Anybody with mahogany cups notice a difference in the sound? Obviously it's subjective as to whether or not it's an improvement. I'm just curious if there is a difference and what it may be.
After some moderately critical listening , the short answer is YES there is a sound difference to my ear when I compared my modded cup version to factory version.
Better is definitely a subjective word so I'll stick with "different" - The Wood Cup version seems to have more detail on the high frequency. cymbals sound more crisp, the metal ribs on a snare drum was more evident , also there is a bit more "sparkle" in the vocals which sounded more natural to me ( not simbilant but just a more natural tone overall). because most of the differences were noticed in the mid to upper frequency range. the instruments sounded more separated ( IE I was able to hear more of the shaker in a few tracks, it was lost with other instruments in it's frequency range on the unmodded 225 - more "flat" with the rest of the frequencies nearby. -
Now that's not to say that their might not be variances in the drivers from GRADO, ( that may very well be the case, but aside from butchering the stock model and mounting them in the mahogany
cups I'll never truly know.
everything else other than the earcups was the same. I'll be upgrading the cables on my modded 225's now that I've had some time comparing them to the stock model. The point in waiting was to isolate the changes 1 step at a time. I know what differences exist ( and learned the demo songs quite well after about 20 or so listens). Next I'll see if cabling changes things any further.
I'm happy with the sonics of the 225 in the wood cups but again I can't say for certain that this change alone has created the noted difference in tonal quality. I should have compared stock to stock before beginning the mod. Alas, that didn't occur to me at the time. I didn't go into this with science in mind, just wanted to personalize the look and crossed my fingers that there would be a nice change in performance. I like them both, on some tracks the unmodified version had more low end and mid range character, on others the Modded units really had a lot more detail.
I felt the same way when I owned the SR325i - I liked them but I felt that vocals had a bit of an unnatural sound ( a bit nasal sounding on the frequencies but I liked it better in other areas on some tracks.) there is no one headphone that rules them all for me. different cans bring out different things on different tracks.. so at the end of the day PRICE not being factored in it all comes down to how much I'm willing to pay for --X--- difference. SR60's absolutely rock and despite being much different in cost technincally they really shouldn't be. same materials are used up to the SR225 the only difference is the actual drivers and I SERIOUSLY doubt there is that much of a manufacturing cost differential between the SR60 and SR225. no matter what , for the money I preferred the 225 and 60's over the 325, so I reallocated the funds from the sale of my 325s and put them into comfort and aesthetic upgrades for my 225's
So now not only do I still like the way they sound, I like the way they look even more than the 325 so for me it was a decent investment and I also did it for the "project aspect" of modding.
I'll follow up with notes from the Cable "upgrade"
