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TGR

DIY headphones

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This is a pure DIY headphone. Beside the drivers, supposedly from the AKG OEM factory, the entire headphone is made of clothes, paper, sponge, hand-sow leather headband, stainless steel plates, wire mash and DIY ear cup. It sounds like a product of crazy DIYer, but he is in fact an ex engineer from an audio factory in China. He took up the challenge to reproduce the sound of premium headphones with readily available material and make them at home!

 

I managed to find this man online and persuaded him to make one for me. He is also the guy who help me finished my other planar headphone. I just gave it a try; it only cost me $80 something including air shipping, who knows it might turn out to be a good venture after witnessing successful example, crossroad by Jaben, LOL.

 

According to Mr. Q, the maker, this headphone is intended to sound like HD600, with laidback, warm, relax characteristics. The sound driver is heavily modded with added neodymium magnet and glue on diaphragm to reduce the high sibilance etc.

 

Physical Build:

 

Despite it is made of junk IMO, it is hella piece of solid sh*t. The stainless steel plate holds everything nicely. The earcup particularly, with sponge + clothe combo, is very comfortable to put on for long time. The pressure on ear is not too bad either, it covers the entire the ear nicely, at least better than my experience with HD600, it is something similar to DT880 I had before. The downside is the headphone weight almost 400g!! A little bit too heavy I think.

 

Sound:

 

Bass: This supposed to be the best feature of this headphone, but I find it a little bit weird after prolonged listening. When I put on it was all great with overwhelming solid fast bass, not too deep, but the quantity is good enough to feel life-like. The good bass however comes with sacrifice of upper ranges; I will describe it in the mid and high section.

 

Mid: Mid is particularly good for male vocal. Guitars and piano sounds great with the added reverb kind of effect. The high gets rolled off when it moves up the ranges, violins and female voices don’t shine here. The end result is like some thick warm sound, but yet, the dynamic is pretty fast.

 

High: There are only 2 possibilities, either the bass overwhelms the high, or the high is rolled to make the bass stands out. Either way, the high does not excel.

 

Conclusion:

 

I think the sound quality worth at least 200 bucks or so. In China, so far only HiFiman managed to produce a fullsize headphone, Yuin has struggled hard to make one but no result thus far. There're many small firms and startups trying to produce amp and dac, but it is rare to see someone who can produce headphones. If you are interested in trying out the headphone do let me know, may be a new small business venture is on its way.

 

IPB Image

 

IPB Image

 

IPB Image

 

IPB Image

 

IPB Image

Edited by TGR

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looks nice actually too bad tt i dont have the money if not can put my industrial design knowledge to use to make it look better

 

yeah man.. the cost should be just 20 bucks to make this.. wondering any folks here want to invest..LOL

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yeah man.. the cost should be just 20 bucks to make this.. wondering any folks here want to invest..LOL

 

 

haha i would invest :D and sell it to the masses

Edited by nekatrall

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will it be hard to drive?

 

not really.. at 43 ohm.. an iphone can drive it pretty well

 

hmm gd idea meet ups :D

 

PM me suggest time and place..

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what is the driver enclosure made of? Looks like not enough damping material... a lot of resonances, might lead to boomy sound.

 

Hmm..

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what is the driver enclosure made of? Looks like not enough damping material... a lot of resonances, might lead to boomy sound.

 

Hmm..

 

the sound is quite boomy but not exactly that bad.. it kinda become overly bassy...

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