NAD RP18 and Yahama YH-1 / YH-3 Orthodynamic

Discussion in 'Headphones' started by purr1n, Apr 21, 2020.

  1. dBel84

    dBel84 Friend

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    what did you want to know?
     
  2. spoony

    spoony Spooky

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    Their relative performance compared to the usual suspects (YH-1?, YH-2?, T10?), mod-ability.
     
  3. dBel84

    dBel84 Friend

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    The drivers have huge potential but the narrow housing and nasty earpads put them in the pro30 camp but with better drivers ( more extended into lower frequency)
     
  4. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    I bought a brand spankin NIB pair recently but won’t be modding them for some time. So not familiar but interested!
     
  5. dBel84

    dBel84 Friend

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    I think I still have 2 BNIB - too many orthos, I should purge
     
  6. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    Never. Purge. Orthos.

    You already joined the club there’s no turning back now.
     
  7. je2a3

    je2a3 Almost "Made"

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    [​IMG]
    I agree with what @dBel84 said, if I may add, I found the Echo TDS 16 to be subjectively less efficient than the Realistic Pro 30. Ear pads were replaced on both units but the TDS16 is stock while the Pro 30 has two vent holes covered with felt dots. I prefer my YH-1 and T-10 over both units.
     
  8. cameng318

    cameng318 Friend

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    After hearing great things about these vintage orthos from other threads, I got a pair of Yamaha YH-1 couple of weeks ago. This little beast is impressive! I wish I knew about it when I started playing with headphones. I still can't it makes FR flat to 50 Hz with these little cups. The driver on the left side probably got damaged or something that it only goes down to 100 Hz and mismatch at other places. Then I got a pair with matched driver, but crappy headband. I transferred the headband and started playing with the mismatched pair.

    I generally don't like the comfort of on-ear headphones, so I 3D printed a full size baffle for it. I tried all the earpads I have, and the SRH1840 pads seems to give the flattest response (but still not as good as the original). It only reached down to 100 Hz with a wide dip around 2 kHz. Also the part that extended out interfered with the headband. Maybe making a bigger and dampened cup would help bass extension. Then I need to worry about how to mount the driver, because the original drivers float on foams. Fitting the cup into HD58x headband would solve the headband issue. I think I'm in a rabbit hole modding it. At that point, it's not too much to ask to building driver as well. I'll just enjoy the matched pair for now and worry about this pair later.

    I posted the 3d print file here. It should be visible 24 hours from now, since I just registered the account on Thingiverse.
    [​IMG]
     
  9. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    awesome! I’ve always wanted to do that. What you did is interestingly similar to what Fostex did with their 1978 T10 to make the original T20 (T20v1) except they used different drivers in each. But for the housing, they just added a big round baffle to the T10 housing.

    T10

    [​IMG]


    T20v1

    [​IMG]

    have you damped the driver at all?
     
  10. cameng318

    cameng318 Friend

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    Cool pictures! I like the vintage Foster look a lot more than the t50rp look. I haven't damp the drivers yet. It feels like there's too little room in the rear to fit cotton balls. Maybe I should replace the foam with kitchen towels or thick craft felts. I'm eager to find out how much bass it could gain back with damping.
     
  11. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    I'm aware measuring supra-aurals with the MiniDSP EARS can be amazingly frustrating, but I don't suppose you'd happen to have ones from before and from after you'd installed the extended baffle, as a point of reference?
     
  12. cameng318

    cameng318 Friend

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    I changed the foam to 3 layers of 2mm craft felt. It couldn't fit more without further modification. I tested all my pads again, and the srh1540 pads turn out to be the flattest. The damping also seem to alleviate the channel mismatch.

    About measurements, I'm actually having a weird problem with my laptop that everything has a 6 kHz dip somehow... I'm still figuring it out. Thus I took a reference measurement from my HD6XX. I took some lousy measurements without battling with the seal too much. The stock measurement is from the other pair that I didn't mod. I guess the worsened 1.5 kHz is caused by sitting further away from ear, and the peaks around 10 kHz could be fixed by (ugh) kitchen towel. Overall, I think this mod is more about comfort than sound, but the baffle touching headband issue should still be fixed for my wide head to feel comfort.

    I just took a quick listen, it's a lot better than using 1840 pads without extra damping. There's more treble than stock. It now sounds like a modded t50rp with improved bass extension IMO.

    [​IMG]
     
  13. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    leave the stock foam to keep the felt pushed up against the driver. Driver damping must be against the driver directly. You’re not soaking up reflections like with the T50rp (it comes with driver damping stock) you are damping the driver. Two very different but equally important things. You should easily get flat bass extension all the way psst 20hz with the Yamahas even with circumaural pads though that makes it more difficult. Check out the FR graphs of my modded Yamaha. I’ve got an HP1 here which I’ve modded to be very flat across the whole FR range. So it’s possible. But I’ve also spent a decade figuring out how to do that...

    Also craft felt may not be dense enough. If you’re using 2 lsyers it’s not dense enough. Try to find some dense 100% wool felt. Natural fibers are best IMO.
     
  14. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    i did a simple mod on mine testing for potential and don’t like what I hear. Foggy recessed midrange. It could be they need a different damping scheme but from what I heard I don’t see a ton of potential worth spending a lot of time on. I might revisit them though.
     
  15. Philimon

    Philimon Friend

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    Yamaha YHD-3. These were NOS. The foam in the pads have disintegrated and probably same for any stock internal damping.

    Stock sounds mid-centric and peaky, sense magic but needs distance because fatiguing.
    First pad swap: Geekria Grado style s-pad with hole. Sounds detailed and rich. Lifelike vocals, clear bass. Fast. Negative tilt frequency response and overall smoothness like KOSS 95X but the difference is that bass is satisfying with the ortho. I tried eq with KOSS 95X but it was still missing impact, however I would like to try again at some point instead with some mods and alternate pads. Overall tone and resolution they are not dissimilar, but 95X has big open transducers so you get those soundstage perks. Prefer YHD3 because better bass, smaller footprint (no energizer required), and cheaper.

    I've been using high-gain for the first time with Vali2 because these phones are insensitive.

    These are about similar in size to a Koss KPH30i (little bigger than Porta Pro). Comfy and light.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    More
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2021
  16. Vtory

    Vtory Audiophile™

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    I almost forgot the existence of this thread. Lol

    Thanks to RD's kindness, I am trying out NAD RP18 (RD mod) along with Aiwa HP500. Picture below.

    [​IMG]

    I already posted HP500's measurements here: https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...vintage-ortho-thread.2340/page-12#post-344284

    Disclaimer: the HP500 loaner unit I am having shows some tricky behaviors such as phase discrepancy between channels. Unless you're fully measurement-savvy (which I don't assume for myself) Readers must not automatically disrespect RD's work. Also read subsequent analysis and my subjective comments (Post #241)

    RP18 did measure in a more aggregable style. May harmonics could be a little higher than today's standard, but that didn't quite align with my subjective listening so far.

    Anyway, here are my measurements. Since the unit measured quite normal and didn't differ between the channel, I suppressed what seem duplicative. All my measurements taken with Minidsp EARS and SBAF compensation v 3.0.

    nad_rp18_fr.jpg

    Slight imbalance between the channel observed. I could hear that, too.
    Attenuating by 1db for the right channel worked for me.

    nad_rp18_vs_eq.jpg

    The tonal balance is more uprising than what I would like to hear. A little too hot on lower and upper highs. I calibrated by using dsp on my end. Remeasured results (with eq on) below. I needed a lot more complicated filters for HP500 (it had obvious non-min phase region), but RP18 was more straightforward in this respect.

    After dsp calibration, RP18 started to shine with great capability. I will elaborate this later once I collect enough thoughts.

    nad_rp18_dist_l.jpg

    Distortions seem a bit high, but interestingly gradually decrease as frequency increases. Neither details nor dynamics harmed subjectively. I can comfortably say RP18's bass is better than any of Sennheiser. Not HFM or Audeze style bass though.

    nad_rp18_waterplot_l.jpg nad_rp18_spectrogram_l.jpg

    Waterfall and spectrogram were very clean for ortho. Ortho walls well controlled. Unsure if NAD's or Fostex's original product had this clean CSD.

    For apple to apple comparison, interested readers may compare this with the following orthowall cases. One less severe (HE400SE Global Edition -- btw this product is surprisingly clean in csd for HFM) while the other more so (HP500).

    he400_waterfall.jpg aiwa_hp500_csd_l.jpg

    That's pretty much it for now. Will update more as I explore.
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2021

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