absorbtion rate material on the outer areas.(felt).
Then dampen the center area more (wool, foam, etc).

Then to adjust the upper range, I place a denser material between the layers in center near the driver.
Mind you, that I am taking about the circular ortho like PM2, PM3, and those small vintage units like my "Realistic Pro30" ..
Not the T50rp.
Using denser felt types do not absorb and suck the life out of your upper range frequencies, like foam & wool does..

The damping, to me, is like a cars shock absorber,
and then there is different aspects of absorption.

Damping will tighten up transient recovery and bass so it wont sound floppy and uncontrolled.
But too much damping can also reduce movement so overall dynamics may get muted and result less efficiency.

Thats were I strike balance with use of the damping and absorbtion aspects and listen,
Wotking on one side at a time and Comparing it to the other, keeping changes along the way, and if possible having a totally stock unit for comparison.
Of course having a measurement rig similar to the ones in the threads here is ideal as well.

Goodluck!

 

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, and I apologize in advance if my question is ignorant.

If one were to experiment with different magnet strengths on planar drivers, where could parts be sourced?

How could the magnets be replaced without damaging the diaphragm?

 

Zach from ZMF told me he did experiment on planars with different magnet and didn't have much success,
So looks like for planar design, other factors are more important than just the magnets, which I believe are more important for coil motor structures like the dynamic drivers.