I know we've got a few HE-500 threads floating around, but given the different cups and pads on this particular set, I thought I'd post it in a separate thread. (Mods, disagree? Feel free to move it if so.)
Subjective Thoughts, Pad Experiments, Wood Cups and Mods, and so on...
I like the HE-500 a lot. It has a very nice balance to it overall, maybe more so than the HD600. Sure, it can be a bit woolly or thick sounding, and it's not the most open sounding headphone I've ever heard (tweaked alpha pads actually do wonders here, BTW). It occasionally can be a bit fatiguing sounding, but I think that's more my sensitivities than anything else. But all things said, there's not much to really complain about here.
Granted, how much I like the HE-500 really comes down to the pads. I wasn't crazy about them with either of the stock pads, so I went straight to making a jergpad type of pad. I used most of his ideas, but generally in a sloppier way (example: velour overlay cut a bit small and was glued on top of the pleather pads hastily, haha). That made a big difference for me.
I later tried some mods on the alpha pads, such as cutting holes on the bottoms, cutting slits on the tops and sides (looks awful), and trimming the edge for the mounting ring. Holy crap. This made them surprisingly balanced from top to bottom. The HE-500 suddenly became a very open, perhaps even slightly ethereal sounding headphone (I know, right?). It gave the bass a bit less oomph and impact, but I think most people would find that to be a good thing (still great overall, and even slightly flatter extension). Seriously, if you haven't tried the alpha pads on the HE-500, you might really like it after, or not, a couple tweaks to the pads. Surely you can do better than I did. Unfortunately, my sloppy modding job on the pads was the reason I didn't use the HE-500 much with them. They'd easily slip off due to me trimming the edges too much and just generally looked weird with all the slits I cut on the sides and tops. A hassle to keep using, sure, but it made for great sound regardless. They worked with the jergpad vent tweak as well (foam strips to lift back of pads). Oh, and the comfort of the alpha pads...wow, huge difference on the HE-500. Put some extra padding on the headband, and I don't think the weight will bother you. (I wanted to clarify that I have taken rough measurements of the alpha pads, one posted earlier on when I was experimenting with measurements, and they do have a flatter response from top to bottom than anything else I've tried on the HE-500...which isn't a whole lot, but still.)
I picked up both sets of the FocusPads, production and pre-production, as soon as I could. Admittedly, I haven't tried the production pair yet, but I quite like what the pre-production pads do for the HE-500. It gives them a little less of a woolly sound and makes them more balanced sounding than the stock bads did. Really, it does a lot of the same stuff the jergpads do, except it was one less sloppy project for me to try to put together. Very nice, and noticeably more comfortable than the stock pads too! I still prefer my tweaked alpha pads, I think, but the pre-production pads do quite well on their own. At least they don't give me any problems!
I picked up some wood cups, I believe mango(?), for the HE-500 off of MunkyNutz (now called Lohb, I believe) on HF. It seems his F/S post for this has been deleted. I took several months to get around to finishing and installing them, but I finally did it! They came pre-stained with a dark, warm brown colour, so I applied a tung oil varnish, high gloss, and some renaissance wax to them. Had to make a few easy tweaks to keep the drivers snug by placing some adhesive felt on the side of the driver and magnets, and, to be honest, the drivers don't sit completely flush against the back (no bi
ggie, IMO). I also applied some adhesive, acoustic foam in the back, inner "ring" of the cups to reduce any reflections and such (likely does next to nothing). I actually lost my original grills, so I installed some very open mesh grills. They're almost like nothing is there. I also hardwired the cables, simply because I couldn't figure out how to get the stupid BNC jack out of the original cups!
Subjectively, the sound didn't change too much. They might be a bit brighter, less woolly, and more balanced overall, but it's honestly hard for me to say for sure. It was more for looks.
Either way, I've provided measurements! I will also post pictures of the HE-500 later.
HE-500 Measurements, with Wood Cups, FocusPad A (pre-production), Open Grills, and Hardwire Mods
As a reminder, the FR graph is an average of four measurements from each channel, two taken on each ear for each channel. I now apply the same compensation to my raw graphs as the general FR, as it really does no good to show them without it (Y'all want to see an inherent hardware roll-off from the mic's phantom PSU? Go away.) This will show you what I'm averaging from. The FR/HD and CSD graphs are taken from a singular measurement, generally picked to show what I think best represents the headphone's performance of the lot.
1. Frequency Response
2. Left - Raw Data
3. Right - Raw Data
4. Left - FR and Harmonic Distortion
5. Left - CSD
6. Right - FR and HD
7. Right - CSD
