The Orthodynamic Thread

[luvdunhill]

Yes it's not.

Is snot

[spritzer]

Well I heard the OIIs driven by an ES-1, and they did not sound dark, but I had the Headamp SS electrostatic amp and OII on loan for several months a few years back, and the OII was what I'd term as slightly dark on that amp. Not HD650 dark, but not what I'd term as forward at all.

The LCD-2 is what I'd call somewhat forward in nature.

I'd say this could have been a source issue since the KGSS is a lot more powerful than any ES-1/2 ever built. That damn 100+V offset just kills the amp...

[Solude]

I have the LCD-2/HE-5LE on the B22 and O2 on KGSS in front of me. O2 not forward but not dark, LCD-2 forward but not bright, HE-5LE both dark and bright, huh.

[morphsci]

Is snot

Then we are in agreement.

[K3cT]

I have the LCD-2/HE-5LE on the B22 and O2 on KGSS in front of me. O2 not forward but not dark, LCD-2 forward but not bright, HE-5LE both dark and bright, huh.

Interesting. I found both incarnations of HE-5 to be in the bright side. HE-5 was damn near unlistenable for me though.

[gurubhai]

I have question for fellow orthoheads who have had the opportunity to listen/own LCD-2 :

What is your opinion of damping on these ?

Just right, slightly over-damped or under-damped ?

[acidbasement]

Hey guys, mypasswordis suggested I post about my recent very satisfying frankenortho construction, which I undertook after spending a long time thinking about it but getting distracted by having babies and subsequent maintenance activities. I posted something similar last week on the head-fi thread, in case it looks familiar to anyone.

I bought a set of Yamaha HP-3 cans a couple of years ago, and I just couldn't cram enough felt into the cups to lose that funny-sounding upper midrange/low treble. I also had a pair of Vic Firth isolation headphones from a long time ago, which I intended to use while drumming but very rarely did. They sounded like garbage, and looked like this:

So, I dissected the Vic Firth cans, removed the drivers, and found that the HP-3 drivers fit extremely well with the way the isolation foam inside was cut, though I had to improvise a bit due to being unable to screw the HP-3 drivers into place. To keep them from moving around, I cut and rolled up 2 strips of thick felt and put them behind the drivers against the back walls of the cups. They seem pretty secure, though I wouldn't want to yank really hard on the cables.

Other stuff I did:

- melted holes into the plastic cups to let the HP-3 cables pass through (soldering avoidance tactic).

- put a disc of thin felt on the front side of the drivers to diminish brightness.

- The original cable only entered on the right side, so the cups each have a ~1/4" diameter hole on top where the cable joining the cups used to pass through. On the advice of some post I read in the HF thread, I stuffed them with felt - not sure if that affects anything.

- covered up the ~3/8" hole in the bottom of the right cup where the original cable entered with blue tack stuff.

Okay, so I was expecting them to sound different from the way they sounded in the HP-3 cups, but holy shit, I was surprised at their awesomeness. They're a tad rolled off in the bass compared to my HD600s, but the treble and midrange are just lovely. I don't speak audiophile, so I'm not going to talk about liquid lush forwardness etc., but I'd say these sound a bit more like Grados than Sennheisers - take from that what you will. They give me lots of detail in the treble without fatigue-inducing sibilance, and lots of satisfaction in the mids. I like the bass fine with flat EQ, but if I can boost the bass a bit, it's really nice.

Long story short, this was a terrifically easy driver transplant, and a very rewarding one too. I'll post some pics tomorrow, as I'm too sleepy at the moment. Good night.

[mypasswordis]

Wait, you melted the enclosure instead of desoldering and resoldering the cables? That's pretty funny. Yeah ideally the hole should be just big enough to fit the cable. What was funny sounding about the upper midrange/lower treble? I guess I should just check the ortho thread on HF.

[acidbasement]

Wait, you melted the enclosure instead of desoldering and resoldering the cables? That's pretty funny. Yeah ideally the hole should be just big enough to fit the cable. What was funny sounding about the upper midrange/lower treble? I guess I should just check the ortho thread on HF.

Yeah, it's not going to win any beauty pageants, but I'm pretty half-assed about aesthetics in general, so whatevs. It saved me a bit of time to do it this way, and time is my main limiting factor at the moment due to two energetic little boys in my constant care.

Here's what the cables look like coming out the bottoms of the cups. The cushions cover the 'open' side of the hole I melted into the cup, so it works out pretty much the same as it would have had I drilled into the cups and soldered the cables. You can also see the big hole I plugged with blue tack on the right cup.

And here's the felt plugs in the top holes. The holes were initially there to connect the left driver to the cable (since it was a single-side cable entry headphone), and I'm using them now to prevent loss of bass in the otherwise-sealed enclosure, as per Smeggy's recommendations.

I have a few internal photos too, but they're on a memory card and I can't find my card reader right now. Apologies for the horrible quality of the preceding photos. Old webcam found in a dumpster - need I say more?

Edit: I forgot to answer your question about the high mid-lower treble issue. It's been described better in the HF ortho thread, but the best way I can put it is that "tick" sounds come out sounding like "tock". It's weird.

Edited February 3, 2011 by acidbasement

[K3cT]

I have question for fellow orthoheads who have had the opportunity to listen/own LCD-2 :

What is your opinion of damping on these ?

Just right, slightly over-damped or under-damped ?

What's the sonic difference between these two damping conditions?

[gurubhai]

A bit hard to put into words, but I shall give it a go :

Underdamped : If you have listened to a stock vintage ortho, you would probably get it more easily.

Mushy, rounded edges, loose bass, imaging not upto mark, guitar strings appear a bit loose.

Overdamped : Dry, lifeless, cymbals lose there sparkle, guitar strings appear too tight etc.

We try to find a balance between these too states.

To answer my own question,w.r.t. LCD-2, For my tastes their balance is just about perfect (being slightly over damped). The mid-range is a slightly drier than what I personally prefer.

Edited February 5, 2011 by gurubhai

[K3cT]

Oh yes, I think I know what you're talking about. I've listened to a virgin bass-light NAD RP18 and it's probably underdamped. Rounded edges and loose bass were the key symptoms and also a very "light" sound. I still love the sound in its stock-form though and I wouldn't bother damping it.

Basing on that, the LCD2 should be slightly to overdamped side so I agree with you there. The HE6 is the other way round.

Edited February 5, 2011 by K3cT

[gurubhai]

Its been a while since my NAD were stock but I do remember that they did sound excellent even then. I think they sound even better now.

About the HE-6,you mean that they are on the 'under damped' side?

That would explain the reports of sub-optimal imaging & mid-bass hump.

[dBel84]

Tyll recently measured a few of my orthos = what a guy ..dB

Edited June 27, 2011 by dBel84

[wualta]

I agree-- he is a wottaguy! It's great fun to see actual measurements on these old dinophones that we've all been tuning by ear. I get a particular kick out of the square wave tests-- back in the day, square wave testing was one of the most rigorous tests... and one of the most fiendishly difficult to interpret usefully. But if you stare at it long enough...

Since we know the Telefunken TH 700 is basically an OEM clone of the Peerless PMB 8, do we know whether the 8 had the two different drivers the Telefunken had?

Edited June 28, 2011 by wualta

[DefectiveAudioComponent]

The PMB-8 is annoying. It was last seen in an auction in Japan, as far as I know (

It would be nice to see the Tandberg OEM of the PMB8 show up as well.

I agree-- he is a wottaguy! It's great fun to see actual measurements on these old dinophones that we've all been tuning by ear. I get a particular kick out of the square wave tests-- back in the day, square wave testing was one of the most rigorous tests... and one of the most fiendishly difficult to interpret usefully. But if you stare at it long enough...

Since we know the Telefunken TH 700 is basically an OEM clone of the Peerless PMB 8, do we know whether the 8 had the two different drivers the Telefunken had?

[mypasswordis]

Bumping for the lolz. Acquired Fostex T10, T20v1, T20v2, and T40v1, so now sort of looking for an original T50 or T50 OEM variant to complete the set. The T30 auction that just ended went way higher than I expected, so I'm giving up on that for now.

 

I've been suspecting for years that there are different sounding variants of the T20v2 and T40v1, which I think should be resolved relatively soon.

[swt61]

I think age alone could account for some variation in sound. I noticed some pretty wide variation in the Yamaha ortho drivers.

 

Marc's T50s were excellent!

Edited April 5, 2013 by swt61

[Torpedo]

When you get the T50 we might arrange a mutual exchange, I've got the T30

[mypasswordis]

I think age alone could account for some variation in sound. I noticed some pretty wide variation in the Yamaha ortho drivers.

 

Marc's T50s were excellent!

 

This is true, but I think Fostex were better about their driver tolerances than Yamaha. The Fostex orthos were aimed more at the pro/studio market and so were built more solidly in general. I at one point owned 3 different pairs of T20v2, and one of them had bold text on the cups compared to the other two and sounded different. As you said, age and environment probably contributed to the variation in sound, they seemed to also have been worn a lot more and the earpads seemed a bit different. The fourth pair I just bought has the bolded text and also seems to have the slightly different earpads.  The T40v1 I have sounds different than the one I had before as well, but the earpads were in different conditions as well.

 

Edit: What did you think of your T40v1?

 

When you get the T50 we might arrange a mutual exchange, I've got the T30

 

Great, I'm not in a hurry to find a T50 as they're at least as rare as hen's teeth but will keep it in mind.

 

Edited April 5, 2013 by mypasswordis

[Torpedo]

Great! I've been interested in the T50 for a long time, but they're so rare... Got the T30 from Dmitri a few years ago. I love it after some sensible modding

[mypasswordis]

Awesome that you found a modding scheme that works. Did you see Tyll/Innerfidelity's measurements of scompton's modded T30? Very good stuff. You should hear the T10 too at some point. Shockingly good stock, must've blown pretty much everything else away in SQ back in the day except Stax (and the T50 ).

[Torpedo]

Nope, I didn't see the plots, I'll check them later. So looks like I'll have to look for some T10 too

The T30 as I got them to sound, specially when fed with gobs of power (using the B22), have one of the most incredible bass I've experienced, but the top is somewhat rolled off and "soft", which I don't really mind. They're relaxed and fun to my ears. I should recable them, but not being a soldering iron expert, I fear to damage the drivers.

[swt61]

 but I think Fostex were better about their driver tolerances than Yamaha. 

 

Edit: What did you think of your T40v1?

 

 

 

 

Agreed.

 

I really liked the T40v1, but liked the T50 more.

[mypasswordis]

Also agreed, and I think the T50 sound could be improved further with more tweaking. If my memory serves correctly, my previous T40v1 sounded better than the current one (there was a gap between my owning the two). It's weird because the old one was more worn whereas this one is pretty mint. Hopefully will find out soon if I track down my old pair and try swapping pads. I haven't really bothered exploring mods with this one though, just slapped on a single layer of felt and ripped off the foam pucks.

 

Re: Antonio, not sure about the T30 but the T10 and T20v1 are easy to open and mod/recable. Just don't keep the soldering tip too long on the driver tabs. The bass potential of the large driver orthos is pretty awesome.