Quote from: Boda on August 10, 2013, 11:40:42 PM

So what's being said? I always seem to be too late.

Someone was calling Dan out for commercializing MD/AD, and being secretive about their modding specifics, despite the "DIY" geist of the T50RP modding scene from which MadDogs was built upon. Shitstorm ensued.

Pretty much this.  The comment was well thought out and pointed out a few general courtesies that modders often share among each other, and asked if Dan would continue these. Dan didn't respond directly to those comments, although his handle was shown as actively viewing the thread. 

Regarding the hype surrounding these, I do not see much reason to be too wary or suspicious (whatever you think the appropriate term might be). The T50RP is well known as being a great headphone for modding, and I think the Paradox and latest iteration of the Mad Dogs show this. As far as I can tell, Dan isn't reinventing the wheel here, ignoring the 3D printed cups aspect. Custom cups have been used with success on the T50RP before as well. Plus, Dan seems to have improved on his processes over the past year when it comes to narrowing down on the sound he wants, implementing this, and making sure headphones have relatively consistent quality between them given the already existing variance in individual T50RP units and the amount of headphones he produces. I can only assume even more effort will be put into a premium product like the AD. I think it would be hard to really mess up.

I think most signs point to the AD being a great product with little risk behind it from the consumer's perspective. However, I will wait to hear more subjective impressions and get measurements of the final product before dropping $600 on them. I'm sure Dan will provide comparison measurements (useful given that I am familiar with the Mad Dog). Hopefully Marv is able to measure a pair as well.

As for the issue of whether mods should be "open source" or not, I'm torn on the issue. I started following the T50RP thread quite early on, even before Dan and Luis started regularly posting. It was great seeing the community effort behind getting every bit of performance possible out of the T50RP with mods. The Thunderpants were the only commercial T50RP project at the time, IIRC, but that was more for the work on the custom cups than anything else. I remember his damping techniques being pretty well known, so you weren't paying for that. The Paradox and Mad Dogs certainly weren't a thing at the time. Hell, Dan was still publicly posting mod ideas at the time (what was it...the RastaPants?).

I think it was around the time Luis mentioned he got his T50RP mods to be "end game" quality that people really latched on to the T50RP modding scene. It certainly drew my attention. Not too long after Luis mentioned selling his mods/the Paradox rather than publicizing them and Dan released the Mad Dog, most of the incoming publicly posted mods and tips dried up. I get the feeling that the big swell in the community to mod the T50RP and share ideas has mostly disappeared with new DIYers either picking up useful but old/stagnant tips OR people just opting for products like the Mad Dog or Paradox.

I mentioned the Thunderpants being a custom product due to the cups. The Mad Dog didn't really become a custom product in my mind until Dan made his own pads for them. At least up to the MD 3.0 (I'm clueless on 3.1 and 3.2), the general idea behind most of its mods were common knowledge you'd see in the T50RP threads on HF. It's the specific materials and how they're used that are kept secret. Now, I don't know what Luis does for his Paradox mods, but I know he puts a lot of time and effort into each pair. And they sound pretty damn good. But that's all I know about them. He may or may not be using standard mods and damping, though I'm inclined to believe his techniques are more unique based on what I've read from others. With the AD, custom components now include at least new cups and pads. I have no idea what sort of changes were made to damping and such, so that might also be an area of opportunity for truly new/custom ideas.

I sometimes have a hard time supporting commercial endeavors when they basically piggyback off of an existing DIY community's ideas to make some money. And with the T50RP modding community, most of the important damping and pads ideas were something anyone could do right away. I can more easily get behind endeavors that are somewh at customized to the extent where most DIYers wouldn't be able to take such customizations on themselves. On the other hand, there is certainly a market of people who would rather spend extra money on a pre-modded T50RP they know will sound "right" vs. going through the hassle of modding it themselves, especially if they feel they wouldn't be able to get any headphone sounding that good with the DIY route. I was in the same boat, though my reasons for going pre-modded were more out of laziness and curiosity.

Either way, I feel like the commercialization of T50RP mods killed the community modding effort on HF, and that makes me really sad. That's where I start to get torn. I'd probably feel differently if the whole T50RP craze didn't start with an awesome DIY community movement. But I can't fault someone for wanting to make a business where they feel there might be a market. Money is enticing. I can't even 100% guarantee I wouldn't jump at a similar opportunity, TBH. Then again, I'm also in favor of making as much knowledge and information free and publicly available as possible. To me, I sort of envisioned the community modding efforts leading to an "open source" T50RP mod with Paradox/Mad Dog quality. Not only would it offer a DIY template for a truly excellent headphone (likely under $200-250) but also help others better understand their headphone, how it works, and really just more about audio reproduction in general. Everyone benefits equally in the end by behind able to learn and save money (but not sacrifice quality) by going with an easily defined DIY route. But before it could get to that point, it took a turn towards commercialization. I think BMF is the only one that kept pushing otherwise, and I really wish his more finalized mods could be subjectively and objectively analyzed by more people (I haven't tried or heard his mods). Again, I can't blame people for wanting to make money doing something they love, but I wouldn't have chosen it to go this way with the T50RP and DIY community.

IMO, the ideal balance would have been a mixture of DIY and commercialization. Make the mods publicly accessible knowledge, but also offer services for pre-modded headphones for those that don't want to take the DIY route (or want a guaranteed good unit) and even mod kits to make it easy for others. That's how I wish things would be. Of course, one argument I've heard against this is due to variance in the T50RP units. The modders want to make sure their mods sound "right," as it can take tweaking for each headphone. While I can respect that, these are generally the same people that would offer up mods freely (pre-commercialization) with disclaimers that each mod will require tweaking to fit your hearing and to compensate for unit variance. So, really, it's just a polite way of saying, "Yeah, but I can't make money that way." Again, once you start getting into highly customized mods (pads, cups, specialized damping techniques, etc.), the need for commercialization greatly rises. Though, I've also seen mods (not necessarily audio related) go to a group-buy scenario where everyone pays a bit for the production of a customized part rather than buying it from one person or entity that controls it entirely.

Anyway, sorry for the long and perhaps not entirely cohesive message (dead night at work). I'm very happy with my Mad Dog 3.2. I also really liked the Paradox. I'm glad I had those choices, as modding was a real PITA due to the trial and error process. Though, as mentioned, I still would have preferred the "secret sauce(s)" being less secret. I will likely end up buying the AD, though I will probably not pre-order. I'm glad people like Dan and Luis can make money delivering excellent products. They have the skills and the technology for it that many others do not. But I'm also sad that the T50RP's DIY movement is more or less dead now, and the commercialization of T50RP mods certainly had at least a small role in that.

I know not everyone will entirely agree with me on all of my thoughts (hopefully my history is accurate), but I can't be THAT upset in the end if I bought the Paradox and Mad Dogs. Really, it just comes down to me wishing things had taken a different approach based on the T50RP modding community rather than outright objecting to how it actually turned out. As a disclaimer, while I do regularly browse the big T50RP modding thread, I'm not a super active participant. That might be skewing me to think the community is more dead than it actually is, in case anyone disagreed with me on that point.

Rin had both the Paradox and BMF and mentioned that if the bass port of the BMF was sealed and the same pads were used they were indistinguishable and he concluded that the damping schemes inside were probably very similar.
That isn't very hard to imagine though.
Amongst the pirates there is plenty of talk about differences between Paradox and Mad dogs.

Personally I think there are more commonalities than differences when the same pads are used.

The biggest secret sauce is in:
The pads (by far),
the amount of damping materials (not so much which IMO),
what is done with the 'ports' (left open, partly closed and if so how much or fully closed).

They all have the same 'faults' (dip around 4kHz and peak between 8 and 10kHz and a drop-off above 10kHz) and share the same drivers (which is the origin of the 'faults' in conjunction with the pads), and cups in most cases.
Fortunately the faults are in the form of dips which isn't as bad as when it were peaks.
Easy to remove the dips as well.

The BMF uses paper and felt reflectors which bother me. Sitting back and listening to frequency sweeps they do seem flatter overall, but there's a roughness to it which makes it feel "papery" to me. Without the reflectors the treble rides up and down a bit more, but it feels more natural to me. It's probably all some sort of phase/reflection discrepancy. That or I just like having dips in the treble 

I haven't done any DIY work with the T50RP for a long while now, but I have often wondered about what materials would be best used directly behind the driver.

I've tried a few different configs of stuff behind the driver and none of it sat well with me. Anything paper especially just buzzed my ear. My default starting point now is just acoustic foam and maybe some cotton or twaron fibre in the cup, then a felt of some sort in front.