Scope
The scope of this article will be to show some of the many modifications you can make to alter the sound of your headphones. In this example I will show how I did this to a pair of JVC HA-RX700 headphones, but most of the mods can be applied to any full-size headphone. I will not guarantee that ANY of the mods described here will alter the sound in a positive way. Also, be advised that you will risk damaging your headphones, so if you are not entirely sure what you are doing (or cannot afford to replace them) you should probably not try to do this.The mods
Some time ago I bought TWO pairs of headphones in a single go. "Why?" you may ask... well the JVC HA-RX700 had been receiving a lot of hype on the internet for their great value. Yet the bigger brother, the JVC HA-RX900 was supposed to be even better (though at roughly double the price). Now, since apparently I had way too much money on hand I went ahead and bought both pairs on a trip to the US, just to try them out (and since they were near to impossible to locate in Denmark).OK, so I got both phones and took them back for closer listening).
After proper "burn in" of both phones I must admit I really liked the HA-RX900 better and thus the 700's were sentenced to a still life in a drawer. Not long time ago I decided to re-visit these phones and since I still found them inferior in sound quality to the 900's I decided to go ahead and MOD THE HELL OUTTA' THEM PHONES!!!111
First point of concern, the large surfaces made from thin-as-hell plastics MIGHT resonate and totally ruin sound quality, though my engineering background tells me that is probably not the case. Whatever, we all fully well understand that common sense is definitely NOT widely aknowledged in the world of HIGH FIDELITY.
Next point of concern is the cabling which seems to be thinner than a bad case of diarrhea. We surely cannot have this, bigger cables equals BETTER CABLES. Looks like we will have to RECABLE these phones!
Next thing, put the foam back in place and press the outer shell back in place.
Oh, the cable sleeve is homemade from "tile string"
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The wire for the left driver should be cut shorter than the wire for the right driver since the wire for the right driver will have to be led over the headband and into the right cup. As crazy as it may sound I think JVC put in 90cm of wire for this task, but as I am not going to risk standing missing 5cm's to complete the job I did the same...
In the middle of the picture you can see the inside of the "sound chamber" opposite to the driver. I applied some drawer liner to this surface to stop unwanted reflections, and to the right you see a piece of foam I put there to help tighten up the bass a little (I have never been much of a "bass-head").
"What did this do to the sound then?" you might think... Well, I am not going to go into this whole appraising rant telling you stuff I really am not qualified to, instead I will say that these phones are now actually able to go onto my skull and sit there for hours whilst I listen to music. Everything now seems to be like it should be, so there has definitely been an improvement. I do not prefer these over my Sennheiser HD600's, but I haven't felt the need to put these away and put on the 900's like I did before.