AudioArby
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2012
- Posts
- 33
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- 15
I purchased a AKG-240S 2weeks ago. The studio I worked for in the 80's and 90's used these. I just pick up a Fiio E11 for this headphone and they sound great together.
I own a pair of EP sextetts and absolutely adore them. They might not sound as good or balanced as other cans I own, but the mids are 'magical' for the lack of a better word.
I'm considering re-cabling them with solid silver core cables. I tried dampening the driver with organic cotton, but did not notice any differences other than reducing the noise leakage. Are there any other mods that I can attempt to improve the sonic quality?
I own a pair of EP sextetts and absolutely adore them. They might not sound as good or balanced as other cans I own, but the mids are 'magical' for the lack of a better word.
I'm considering re-cabling them with solid silver core cables. I tried dampening the driver with organic cotton, but did not notice any differences other than reducing the noise leakage. Are there any other mods that I can attempt to improve the sonic quality?
There a couple things you can do.
First I would rebuild the inside with a new piece of foam. The original is probably rotted out and flaking everywhere. I've rebuilt 3 Sextetts and 2 K240 Monitors with good success. I used .5" thick open-cell foam sheets. This also helps the cups to not wobble around so much.
Next, the absolute best pad for the Sextett, in my opinion, is the Shure SRH940 pad with the foam backing removed. They are a nice quality velour pad with good construction and are extremely comfortable. The best part is the sound. As you probably know, the treble is very rolled-off with the vintage AKG driver. The Shure pads even out the frequency response, bringing out the upper midrange and treble to become even with the mids and bass. They are open and very natural sounding.
Lastly, use an amplifier that's suited for high impedance headphones. Tube amps work great, especially all-tube OTL amps. Tube Hybrid OTL amps also do nicely. Though any amplifier that can put a decently high voltage into 600ohms will work. Stay away from portables in general.
The Sextetts are really amazing headphones for it's time, wish i had one, but it's funny they they really look like a transition technology if you think.
Not sure if I fully understand what you mean, but if it's what I think you mean, I still get odd looks when I tell people how old they really are.
I would recommend a pair if you could find one, but can't speak for the MPs and LPs. I've heard goober-george's LPs and can't say I liked them as much.
they made the first open back headphones in history, used passive radiators in the sextett's, then used acoustic filters for the monitors and modern studio's, created the legend that is the K1000, experimented with multiple drivers in the k280 parabolic and k290 surround sound headphones... So yes. I'd say the most inventive headphone company from the 50's-70's. Paved the way for modern cans.What i meant by saying the Sextett were a transition technology is because the materials for higher end headphones that we use today, were still in development, so AKG had to come up with something different to further improve the sound, the Sextett used almost the same materials but in a different way and the worked for AKG for quite some time, interesting engineering, they had guts back in the day.
I'd still recommend picking up the Shure velour pads. It would probably be a noticeable upgrade.