AT IT AGAIN!
Page 9 of 10
Links:
Headfi forum with release and build notes
MrSpeakers headphone plug terminals
Other materials include a recycled Grado cable, spare bolts from my Prusa i3 printer (and obviously my i3 printer for printing, too) and Hatchbox black PLA.
I like the Hatchbox stuff, thus far it has proven to be affordable and reliable, even at low printing temperature (180 degrees is all I got).
One side, stock t50rp. Otherside, Open alpha.
Complete!
So: Before I get into the build details, the bottom line is this is the definitive overhaul to complete in terms of t50rp mods. I started with a refurbished mkiii, and hated the crazy EQ spike at about where hihats generally reside. This was not a subtle issue, and would give me a headache quickly. From modding with the stock cups, I found denser damping=worse issue with treble and less bass. Think of it like a bass trap- I used essentially felted wool, which in its raw form killed all frequencies except for the strongest… …Which in this case was about 2.8khz to give a rough estimate. Ouch! After googling around, I discovered Dan was using cotton balls as the primary damping material, with a thin layer of dense acoustic mat of some kind to line the cup (helps mostly I think with leakage control and resonance from the actual plastic and flat surfaces on the cup itself).
Damping the Alphas:
I already had this fancy acoustic wool, so I figured I could make some “wool balls” by separating the dense wad into fluffy pillows. I’d say I aired on the side of less dense- at this point I was printing my Alpha cups, and the space in there is huge, leaving ample space to layer up some of these wool balls. I did not feel the need to line the cups with a damping mat of any kind, because my wool seemed to kill noise and reflection already like nobody’s business.
Printing the cups and other parts:
…Painless, except on the inside of the cups there is a dip where the headband arm is mounted. For no particular reason, I printed both cups without supports- but not without a large amount of “PLA spaghetti” and the occasional emergency “duct tape the PLA spaghetti wad to the bed so it can have something to build on…”
Sound:
Firstly, these sound nothing like the stock t50rp. AT ALL. the low end goes quite low with not a huge amount of distortion, the mids are wide and spacious, and the treble (including the significantly tamed-down spike) is springing and provides nice “pop” and sparkle. These headphones are a pleasure to listen to- I’ve been doing Art Blakey and Coltrain lately because the reproduction of the jazz bass is superb, Couple that with the expansive space where the sax and piano reside, these make a nice way to relax at the end of a day (which is how I have been relaxing each evening since I made them). Obviously, we still have some fundamental setbacks. The Fostex driver is unbelievably inefficient. It takes much care to juice these properly (I like them through my e12 portable amp actually, because I can crank the input volume on that with very little distortion for quite a bit). Additionally, there is a limit to how much detail we can siphon out of the driver; this uber mod definitely maxes out the clarity and definition this driver can provide. For example, the successor to this headphone when it was made commercially by Dan/MrSpeakers is the AEON (still in preorder mode at the time of writing)- a completely in house design trickling technology down from the company’s acclaimed ETHER headphones. I am actually lucky enough to have had a few hours to play with them and chat with the inventor (Dan)- quite simply, the clarity and silkiness of the AEON demolishes the notion of clarity with my Open Alphas. THAT SAID an $800 carbon fiber headphone invented from the ground up by Dan (who maintains the highest regards even from competitors (ZMF, even hifiman reps) as the most dedicated headphone creator) is obviously not really competing against a headphone a made for <$300 INCLUDING the 3d printer and donor headphones…. 🙂
Links:
Cura 3d slicing and printing gcode software
Marlin firmware for “real” arduinos on Github
I purchased my 3d printer new from the USA for exactly $155. That is $50 less than a single DUM headphone cable from MrSpeakers. It did not work until much duct tape had been applied and zip ties zipped and jigs rigged, but overall it wasn’t that bad. Now that I’m up and running, there are a few things to note:
- It can barely heat PLA (at 180 c), so forget about ABS. I have a hunch this may have something to do with the wimpy PSU it came with. I just so happen to have a full size version of the same PSU, rated at 30 amps @ 12 volts- someday I will try swapping that one in and see If I can get more temperature. The firmware has ABS settings, it just will never reach the 225 degrees called for.
- The firmware is very firmly stuck in the arduino. I spent hours upon hours trying to flash this arduino with a custom Marlin software, as I have been taught from my MPCNC project, to no avail. The best thing to do is do all the tweaks in Cura, load the resulting gcode into a sd card, and run the printer off that. The USB was getting wonky on me (I can’t remember exactly what it was doing, it just wasn’t the right thing). plus with the sd card you can put the printer wherever you want.
- The build quality… there is no quality. be prepared to make up the assembly and troubleshooting as you go.
- “heated” bed- the bed game is rather weak. things sometimes stick, but usually don’t. I learned the best way to get prints to stick is with washable glue sticks. Long story short (and many prints that skittered off the bed before they were done), I need gluesticks.
Once I procure some glue sticks, I’ll be printing out my “real” machine. MPCNC, Here we come!
This is the kind of day it is today. Not a cloud in the light blue sky, the sun casting sharp shadows from the bare branches. A bit blustery, and cold- I’d guess 25 degrees, not including wind chill. The snow is very hard, and has a icy surface. I wandered into Fox park at around noon- all I could hear was a few high peeps from chickadees and the occasional crow yelling at something. Notably, the woodpeckers seemed absent on my way into the woods toward my pine tree- could the extra-frozen trees deter all but the most robust woodpeckers? Usually at least a downy will be somewhere, tapping away.
These two trees on the right exhibit this intersting “crinkly”, wafer-like, “scaly” bark. Around these parts, I would wager a guess these are black cherry trees. Magnificent!
One interesting feature: they are always alone! I have yet to see two of these “scaly” trees within eyesight of each other. Compare this to the gaggles of hemlocks, clubs of white pines, and stands of beeches… I really haven’t the foggiest why such an impressive and dense tree would manage to populate itself so sparsely.
Someone has been doing house cleaning! This cavity in the tree is getting excavated, and upon further inspection, the space inside is enormous. The wood chips at the base look relatively fresh, and the wind hasn’t blown the sawdust off the bark yet.
These green conk mushrooms I found are gnarly. Beginning and end of story.
As I left my sit spot, I found myself staring into the top of each pine tree I walked under. I am getting a gut feeling the owls are going to be getting restless for spring soon. So many more mammals will become breakfast, lunch, and dinner (for our GHO and barred owls especially) in a few weeks when they emerge. I think I will aim to do my few sit spots before sunrise, armed with the saw-whet call, and see if I can pick out who is living up there in the multitudes of pines.
Bonus: I found these well-preserved, flash-frozen crow footsteps literally wandering out of the parking lot and into the park, following the “human trail”. 
-Jess
I walked into Fox Park on 3/3/17. Note how I could walk right in; the snow has settled and melted into a single layer that had been frozen the night before. The sun was shining, but an impressively chilled wind was blustering around. That morning at 6am, the temperature hit somewhere around 40 degrees, which was followed by a hour-and-a-half blizzard starting at around 9am, followed by blue skies similar to what I experienced at 6am but about 15 degrees colder. ???
I tried to document the interesting tree formations, issues, and patterns today, as I realized after more natural history class time I was taking these trees for granted and focusing on the more “immediately exciting stuff”.
First off, I was noticing these Beech leaves everywhere. They seem to be the only leave around that is so stubborn about staying glued to the tree almost indefinitely- until of course the lext version pops out to replace it.
It was noted in class these leaves stay attached to the tree all year, the idea being maybe these trees can get a quicker head start on photosynthesis come spring.
Coppicing? General bizarreness?
Next, I was finding all sorts of tree species with this tightly knit organization, which implied they are possibly sharing a mega-root system.
The following tree photos all exhibit this super weird “window” into each tree’s heartwood. Fox park is riddled with this phenomenon… …And I have absolutely no idea why.
By the time I got to actual spot to do some serious sitting, I already had these questions percolating. it seems like most trees I encountered dealt with a sort of trauma at the base, and are trying to recover.
Take a moment to observe the “Bull” pine, or “Wolf” pine. That is my spot- isn’t in gnarly? First off, it is HUGE. Those birch trees in the foreground aren’t exactly little. I met a few dog walkers soon after I arrived under its crazy branches, one of whom said there is a chance this was a shade tree for farm animals eons ago. We wondered if the branches grew into this oddly un-shady shape when the farming situation came to a halt, and other shade and competition for the sun forced the needles farther into the sky.
Below are some close ups of the uber-gnarlies this tree has. Note the little holes about 3-4mm across. these look like bug activity. (no shredded bark from even the most careful woodpecker, and seem totally unorganized. That said, the quarter-sized cone shaped holes look like red-bellied activity, but was quickly abandoned. It seems this tree has some tough bark, and the bugs are just too hard to get at.
Looking out from my spot, I see the fungus/Scale beetle issue on the nearest Beech tree. I also found this basketball-sized hive, high up in a tree. Obviously, it is the epitome of fine construction techniques, because it is basketball sized, after a whole slew of crazy weather events.
These two conifer trees had me confused for a while. The one on the right is a more spares when it comes to needles, and the bark/stem pattern is more “expansive” and “flat”. I dub this a hemlock, because my first gut instinct is to forage underneath for the highly flammable branches, which often have those thin, bendy fingers that ignite immediately and violently. The tree on the right however, did not evoke this gut response. That said, I think it is also a hemlock, just much younger – I think.
Bird activity:
On the right, we have my favorite, all time greatest “big woodpecker” hole example tunk. Top left: Probably a Hairy woodpecker. Note the lack of a bezel around the hole. Also, I doubt the local Piliated would be able to fit its beak that far into a tree, this hole is just too small. Note also the Hairy does have a rather long beak. I have heard and seen a hairy woodpecker in this area. Top right: Ehh, this one may be a collaborative effort. I see the inner circle STARTS at the size the hairy woodpecker left off. I say red bellied at that point. I have heard the bubbly-squawk-like sound of this woodpecker here on occasion. Also- note what happened! The tell-tale funnel shape that starts about 3/4 inch seems to have given someone else some ideas…. Bottom: Crazy Piliated woodie, who, as far as I can tell, has literally killed at least 1 tree nearby, by obsessively boring huge channels through the trunk (and almost out the other side in some cases!!! The upper right hole looks like the pileated could have given that one a go, just to give it a test drive, before going back to work on the bottom hole.
Finally, I found an example of all 4 major league woodies in one sit spot visit! Here is the resident diminutive downy, going berserk on a dusty branch. Look at that head go! My shutter way fast, but evidently not fast enough to stop a speeding downy head.
Until next time!!
I wandered into my sit spot last Monday evening, before sun down- slightly overcast, well above freezing. Upon entering the park, significantly warmer air pockets dotted the trail- why, I don’t have the foggiest idea. This seems important, but I will leave the cause of such intense heat-bubbles of what a question to gnaw away at later.
Observations from the Wolf Pine @ Fox Park:
Firstly, the birds. I did not wait long before I heard a few White Breasted Nuthatches tooting. Soon after, I heard some call and response with some Cardinals, a first this year for me. The pileated activity has not wavered, but I wonder if the bugs are more prevalent now with the hot air floating around. I think I am seeming more medium sized woodpecker holes, particularly those from the Red Bellied Woodpecker. Downy/Hairy activity hasn’t changed much, still the odd one of those here and there.
Most interesting is the Brown Creeper activity. These birds went totally under the radar until now. They do not migrate- but all of a sudden, they are singing , swooping, and creeping like mad! I wonder if their two-tone whistle is a mating call, like the Chickadee’s (thanks for the info, Kurt!) The tell-tale, “only goes up the tree, never down” nuthatch-shaped bird is extremely well camouflaged. I wonder if that is more helpful in the winter, when they are going incognito? I mean, they are kind of obvious when they are burbling around the forest,
As for plant life, some kind of shrub that has reddish tendril tips is getting ready for show time. the previously hard and dry bud tips are now moist and are easily squished. This looks like fair game for little bugs and subsequently gleaners…. I can’t wait to see the forest unfold around me as we get deeper into spring.
Also: A fellow student recently told me quite possibly the most important pine tree-related info I have ever heard. Ready?
“White pine trees have bunches of 5 needles because the word “white” has 5 letters. So, logically, the red pine has bunches of 3 needles, because there are ONLY 3 LETTERS IN THE WORD “RED”.”
…Crazy. Food for thought.
Today and yesterday, 2.19.17 – 2.20.17, have officially kicked off my first real visits to my “sit spot” (required for all adventure ed students at PSU) and commutes around campus armed with my bird rig, ready for the warmer-weather inclined birds.
Observations from the Wolf Pine @ Fox Park:
Snowshoed into Fox Park around 2:15 on Sunday, 2.19.17.
Weather: After repeated heavy snow falls, Sunday was the first day solidly above freezing- thus a large amount of dripping and snow-condensing was happening. My wolf pine was in a bit of a freezing puddle, with ~2 feet of snow accumulation surrounding its base. High pressure day, bluish-grey skies and scattered wispy clouds. Light breeze, and fairly quiet.
Upon quieting myself and my raucous snow-hoverboards, it became apparent how few birds and squirrels were about. I could hear “whispers” and chips from passerines, but they sounded far away, likely to be lower on the hill, near the squishy earth and faux-pond. Squirrels maybe rustled a branch or two during my sit- note the trees where about half evergreen and probably not a food source for these little mammals. These trees would, however, provide good coverage from avian predators… I wonder if the squirrels have thought of that.
Perhaps the surrounding homes and intermittent (not on Sunday) construction sounds provided a safer space park wide. Owls and to a lesser extent hawks are irked to no end by these sounds and regular but unpredictable human activity. I have observed elsewhere in MA owls are not put off by circadian dog walkers at all; in fact, I would glean most of my “big bird” info from the unperturbed 2 – 3 times a day dog walkers of my neighborhood. Great horned families, bald eagles, and belted kingfisher pairs could care less about 2 dozen or more dogs pass under their homes a day, but the moment a motor boat, police cars, or loud parties occurred these unbelievable species would vanish. I make this digression because this is a college town, and the park is surrounded by active dwellings of different sorts, including development sites. THUS: there were essentially no rodents/lagomorphs/etc. (easily findable ones that is)
Speaking of which, the tracks were tough to figure out. Heavy dogs? Yes. beyond that, the melting snow and dripping was creating a fairly non-descript blanket over any crazy prints.
I noticed remarkable BIG woodpecker activity, i.e. Pileated and Red Bellied/flicker- especially on my way out of the park. Holy smokes are the pileated OCD around here!
Also Note the intersting spiraling growth pattern on this Wolf Pine limb. It is long dead, but appears and felt denser than “ye average” pine tree. ??
I plan to get back to my spot ASAP for more warm weather observations. I believe this is the forecast all week!
BONUS WINTER BIRDS FROM MY COMMUTE THIS MORNING:
A loud house finch and a lovely Bohemian waxwing.
Some call it yak shearing.
Some call it the next step, and a method to never let the next step get in your way.
…So I then I learned to make custom blown vacuum tubes at home so I could build an amazing artisanal nixie tube clock.
…So I then looked up how to throw a bigger flower pot using wheel-thrown pottery techniques on youtube, so I could become a better and more refined artist.
…So I am building a CNC mill so I can make nice looking wood headphone cups for the DIY planar build.
Occasionally, I find myself looking into space and feeling like whatever the next steps may be in my various hobbies are remain unreachable, need to wait, cost more than I have, or is in someway not the right time to continue. While some of these may be true, it does not mean all that remains is slow, unyielding time. More often than not in these situations, I really am looking at a step that is unreachable or untimely, but is actually not the end-all and last step. There is usually more than meets the eye; there are tasks to be done, as small as they might be, that will help a process along. I think of this mathematician:
For example- I do not have access to all the tools I need to complete my projects; it is inherently exciting to think about the actual fabrication of evolving ideas. That does not mean the tools needed to complete the projects are needed to do the peripheral learning and knowledge-gaining and scheming and planning. We can easily see in writing, the cutting and buffing and bolting of things is just a tiny part of a huge commitment in time, learning, and design. Have I exhausted all learning and designing time? No! I can always add an extra step between me and a goal, no matter how small. Learn Autodesk Fusion 360? add that to the list. Complete a few of their 10 hour instructional webinars? That sounds important. Learn to roughly mill and glue wood into end-grain orientations for future CNC-ing for the future headphone cup-rings? I should do that too.
So…
…Is your back hurting from your posture or your chair? If so, you should learn better posture and/or build a perfect chair (and learn fine wood luthiery to make a snazzy inlay of your name, Blender and CAM to mill unique chair legs, etc, etc….)
🙂
Here is a little LaTeX visualization I made to better convey the simpleness of learning, life and the world in the the internet. In even plainer terms, we can see in order to learn something (ideally a hard skill set or task- soft and meta skills are iffy on the internet at best) we must spend a certain amount of time on the internet and a fair amount of time on task, with all both of these things getting larger in size as standards for quality and ambition of work go up. In order for all this “work” to equal the desired learning, we divide the three factors (Time, Standards, Ambition) by the difficulty of the task at hand.
It is easy to set ambitions with great difficulty (in funtwo’s case, learn guitar to do a neoclassical shred of a pachelbel tune) but as the steps get broken down into smaller day-to-day and minute-by-minute gains in ability and knowledge, the difficulty factor must be incremental enough to be attainable, but difficult enough to be engaging. Thus, this model can scale from the: 35 minutes (Time) on youtube (internet) learning guitar scales for sweeping techniques with good form and in complete scales (Standards) divided by the goal to maintain and enhance a current harmonic minor scale (Ambition) that has been the focus all week, which is incrementally more (difficult) than the “not sweeping the normal minor scale” that was last week’s project and success success… …To the 3-5 years of diligence it took funtwo to gain mastery of both guitar and the arrangement.
So, moral of the story is you do not need “prerequisite understanding” that can only be bought for $20k at a university near you to master whatever it is you need to master (Though these institutions are good for lots of other things though, that IMHO do make the visit worth it).
Anyone can do anything if they understand the factors that go into high craft, artistry, and learning.
Between 300 and 400 years ago, this archaic string of melody, harmony, and straight forward rhythm came about. I don’t read this kind of scribble, but I, like many others, have heard Pachelbel’s Canon in D. Christmas tunes, 80’s orchestras, video games and more have ripped up this beautiful idea and tried to glue it back together. Below is what I believe to be the most influential niche version, posing a striking composition highlighting the power of discipline and learning (read: Time, Standards, Challenge) in lieu of the internet (read: all “hard skills” are free and readily available in a computer-box near you)
This, to both my pair of ears and many pairs before me, is simply stunning. The deft skill and accuracy, the angelic warbling tone…. This is an example of almost complete mastery AFAICT. What granted Lim Jeong-hyun, generally referred to mononymously as funtwo, the ability to play at this level? Like just about everything, it seems his track record on the internet plus his standards and time against the challenge of learning guitar equals… …the above video.
Observe the 75% “slow” speed (thanks youtube and guitarteacherdotcom for access to this stuff):
….Coming up next: Unpacking discipline and learning through funtwo’s “guitar”
Piano and straight up 4/4 drums:
Here we have an interesting chord progression idea. In the 4/4 groove, the piano plays the second chord on the “and” of 2… Very cool. The pickup for the second chord starts on two, as I visualized in the midi roll diagram.
With a root of C (what I played it in), this could be called C minor to D flat, major 7, while at the end of the fourth bar the progression finishes on G7.
Below, you will find my collection of notes regarding how to build the electrostatic headphones themselves. This is largely based on stuff found at head-fi, in Wachara C.’s numerous posts and accomplishments on the subject.
Embedded below is my current document highlighting the schematics, BOM, and cost of building a diy electrostatic amp.
Imagine, any AA or 9v battery could charge your phone and other USB gadgets. Behold, the LM780!
This is a voltage regulator chip. Stick between 5 and, say, 9 volts in one end and huzzah! (about) 5 volts pops out the other end. these cost a few dimes and can be had on ebay 10 for 4$.
Below is the BOM: (to make 10 chargers!)
Sourced via ebay:
$4: 10x of LM780 5v
$4: 10x of little toggle switches
$4: 10x of 9v snap connectors (I used a 6v supply from AAs but as far as the chip is concerned it doesn’t matter to much. (I am reading 4.~ volts and enough power to charge a phone out of mine now)
$0: PCB- Technically they aren’t even needed, but for our uses they make the soldering and building more straightforward.
$1: 10x of USB A ports from China
$?: Casing- be creative. I want to make one in a shrink-wrapped tube or 3d printed box or something.
First, lay the parts out like so:
…notice how when facing the shiny side of the chip, the left leg is in line with the left hand side of the USB port when looking into the port:
Then arrange them like so:
…Notice I squished the power wires under the bent pins. RED GOES TO THE PIN ON THE RIGHT when facing the shiny side, and BLACK GOES TO THE MIDDLE ONE.
…The remaining leg is attached to the far left pin on the USB port (when facing the chip’s shiny side remember).
Then it works!! YAY!
Here I verify it works by charging my commercial usb charger with my DIY duct tape one:
Good luck!
