Looking for Donor Headphones

elcoholic

Jet Fuel Genius
Subscriber
Oops the title should read Looking for ...

I need some closed-back, circumaural head phones to better share the space with my beloved in the living room. I'm so pleased with my DIY Yamahstein orthos I think I'll build another pair. Planar drivers for the most part aren't that great in closed designs. So I'm looking for dynamic drivers for this go around 50mm or thereabouts. I'm thinking used, broken, great drivers in crappy cans, etc. Suggestions?

BTW here's the 1st iteration of my Yamahsteins in case you missed them

IMG_1842.JPG
 
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These are great, I've built a number of "Franken-Phones" and plan on making more. I'm a fan of the ortho driver and recently acquired some Koa that I'd like to use for the cups. I'd love to find some donor Beyerdynamic frames (DT 770,880) etc. They are good candidates for shenanigans.

Good luck!
 
Did you ever get a pair of 50mm drivers for your project? Got some Panasonic RP-HT480C you can have. Dig fairly deep into the bass, but not to excess. Top end is clear. Voices are clear and a tiny bit forward. Give me an address and away they'll go. Love to see creative humans produce! -- Herb
 
That's pretty sweet there Elcoholic! I just saw a pair of Yamaha orthos at a local pawn for little money. I'll go check on them.
 
Well, I went and grabbed those little Yammies. I guess this thread was enough to interest me. These Yamaha Orthos seem to me a lot like a pair of MB Quart headphones I had. Fostex too. Midrange is a touch loose but these need a lot of power. I can definitely understand the mod to make these a more open design. They seem to be sounding better with more use as would be expected. No lack of bottom end on these though the mids could be clearer. Also, these lack some serious dynamics and might be a little too polite. These are the YH-3s and definitely not STAX. :^) But pretty decent actually. Especially for a vintage headphone. I'm gonna recable these for portable use for now and not change anything else. These are for sure gonna need amplification.
 
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When you're ready to play with them the so called Level 1 mods will give you a lot of bang for very few bucks. Basically it's sealing the baffle to block the back-wave and playing with some felt damping. Mogami 2893 mic cable works nicely as does paracord sheathing on the pair fro each side above the split .
 
When you're ready to play with them the so called Level 1 mods will give you a lot of bang for very few bucks. Basically it's sealing the baffle to block the back-wave and playing with some felt damping. Mogami 2893 mic cable works nicely as does paracord sheathing on the pair fro each side above the split .

I am checking it out now on the massively long ortho thread on Head-FI. Well, after 20 hours of re-burn in time, the midrange has cleaned up and become most prominent. Still not as much extension at the top for me. I am a bit of a treble head thus why I like Beyers.
 
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