CHANGSTAR: Audiophile Headphone Reviews and Early 90s Style BBS

  • December 31, 2015, 11:07:02 AM
  • Welcome, Guest
Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 ... 10

Author Topic: HD800 Dissection and Measurements / direct-wire mod / effect of mesh / driver  (Read 13516 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Marvey

  • The Man For His Time And Place
  • Master
  • Pirate
  • *****
  • Brownie Points: +555/-33
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6698
  • Captain Plankton and MOT: Eddie Current
HD800 Dissection and Measurements / direct-wire mod / effect of mesh / driver
« on: March 19, 2015, 06:01:00 PM »
As some of you may already know, I've donated my HD800 to science. There were a couple of things I wanted to do - as follows:
  • Take the darn thing apart.
  • Learn how to "direct wire mod" / hardwire the cable.
  • Ascertain the true effects of the semi-permeable wire mesh.
  • Measure the driver directly.
This will be an ongoing series of posts.

REMOVAL OF FRAME, BASKET. ACCESS TO TERMINALS FOR DIRECT WIRE MOD
EFFECT OF METAL MESH - MEASUREMENTS
REMOVING THE DRIVER PART 1
REMOVING THE DRIVER PART 2
RAW DRIVER MEASUREMENTS
« Last Edit: March 27, 2015, 02:57:41 AM by purr1n »
Logged

Marvey

  • The Man For His Time And Place
  • Master
  • Pirate
  • *****
  • Brownie Points: +555/-33
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6698
  • Captain Plankton and MOT: Eddie Current
Re: HD800 Breakdown Guide
« Reply #1 on: March 19, 2015, 06:07:45 PM »
Before we begin, we will need the proper tool. A precision Torx screwdriver set. Please consider clicking the link below and buying one to support this site. Obviously, this is a money losing venture for me, so any little bit helps.

 
Logged

Marvey

  • The Man For His Time And Place
  • Master
  • Pirate
  • *****
  • Brownie Points: +555/-33
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6698
  • Captain Plankton and MOT: Eddie Current
Re: HD800 Breakdown Guide
« Reply #2 on: March 19, 2015, 06:08:40 PM »
Pictures attached.
  • Rip the pad from the frame. They tend to be stuck on pretty good. Just rip them off. The HD800 is solidly engineered and built. It won't break. Put your fingers between the frame and the pad and rip the pad off.
  • After you remove the pad, you will see two Torx screws. Go ahead and loosen them. The rectangular metal piece is a washer.
  • The cup should come off right from the frame. This makes thing much easier to deal with.
  • There is a basket containing the driver. Pop the basket (black) from the frame (silver). It will take a little bit a force. Again, the HD800 is solid. Nothing will break.
  • When you flip the basket over, you will see the weaksauce Sennheiser connectors, which have wires (red+blue) soldered to terminals   with wires that lead directly to the voice coil.
  • For those wanting to do the direct wire mod, you want to remove the weaksauce Sennheiser connectors. Pull out the white stopper with pliers. The connector can now be pushed out of the frame.
Logged

Marvey

  • The Man For His Time And Place
  • Master
  • Pirate
  • *****
  • Brownie Points: +555/-33
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6698
  • Captain Plankton and MOT: Eddie Current
Re: HD800 Breakdown Guide
« Reply #3 on: March 19, 2015, 06:20:26 PM »
Yeah, there are two solder points from the cable to the driver. The Sennheiser  HD800 connectors are getting very expensive and are also a pain in the ass to deal with. Ask a few HD800 aftermarket cable owners about the reliability of larger sized aftermarket cables using those connectors. It's 268% retarded to have big cables only to have them terminate into little tiny pins, into tiny wires, and then onto the drivers' terminals.

The best approach would be solder directly to the terminals. (And I do think there is a small performance increase from those god-awful proprietary Sennheiser connectors which cost way way too much. BTW, the knock-off connectors suck.)
Logged

smitty1110

  • The Ghost of Audio Forums Past
  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Pirate
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +5/-1
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 124
  • Amps are my drug of choice
Re: HD800 Breakdown Guide
« Reply #4 on: March 19, 2015, 06:47:59 PM »
Nice guide marvey, now maybe I'll finally work up the courage to add some mods to my pair.
Logged

Marvey

  • The Man For His Time And Place
  • Master
  • Pirate
  • *****
  • Brownie Points: +555/-33
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6698
  • Captain Plankton and MOT: Eddie Current
Re: HD800 Breakdown Guide
« Reply #5 on: March 19, 2015, 06:56:38 PM »
You'll notice that I took out the metal mesh on one of the cups. DO NOT. I repeat, DO NOT remove the metal mesh. I will explain why with measurements later. In a nutshell, the metal mesh is not as permeable or semi-permeable as people think. The mesh is absolutely necessary to contain any kind of bass or sound in the lower frequency region. The mesh is also responsible for the "6k peak" and overly diffuse sound that some people complain about. This is why the Anax mod works - the mod lays material over the mesh to help absorb bad juju.

The HD800 is actually more of an open-back infinite-baffle type of headphone than an dipole / open headphone.

Again, more later.
Logged

CEE TEE

  • Master controller of all scores
  • Mate
  • Pirate
  • ****
  • Brownie Points: +98/-338
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 839
  • Need More Time To Loaf Around
Re: HD800 Breakdown Guide / dis-assembly / direct wire / effects of mesh / drivers
« Reply #6 on: March 19, 2015, 07:15:29 PM »
OH MAN. Totally curious about that mesh and you took one for the team.  Thank you.  Very interested in learning more about that component.


And now, I want to direct-wire my HD800 but also really want to be able to roll cables with a lightweight 3.5mm cable/plug and not have to daisy-chain two heavy adapters to get into 3.5mm jack.  Hmmm.


Definitely paying attention to this thread.

Logged
sound soft harmonics rich bile rich rhyme

Marvey

  • The Man For His Time And Place
  • Master
  • Pirate
  • *****
  • Brownie Points: +555/-33
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6698
  • Captain Plankton and MOT: Eddie Current
Re: HD800 Breakdown Guide / dis-assembly / direct wire / effects of mesh / drivers
« Reply #7 on: March 19, 2015, 07:19:26 PM »
Quote from: CEE TEE on March 19, 2015, 07:15:29 PM
OH MAN. Totally curious about that mesh and you took one for the team.  Thank you.  Very interested in learning more about that component.

And now, I want to direct-wire my HD800 but also really want to be able to roll cables with a lightweight 3.5mm cable/plug and not have to daisy-chain two heavy adapters to get into 3.5mm jack.  Hmmm.

Definitely paying attention to this thread.


Direct wire short length - maybe a couple of inches. Terminate short length with adapter. I'll do this for you. I like the Mr. Speaker connectors.
Logged

ohhgourami

  • Bad at NDAs
  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Pirate
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +129/-2
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 393
Re: HD800 Breakdown Guide / dis-assembly / direct wire / effects of mesh / drivers
« Reply #8 on: March 19, 2015, 07:25:52 PM »
Very cool thread Marv!
Logged

antifocus

  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Powder Monkey
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +11/-1
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 64
Re: HD800 Breakdown Guide / dis-assembly / direct wire / effects of mesh / drivers
« Reply #9 on: March 19, 2015, 07:42:46 PM »
This is some seriously cool shit. :wheel:

Add:
I may do the hardwire mod later this year, see if I could squeeze an inch out of my balanced cable.
Well, might just paint the headphone black if I do it.
Logged
Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 ... 10
« previous next »