Monoprice Monolith: A new planar?

I realize that. The Dekoni Elite Pad was inbetween stock and Audeze pads in terms of improvement and costs $60. My biggest grip with Brainwavz pads are that they aren't circular. You need as close to a perfect seal for the sub bass to be present. The way that the pads are adhered is on the outside edge like Audeze pads and so you won't get a good seal where the Brainwavz pads taper in at the sides.

It's really worth it to get them. Think of it as a $400 headphone that competes with anything up to $1500.

 

So, do you just glue the audeze pads on?

 

Audeze Pads come with an adhesive ring that is placed either on the headphone surface or pad and then adhered together. It's an insanely strong bond.

 

@cskippy, did you changed only pads or did you performed another mod ?
By the way, what about the 5k wall in the CSD ?

 

Just pad swap so far. The 5k wall is an "ortho wall" that is where the diaphragm is tensioned at. It's not heard.

 

Great. After the pad swap, dose it sound better than HE-500? The price will be more or less same after including pads since HE-500 mint condition goes around $400 nowadays.

 

M1060 after pad swap is more neutral than stock but still darker than HE-500. HE-500 has a better timbre and has more impact. M1060 has more bass body and sub bass but softer impact.

Here's a comparison between the two:

 

Quick update:

I added a low shelf filter -3dB at 1500Hz targeting B&K Curve

 

@cskippy Thank you for your answer. Is an ortho wall always not heard or is it just due to the fact that it is a 5k ortho wall ? I thought it would have an impact.

 

It won't be heard. It's the resonant frequency at which the diaphragm is tuned. Here's an example. A snare drum without the wires engaged has a crisp crack to it but it will continue vibrating for a little while after. This can be affected by how the snare is tuned, or the tension on the skins.

The tension on the diaphragm of the M1060 is at 5kHz. So once sound is emitted it will continue to oscillate at that frequency until the energy dies. This oscillation is happening at 5,000 times a second and resolves itself in just a few milliseconds. Comparing planars to dynamics with similar frequency response, there is no obvious etch or ringing. I know there is a lot more going on but this should give you a basic idea of why it won't be heard. Hope this helps.

 

Thank you, I re read the thread from Marv : http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/ortho-wall-for-lack-of-a-better-term.2119/ to understand a bit better.
However, Marv states we don't hear it, without saying why. Your example is also very useful to understand, but I would expect hearing such a thing because we can hear ringing : http://www.superbestaudiofriends.or...ds-and-types-of-driver-ringing.65/#post-11786
Your explanation is, for me, not good enough to explain why are we not hearing it (no offence though, I do appreciate your answers). But maybe I am just not seeing the thing. Marv is mentioning that the coupler used change the shape of the wall, it makes me think that the measurement setup/rig may have a resonance with orthos headphones. This behavior remains for me a bit obscure and fuzzy I got to say.

By the way, you can go further into explanations if you want to, I am not a newbie in mechanics, signal processing and so on. However I doubt this would be the correct thread to do it ^^.

 

For some reason I can't see your graphs

 

@Valolilol I do agree that there might be an interaction with planars and my coupler as it's always seemed like their CSDs were never as clean and the "ortho wall" was more apparent.

@spoony I'll host them somewhere else.

 

deleted

 

All photos have been rehosted, should be good now.

 

I'll be posting a full review in about a week. I want to get a good handle on these. I will say that I haven't touched my HE-6 or HD650 since I've done the pad swap. These do so much right for ~$380, I'm still blown away!

@Marvey @Hands you guys need to get a pair with the Audeze Vegan pads.

 

Monomoist Planars might cause Hifiman to up their offerings at the sub $500 range!

 

Just to have a summary @cskippy, you are currently using M1060 with leather free pads of Audeze and a notch filter ? Is that correct ?

 

I've ditched the low shelf filter and am just using Audeze vegan pads. Going back and forth between HD650 and M1060, HD650 has mids slightly forward of neutral with mid bass bump, not much sub bass. M1060 has mids slightly south of neutral, better bass extension, less perceived impact due to no mid bass bump and more extended treble. Tonally they aren't that far off of each other compared to most other headphones out there.