HD800 "French Mod" aka "SuperDupont Resonator"

20160322 : Check this for Updated summary and subscription

http://www.superbestaudiofriends.or...nt-resonator-summary-and-interest-check.1558/




All art, instructions, material selections and information in this post and following posts (collectively the "SuperBAF HD800 SuperDupont Resonator mod by Sorrodje") are covered by the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 4.0 international license. Any derivative work may be sold as long as instructions and art are distributed freely and correct attribution (mention of the name of the mod, Sorrodje, and a link to this thread) is maintained.




Measured result :

FR : Average and all FR Measured :


As you can see , HD800 measurements can vary significantly depending on the position of the cup or the mic. Take all measurements with usual caution. Ask Tyll for more professionnal stuff.

All proposed FR plots below are averaged. Raw measurements taken is same conditions than above (different positions of Cups & Mic)

FR compared : HD800 "French Mod" vs HD800 stock :


HD800 Stock vs HD800S vs HD800 "French Mod"



More measurements to come ( CSD , Distorsion, spectrogram)

 

How to (LAST UPDATE 2016/01/30)

WORK IN PROGRESS TO FIND A BETTER SuperDupont "RESONATOR" THAT THE ONE DESCRIBED ABOVE

1. Remove dust covers and pads to have enough room to work safely on the mesh behind the driver.

2. Push on the mesh with your finger until to create a hole and see the screen start to peel off a bit :


You can see a first attempt of resonator that wasn't a success.... Ahum...

2. With the nail , just scrape a bit the edge of the screen in order to be able to grab it with two nails/fingers. the material is solid. no worry.



3. Once grabbed, pull off the screen. It's quite hard but don't hesitate to pull hard. it won't rip. it's glued with the same material with which samples of cream/perfumes are glued in magazines. So it's easy to put it back after the mod. The glue still will stay stuck on the web & the metallic grill :



4. Maintain the web open with something that won't stay glued to the web or the metallic grill. I chose an elastic strap for example. As you can see the silver/White screen at the rear of the hole is untouched. It's still in the HD800S from what I can see in mine.



5. The perfect material for the mod : some Shure Olive tips L Sized ( Etys larger grey foams works the same)



6. Cut the narrower part and leave a kind of flat cylinder , approx 4 or 5mm sick . if you're using the new tips with white tubes and anti wax grill , you need to cut the tip and the tube in order to remove the Anti wax grill. Best results thus far ar with the tube in. Removing completely the inner tube works but apparently less well.



7. Here's the ultimate "SuperDupont Resonator tm" . I had to cut some small chips after the primary cut in order to have a quite flat resonator. very amateurish I know.



8. Plug the Resonator in the ass of your HD800 . the tips is positionned flush to the top. Basically , leaving some space between the tip and the bottom of the hole have some positive effects.


9. Stick back the screen on the grill ... No sign of any surgery. Time to enjoy your HD800 "French Mod" !




10. Some thoughts

- There's probably some room for improvement . asjusting finely the lenght ot the "resonator".. try to remove the tube in the foam. Maybe not to cut the tips but not put back the mesh ... Personaly I'm happy enough and like the fact my HD800 looks perfectly like what it looked before the mod.
- In current State, we didn't reach the great result Sennheiser achieved but it's not bad for some amateur Hobbyist.
- As you already noticed , this mod can perfectly be added to all other mods and I'm wating the SBAF mod to put and measure it in addition to my mod.
- Don't take the "resonator" thing seriously. it's just a bastardized tips in the HD800. Nothing more. Real resonator is what Senn achieved and probably took time to optimize.

It

 

History :






Since we've seen the pics of the resonator we all wonder how to reproduce it right. As a die hard HD800 fan, I ordered the HD800S as soon as Jan Meier told me orders was open. So I listened to it , measured it ( http://www.superbestaudiofriends.or...heiser-hd800s-measurements-unsanctionned.907/ ) and understood Senn didn't screw us and logically did a better job than any modders before.

The point was to open the mesh and try to mimic what Sennheiser did and transform a HD800 into a HD800S wit a "resonator' of our own.

I'd never dare to remove the screen on the grill by myself. Fortunately a friend of mind was more ballzy and discovered that screen was easy to remove and put back. Hubert or Agnostic1er on french forums. Great and acknowledged guy, very experienced in DIY (speakers only). Soooo. I drank a beer or two and took the risk. He was right. that's a easy and safe task. I put back the clothe and began to think about the right material.

The first time I put my hand on the HD800S , I did what all curious Hobbyist would do : look at the famous resonator and try to guess what it is and with which material it's made. with my nail , i pushed a bit and saw it was a soft memory foam that looks like complys foam.. I had no plan to mimic the resonator.

So when I pulled of the screen, I remembered the complys and talked to Frenchbat.... we all thought to shure Olive and I told him those was probably too small... but I have a box of those for my SE215.. so i compared.. Bingo... those f'ing Olive fitted perfectly !!

Hence the Mix of German engineering, American "savoir faire" and French curiosity : The HD800 French Mod... uh uh uh uh ( I'm laughing at my own story )

Will now send some tips to Hubert/Agnostic1er in order to be able to have other measurements and impressions, but thus far, the result is promising... Maybe even more promising in unexpected areas. Still not as efficient as Sennheiser to tame the 6khz ( or more important : the gap between 4 and 6 khz ) though.. but not bad for an amateurish attempt : -4db at 6khz . not bad.

Maybe Some Impressions later.

 

Don't be too enthousiastic guys. FR is good . Some other measurements are good too but not all. Even Tamed , the 6khz is still ringing on my modded HD800 whereas the ringing mostly disappeared in my HD800S ( if my measurements are trustable) .

 

Be proud and bastardize your HD800 like us. You know you want to do it :

 

Srsly it's really easy to do and undo. I'm definitely two left handed and not ballzy AT ALL with a few hundred bucks headphone. Just do it. it's safe. Don't be surprised if it's hard to pull off the screen the first time. Glue is not shit.

I kept the screen at the rear of the hole untouched and I know this screen is still here in the HD800S

 

Oh shit. OJ has SuperBAF mods that elevate the mids and can tell us if the two together make it even better...

Time to go looking for tips in my collection. Watch, the spinfit will be the best result.

 

Ah ah Good game OJ !

Seems this Sunday in US will be a "bastardize your HD800" day.. uh uh uh uh uh

I Imagine Axel Grell facepalming "holy f**k , those retarded dared !! "