It’s mostly likely nothing. If I’m seeing correctly it’s on the ear side, so there should be very little, if any sound wave interaction at that location. If it were on the cup side it’s more likely (but still very improbable) to be a problem, I would guess.
1 Like
Should be fine. The foam is just dampening material. As long as its not a gaping hole and you flatten it down, it should keep doing its job.
1 Like
Thanks, yea listening now i don’t hear anything off
Thinking about getting the 880s and doing this mod, already have a balanced cable for T60s so I was going to use this 4 pole 3.5mm jack https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OGLEE4C/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
OP was saying these balanced on 789 will power them properly… Just wondering if anyone can confirm this before I pull the trigger.
2 Likes
Yes balanced 789 can power DT880 600ohms fine.
FYI, if you’re doing this mod and plan to reuse a small length of the stock cable that comes into the left cup - an understandable decision so you don’t have to solder directly to the driver - be aware that those tiny stock wires do not solder well to whatever jack pins you intend to attach. I originally reused a small length of those stock wires for the reason just mentioned. However, I was beginning to notice a very slight channel imbalance biased away from the side where I reused a small length of the cheap incoming wire and toward the side where I harvested a small length of the wire that connected the cups in the stock configuration. I popped open the weaker side and sure enough one of those solder joints was beginning to fail. This time I got braver and replaced that stock wire altogther. Now it’s 
. If you feel up to it, I recommend harvesting a short length of the wire that connected the two cups and soldering that onto the driver on the stock left side. The wire that originally went through the headband is of a much higher quality than the incoming stock wire, it also solders to the jack pins much more readily. However, only do this is you’re comfortable soldering and can be quick. The 600 ohm voice coils have super thin wires. If you hold heat on there too long you can melt that thin voicecoil wire and fuse some of the strands together. You don’t have to be lightning quick, but if you mess something up, walk away and let things cool down before you keep applying more heat.
6 Likes
Yeah that’s the alternative way of doing it. I had similar experiences with the Koss PortaPro/KPH30i internal wires, but because of that using the DT880 wires is a cinch.
Basically you need to be patient in soldering the tips because the molten solder will melt the plastic and tip the wire at the same time. If you do it right (the solder won’t easily come off), then you should have no issues when soldering the internal wires to the jack.
And yes, the entire reason I prefer to do this is because using new wires involves the risky method of desoldering them from the driver unit. Prior to my attempt, I knew of other people who basicaally destroyed the voice coils because they left the solder iron too close for too long.
Rather than risking that, it’s safer to practice better soldering techniques on the internal wires than close to the driver coils. If you want to be really safe, you can cut those internal wires longer, so you can snip it off should you stuff up tinning the tip.
1 Like
Yep, it’s lower-risk to re-use the stock cable for sure. I’m not an expert solderer so I think that was some of the issue. Between the original balance mod where I did reuse stock cable and then doing this fixed, I completely recabled a set of TH-X00 and soldered new wires onto the drivers’ terminals. That led to an improvement in sound, too (the X00 stock cables were worse than Beyer’s, and Beyer’s are bad). So it was ALSO kinda bugging me that there was a different level of quality of cable in either cup on the DT880. I had heard of the risk of fusing the 600 ohm voice coil so I knew to be careful going in.
Still the disclaimer: only solder near the driver if you are very careful and have at least some soldering experience.
2 Likes
Nice, very clean. I like it.
Did you even colour the cups?
Thanks.
No it’s a Manufaktur Edition, also had a brown leadther headband but after around years i have to replace it.
1 Like
dumb question: is there a difference in sound between single ended and balanced dual ended?
The 600ohm DT880’s need a powerful amp to make them sound good, But there are only a few amps that have the power on single ended.
The balanced mod is to take advantage of the increased power of cheaper amps with balanced outs (THX 789, Magnius, etc).
So yes, there is a difference in sound if you are going from a weak SE out to a more powerful balanced.
oh okay thanks
RebelAmp powerful enough for DT 880?
No. Unfortunately not. I own it among several other amps and the RebelAmp is a very good amp for many of my headphones and I will keep it for sure but it is not able to drive the DT880/600s to their full potential. I use the DT880/600 modded balanced with the THX789 and the Topping A90 which work both very well.
1 Like
stock pads?
Dekoni Choice Suedes or Elite Velours make it so much more controlled and comfortable.
umm what? The rebel amp is 300 mW RMS per channel at 600 ohms which is the single ended power as the Asgard 3… of which the asgard 3 can drive it just fine however the knob will be up at around 70 - 75% to be “loud”. Hell just the basic liquid spark gives it plenty of power… as does the atom, magnius balanced, hel, l30, magni, heresy, among many others… I fail to comprehend how anyone figures the 880 600 ohm is truly hard to be driven to this regard… hell even the Soundblaster G6 over there can drive the 880s just not to the “best sound” due to it’s natural scaling with higher ended equipment
I prefer the stock pads but I also tried the Dekoni Choice Suedes which are super-comfortable but darken them a bit too much for my specific taste. I use the Choice Suedes on an old vintage Beyer DT880 variant. It is a matter of taste…