Takstar HI 2050 / Pro 80 Design Review

This is a work in progress, this article is by no means complete yet!
About one year ago I bought two pairs of headphones from Takstar, curious about what they had to offer.
Takstar HI 2050
This was the cheapest of the two, it is an open headphone and for the price it is a decent buy in my opinion, but do not expect any miracles.
Takstar Pro 80
This is a closed headphone, and I thought it would soon become my headphone of choice for the office. The aesthetics were better than my JVC HA-RX900, the sound was not quite there in my opinion though. I thought something might be done to remedy this and modified my Pro 80's and after doing this I found the sound suited me better and the HA RX-900's were retired from the office.

Recently I had both phones on the table and I thought that although I had thought about just how similar they looked, if there would be any real differences if I tore them apart...
Please note that the Pro 80's you will see in this article are the ones I modified, it is NOT the stock model!

...But before gutting them let us take a look at the outside. I do believe that all but the most ignorant of readers will notice some striking similarities. The most obvious differences are the headbands and the mesh versus the closed back.

Both models share the same hinges, the only difference beingthat the Pro 80's have had a layer of glossy black.

The notched length adjustment also seem identical on the outside...

...and taking the HI 2050 apart we see that it is exactly the same design as the Pro 80. This design looks very similar to the one featured on my Beyerdynamic T1's and to tell the truth, I find this to work better. I often get annoyed having to adjust the length of my T1's since it won't stay in place, but the Takstars are better in this regard since the are better at staying at whatever length I set them to.
The plastic notch used to keep them adjusted might wear out eventually, but I haven't had any problems with mine yet, and going for a more robust solution would surely have driven costs up.

The pads are another major difference between the two models, the HI 2050 comes with velour pads and the Pro 80 sports cushions made of genuine "pleather"
.

Apart from the paint job one the Pro 80 the only difference between the cups are the mesh on the HI 2050 versus the back plate of the Pro 80.

So, flipping the cups over and removing the outer ring actually brings something interesting to the table. Both models sport the foam mesh, but the HI 2050 has a layer of felt covering the driver whereas the Pro 80 doesn't

We all know that curiosity killed the cat, but I just couldn't resist peeking under the felt. My sudden fit of voyeurism revealed a driver looking suspiciously identical to the one found in the Pro 80.

Flipping over the drivers seem to suggest that we can assume that the drivers ARE identical.

Under the drivers are the felt padding, and that is another point where the two headphones differ. The open HI 2050 has a smaller hole in the big piece of felt than the Pro 80, but the smaller pieces are the same. The white disc under the Pro 80 are the one that closes the hole in the center of the cup and makes it, well, a closed headphone.

Closing in on the cup of the HI 2050 shows that under the mesh is a thin layer of foam. Apart from the mesh and foam the cup is identical to the Pro 80.