BatFi
Aka: Skamp, Headfiend
- Joined
- Feb 7, 2013
- Posts
- 9
- Likes
- 10
Hi everyone,
I've been lurking here for a long time, learning a lot from the knowledgeable members here, as I got deeper and deeper into audiophilia. I never had anything to contribute, so I didn't register until now. I'd like to share with you a strange discovery that I made while experimenting.
I read a lot of recommendations for the Audio-Technica ATH-M50s for audiophiles on a budget, so I got myself a pair about a month ago. I'm very happy with them, they sound really good! There's just one thing that's been bothering me: something was wrong with the high frequencies. I'm not sure how to explain it, they're just not right, it's like there's a bit of noise / distortion in the treble. Once I realized that, it's all I could think about! I had to do something about it.
Then it hit me: high frequencies make the membrane move back and forth really fast, as opposed to low frequencies which make it move much slower. I got this idea that the problem might be that the membrane wasn't stiff enough to accurately reproduce the high frequencies, and the slight wobbling was introducing unwanted distortion.
How could I make it stiffer? By freezing it! So I put my headphones in the feezer (wrapped in a cotton cloth to protect them) and left them there overnight. The next morning, I took them out and let them go back to room temperature for an hour. When I put them on and played some music, WOW!!! The distortion was completely gone! Cymbals were amazingly precise, with very clean decay, without sounding harsh. Just very very clean. It was like night and day! The other frequencies still sounded just as good, they didn't seem to be affected by the process.
I've repeated the process a couple of times, and I came to the conclusion that doing it every ten days was the sweet spot. My M50s now sound like $300 headphones!
I've been lurking here for a long time, learning a lot from the knowledgeable members here, as I got deeper and deeper into audiophilia. I never had anything to contribute, so I didn't register until now. I'd like to share with you a strange discovery that I made while experimenting.
I read a lot of recommendations for the Audio-Technica ATH-M50s for audiophiles on a budget, so I got myself a pair about a month ago. I'm very happy with them, they sound really good! There's just one thing that's been bothering me: something was wrong with the high frequencies. I'm not sure how to explain it, they're just not right, it's like there's a bit of noise / distortion in the treble. Once I realized that, it's all I could think about! I had to do something about it.
Then it hit me: high frequencies make the membrane move back and forth really fast, as opposed to low frequencies which make it move much slower. I got this idea that the problem might be that the membrane wasn't stiff enough to accurately reproduce the high frequencies, and the slight wobbling was introducing unwanted distortion.
How could I make it stiffer? By freezing it! So I put my headphones in the feezer (wrapped in a cotton cloth to protect them) and left them there overnight. The next morning, I took them out and let them go back to room temperature for an hour. When I put them on and played some music, WOW!!! The distortion was completely gone! Cymbals were amazingly precise, with very clean decay, without sounding harsh. Just very very clean. It was like night and day! The other frequencies still sounded just as good, they didn't seem to be affected by the process.
I've repeated the process a couple of times, and I came to the conclusion that doing it every ten days was the sweet spot. My M50s now sound like $300 headphones!