New K340's on the way!

[philodox]

Or you can go the crazy route like i did and file little channels into the plastic piece that the original elastic is attached to so that you can crazy glue in the new elastic.

Here are some pics that might help you replace yours. You don't *need* to keep the plastic piece as I did, but it makes it fit better and allows you to size the elastic perfectly.

http://home.cogeco.ca/~philodox/K340/new/

There are some pics showing the replacement of the headband and some finished shots as well, enjoy.

PS. Did you see my new headphone stand that swt63 made me?

[TheSloth]

I just put on the velour pads (what a bitch!) and it's made a vast improvement - everything is much more in balance (the bass has arrived!), they are comfortable, and seal well against the ears even with the current elastics which I'll therefore leave alone.

[TheSloth]

Who says these are 'coloured' headphones? Sorry but I don't hear it - these are some of the flattest (the good kind) sounding headphones I've had the plasure of hearing. The only thing I am hearing to complain about is a slight resonance and therefore lack of clarity in the bass response. Otherwise, they are simpy fantastic (this is all classical music listening btw). Makes me wonder what AKG could do with these if they did a reissue with their latest dynamic driver technology.

[philodox]

The only thing I am hearing to complain about is a slight resonance and therefore lack of clarity in the bass response.

Removal of the cotton and taping up the wire input 'holes' might fix that for you... and a recable and circuit board bypass for the dynamic driver just makes them sound better all around. Come on, you know you want to.

[TheSloth]

Removal of the cotton and taping up the wire input 'holes' might fix that for you... and a recable and circuit board bypass for the dynamic driver just makes them sound better all around. Come on, you know you want to.

Hmm, I must admit I'm intrigued... . I'm surprised you say there is an improvement from taping up the holes - I assumed that gives a slight openness to the rear of the driver, reducing resonances and suchlike. Recabling the circuit board is unfortunately beyond my skill level here. The cotton is possible, but actually my experience with the K701 which has a somewhat similar cotton ring (where the 501 doesn't) is that it's sound changes drastically (much brighter and thinner) without it.

[DieInAFire]

Well, I hope you enjoy those K340s

[TheSloth]

Well, I hope you enjoy those K340s

Oh, I LOVE them. I never thought I'd find another truly great headphone for classical music, but once I put some velour pads on these it was clear I had indeed! In fact I like them so much that I'm already negotiating with Larry the mods to be done on them! I'm like that with stuff - I only believe in spending more money on something if you already love it, not to try to correct the fact that you don't actually like it. Like when I loved my Maxxed out Desktop so much I bought a Balanced Home! But then I'm a bit nuts...

[TheSloth]

As a fan of measurements, I'm also considering sending them to HeadRoom to have them measured. I have a hunch that they sound as good as they do due to a particularly linear and natural treble response. Take a look at the following graphs for the 'top 3' (for me anyway) classical cans:

You can see that though there are differences, they have a relatively smooth and neutral response up to 2kHz, with no large peaks and troughs, at which point they deviate quite vastly from flat (even 'headphone flat'), and each other. This seems to be something of a limitation of current dynamic driver technology that none of these top 3 manufacturers can really get a very smooth response 'up there'. That's where the K340 comes in, as it's dynamic driver cuts out at 2kHz, just where things start to go bad. It then has a dedicated driver for this area that seems to be nearly impossible to get right with a fully range driver. Any thoughts?

[philodox]

I'm like that with stuff - I only believe in spending more money on something if you already love it, not to try to correct the fact that you don't actually like it.

I couldnt agree more.

This would be part of the reason that my K340's have had somewhere in the neighborhood of $500-$1000 put into them.

As for the measurements - Never been a big fan of frequency response graphs. It would be interesting though. Would be neat to measure a few pairs as they all seem to sound a little different.

[TheSloth]

Removal of the cotton and taping up the wire input 'holes' might fix that for you... and a recable and circuit board bypass for the dynamic driver just makes them sound better all around. Come on, you know you want to.

Burn-in seems to have done it. They are sounding quite sublime, but only when I hold the head piece in the right place as the left elastic is too loose compared with the right one at the mo. These are fantastic headphones - they somehow manage to be more lush, yet also more resolving than my 650's. It's all down to that electret. It just has that electrostatic speed and sparkle, without being at all peaky - in fact this is one of the few headphones that has not one peak that my ears are sensitive to (it may have peaks, but my ears don't react to them wherever they are).

Which does bring me to a few concerns about mods. Larry isn't very forthcoming about the actual effect of the mods he does on these headphones. At the moment, mine are to be recabled with BlackGold, bypass pcb, elastics replaced, 'rescreened' (?), and cable entry holes sealed.

I'm a bit worried about the last two - rescreening, I presume changes the current plastic mesh for something more transparent. My experience wich changing screens to something 'more transparent' is an increase in treble response. Defoaming 650's for example makes the higs bright, tizzy and offensive to my ears. I wonder how similar the experience with K340's might be? Also, sealing up the cable entry holes turns it into a completely closed headphone, right? Listening to the back, there is quite a lot of sound leakage at that point which ought to be a good thing for reducing resonance and giving the drivers some air to breathe with.

Maybe someone can give me a sense as to whether these mods affect frequency response in any obvious way, because at this point I don't have any major complaints...

[philodox]

I'm a bit worried about the last two - rescreening, I presume changes the current plastic mesh for something more transparent. My experience wich changing screens to something 'more transparent' is an increase in treble response. Defoaming 650's for example makes the higs bright, tizzy and offensive to my ears. I wonder how similar the experience with K340's might be? Also, sealing up the cable entry holes turns it into a completely closed headphone, right? Listening to the back, there is quite a lot of sound leakage at that point which ought to be a good thing for reducing resonance and giving the drivers some air to breathe with.

Sealing it doesnt increase resonance in my experience. It just improves imaging/soundstage slightly and adds a touch more bass. Rescreening adds a lot of clarity and makes the sound more coherant I think... might be a little more treble, but nothing that bothered me.

You might want to ask aerius as well since he knows better what all the mods do individually. Or just ask Larry. He has redone enough of them.

I personally would get them both done. The sealing is reversable... and the rescreening is relatively without risk. Improves comfort for me as well.

[aerius]

From your description your K340 is probably the same version that phi...err..Jay has, which sounds rather different from mine so the results I had with mods may be a bit different. With that said I'll cover the mods one by one in the order that I did them on my K340.

1) New cables. Opened up the sound and gave it a bit more highs, quite welcome since mine were lacking in highs.

2) Closing up the housing. Mine had gobs of loose bass when it was stock, think PS-1 quantities but loose, slow & flabby like the K240S. Closing up the back tightened up the bass a lot as well as reducing the bass volume a bit. Adds a lot of speed & detail to the low end and makes the imaging a lot more precise. Another welcome change.

3) PCB bypass. I had a nasty midrange colouration, sounded like a big spike & dip right beside each other combined with an echoey sound, it wasn't pretty. The bypass greatly reduces this problem as well as giving more speed & detail to the midrange. Also opened up the treble a bit more and gave more extension up there as well as improving the soundstage & imaging some more.

4) Blue-tack & cotton. Removed most of the cotton stuffing and added Blu-tack to various places on the housing & other internal parts. The amount of cotton stuffing changes the balance between bass & treble, more cotton tilts it towards the bass while less gives more treble. Blu-tack is for killing the last bit of that pesky midrange colouration on my pair.

5) Screen mod. I made a fabric screen out of some super thin fabric I found, and made a frame for it with cardboard & sheetmetal. I didn't really like it. A bit more extension up top, but the details sounded washed out, like they were playing on a grey or lighter coloured background. Plus it carries the risk of giving you a nice shock to the ears.

Given that you're quite happy with how your pair currently sounds, I'd say get everything done except the rescreening. Ask Larry to voice them such that the frequency balance stays pretty much the same as it is, but with more detail, speed, and all that other good stuff.

[philodox]

5) Screen mod. I made a fabric screen out of some super thin fabric I found, and made a frame for it with cardboard & sheetmetal. I didn't really like it. A bit more extension up top, but the details sounded washed out, like they were playing on a grey or lighter coloured background. Plus it carries the risk of giving you a nice shock to the ears.

Given that you're quite happy with how your pair currently sounds, I'd say get everything done except the rescreening. Ask Larry to voice them such that the frequency balance stays pretty much the same as it is, but with more detail, speed, and all that other good stuff.

I don't know about that... The details certainly are not washed out on my pair.

[TheSloth]

From your description your K340 is probably the same version that phi...err..Jay has, which sounds rather different from mine so the results I had with mods may be a bit different. With that said I'll cover the mods one by one in the order that I did them on my K340.

1) New cables. Opened up the sound and gave it a bit more highs, quite welcome since mine were lacking in highs.

2) Closing up the housing. Mine had gobs of loose bass when it was stock, think PS-1 quantities but loose, slow & flabby like the K240S. Closing up the back tightened up the bass a lot as well as reducing the bass volume a bit. Adds a lot of speed & detail to the low end and makes the imaging a lot more precise. Another welcome change.

3) PCB bypass. I had a nasty midrange colouration, sounded like a big spike & dip right beside each other combined with an echoey sound, it wasn't pretty. The bypass greatly reduces this problem as well as giving more speed & detail to the midrange. Also opened up the treble a bit more and gave more extension up there as well as improving the soundstage & imaging some more.

4) Blue-tack & cotton. Removed most of the cotton stuffing and added Blu-tack to various places on the housing & other internal parts. The amount of cotton stuffing changes the balance between bass & treble, more cotton tilts it towards the bass while less gives more treble. Blu-tack is for killing the last bit of that pesky midrange colouration on my pair.

5) Screen mod. I made a fabric screen out of some super thin fabric I found, and made a frame for it with cardboard & sheetmetal. I didn't really like it. A bit more extension up top, but the details sounded washed out, like they were playing on a grey or lighter coloured background. Plus it carries the risk of giving you a nice shock to the ears.

Given that you're quite happy with how your pair currently sounds, I'd say get everything done except the rescreening. Ask Larry to voice them such that the frequency balance stays pretty much the same as it is, but with more detail, speed, and all that other good stuff.

Thanks for all the details. Larry says he always does the mods as a package, so didn't want to comment on which part of the package affects the sound in any particular way.

I think I might do without the rescreen, at least for now, because I am hearing good balance, and am very sensitive to upper mids/treble. I suppose the bass could do with a bit of tightening, so maybe I'll go with closing up the housing after all. I hear nothing wrong in the midrange, or with the overall tonal balance, so I'm not sure I'd want anything changed with the damping.

Jay, do you have a picture of the new screen that larry makes?

[philodox]

DO THE RESCREEN!!!!

I think I have a picture, one sec... let me check my ftp share.

http://home.cogeco.ca/~philodox/K340/screen.jpg

There you go.

I really don't see how a rescreen can be a bad thing. Just makes things more tranparent by getting rid of all that plastic. I say go for it.

[aerius]

I really don't see how a rescreen can be a bad thing. Just makes things more tranparent by getting rid of all that plastic. I say go for it.

It can be a bad thing because it's non-reversible. That is unless you have an extra set of screens lying around or getting a new one fabricated from scratch. If you don't like it, you're fucked, whereas all the other mods can be reversed if the results don't agree with you. I'm a believer in Murphy's Law so I like to have a way to step back in case things don't work out as expected.

[philodox]

I understand where you are coming from... but I just dont see how removing all that plastic can be a bad thing.

[TheSloth]

I understand where you are coming from... but I just dont see how removing all that plastic can be a bad thing.

It depends on whether you think the screen is part of the sonic design of the headphone or not. If AKG designed their headphone, and then realised they had nothing protecting the driver and so slapped this plastic screen in front, that's one thing, however they could have voiced it in the presence of that screen so that it would have the right frequency balance. You never know which it is - with the Sennheisers and K701's (the little circular foam under the earcup), it's clear that they were intended as part of the voicing of the headphone.

[philodox]

It depends on whether you think the screen is part of the sonic design of the headphone or not. If AKG designed their headphone, and then realised they had nothing protecting the driver and so slapped this plastic screen in front.

I personally think that this is the more likely explination. The negative aspects that aerius is attributing to the rescreen are simply not there on my headphones. I can only imaging that something else must have been going on to cause that.

[Looser101]

I personally think that this is the more likely explination. The negative aspects that aerius is attributing to the rescreen are simply not there on my headphones. I can only imaging that something else must have been going on to cause that.

I suspect the biggest problem with the factory plastic screen is that some of the sound hits the hard plastic and is bounced back towards the driver...I can't see how this can be a good thing acousticly. I've heard Jay's K340 on several occasions now and the upper mids and highs are definitely not harsh at all. The highs are very clean with great extension. On the other hand they are very revealing so if your system is harsh or grainy you will definitely know it. I'd guess that Larry offers the mods as a package because he has found those mods sound best as a whole and leaving something out would compromise the sound signature he has worked so hard to achieve. Also, just to clarify, the cloth even though acousticly transparent is rather thick, presumably to provide some sound absorption thereby decreasing the high frequency response slightly while still providing increased clarity over the factory screen.

The biggest problem with the K340 IMO is that it needs a powerful amp to drive them properly, otherwise they sound thin and lifeless. Properly amped they kick ass.

-R-

Hehe my first post.

[NotoriousBIG_PJ]

The biggest problem with the K340 IMO is that it needs a powerful amp to drive them properly, otherwise they sound thin and lifeless. Properly amped they kick ass.

My 30w power amp couldn't handle em! WHat gives??? Oh yeah, I have no gain on my amp..

I also suspect they like volts over current. ^^

Biggie.

[philodox]

I also suspect they like volts over current.

You suspect correctly... though they need a fair amount of current as well. Without it they lack dynamics... as with my current setup. [The Lavry]

[TheSloth]

You suspect correctly... though they need a fair amount of current as well. Without it they lack dynamics... as with my current setup. [The Lavry]

Yeah but they LOVE HeadRoom Max Modules. Even single ended. Happily running along at medium gain, less than half way up the pot.

Re. the 30W power amp, it doesn't really surprise me. These are 400ohm cans - it's unlikely your amp was designed to drive anything like that.

[philodox]

The Headroom Max Modules put out quite a bit of voltage swing and current... you are a lucky boy. The Headroom Max Balanced I heard at the National was my favourite amp at the National meet. I can only hope that the custom balanced tube amp that Peter McAlister is building me give me that kind of enjoyment again.

[TheSloth]

The Headroom Max Modules put out quite a bit of voltage swing and current... you are a lucky boy. The Headroom Max Balanced I heard at the National was my favourite amp at the National meet. I can only hope that the custom balanced tube amp that Peter McAlister is building me give me that kind of enjoyment again.

I've yet to hear it for myself, but interesting HR actively don't promote their amps as being able to drive the K1K. I suppose though the K1K isn't THAT much less sensitive than the K340, it's a much more current heavy current:voltage ratio, and the modules are current limited.