šŸ”¶ GoldPlanar GL2000

I agree with this. Itā€™s an entirely different headphone for the better once the glued paper comes off the driver. The mod is a must to fully enjoy the GL2000.

I use Aliexpress 110/120mm Sheepskin Leather Pads and they sound excellent as well compared to the provided pads. It smoothes out the treble spike.

I did pad change to 120mm oversized lambskin and it does still have same sound signature so I donā€™t think pad rolling will do much for you. Ofc I already moded it with paper removal. Also this headphone is definitely a bit bright compared to my M1060C modded

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Did a bit more modding on my gl2k today. Put some thick felt tape around where the driver seats to seal it against the housing. Could barely squeeze it in but it didnā€™t take any forcing just pushing slowly so the felt tape could flex out of the way a little until it seated and then re-expand. Put the leather pads back on and I gotta say I found the bass. Itā€™s there and its plentiful. They can slam noticeably harder now and I havenā€™t noticed any adverse side effects. Actually toned the treble peak down a noticeable amount but didnā€™t screw the tuning up.

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Could you please show a pic of how it looks now modded so could try myself :pleading_face:

3mm felt tape. 1/2" width. i kinda wish i would have used one continuous piece and molded it around the screw pillars. i think it could fully seal if i did that but getting it just right could take a long time.


and for anyone wondering the best way to put felt in to tame the highs. just cut to just under the inside of the pad adapter screws and tighten the felt up behind the pad adapter and itā€™ll never move and looks cleaner than stock imo.

just played around with a tone generator for a minute and the 11-35hz bass region is substantially improved. 21hz has a serious rumble now. they rumble! not like distortion rumble, but good rumble. didnā€™t think these lil guys had it in 'em.

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I almost want to say that noticeable detail is up slightly as the piercing highs arenā€™t so in your face anymoreā€¦more testing needed. I want to say the bass has grip(?) now whereas before it wasnā€™t necessarily loose but overly smooth and now its got a lot more presence and authority.

also really nice on class a

FYI for anyone who purchased their set from the taobao manufacturer directly. I informed the manufacturer of the loose yoke on the headband. They sent me this pack of spare parts in caseI need to fix or replace anything on my own. Awesome service!

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can you link me to that manufacturer page? i want to buy a spare set of drivers to seal inside a padded watertight box in case of emergency lol.

https://m.tb.cn/h.faiqCY2?sm=a2ad33

There you go!

Is there any way to recover Zeosā€™ sound demo? Iā€™d love to hear that.

GL2k Impressions

Picked up another pair after returning my Drop ones because I couldnā€™t resist for $320 off Ebay. My reference headphones are: DT880 600ohms, HD6XX, and modded Koss kph30is. Driven by an Asgard 3 sourced from a SMSL Sanskrit 10th MkII via Foobar. I intend to mod these headphones by removing the tuning filter eventually but for now these are stock thoughts. All of these comparisons and critiques are my own and based off of my own subjective tastes.

The Good

When these work with a song they are quite pleasant. Instrument placement is really accurate and spatial recreation can be quite special. Smoothness between instruments is also really pleasant, elements ā€œmeldā€ together in a surreal/3D way that makes me forget the noises are emanating out of earcups more so than other headphones. The DT880 has a wide soundstage but the placements are more distinct and ā€œseparateā€ than the GL2k. The DT880 to my ears seems more accurate and resolving due to this separation, which is ok as Iā€™m approaching the GL2k as a fun headphone which its wide/liquid soundstage certainly is. These also do a great job with upper and mid-bass reproduction in pop or trance.

Tracks that show off these aspects of the GL2k:

  • Adventure Time OST - Wild Animals, Forced Forest, Movie Filming Time (magic stuff in here with background panning elements)

  • Gontiti - Ensemble of Landscape (3D layering liquid and magic placement)(honestly the whole Amanchu OST is mind breaking on these)

  • Flobots - Fight With Tools, Combat

  • King Gizzard - Blue Morpho, Catching Smoke

  • Meshuggah - Bleed (the hi-hat/china hits in the mid/far right feels isolated yet in connection with the rest of the mix)

  • Infected Mushroom - Guitarmass (good mid-bass reproduction, suitable bouncy kick/synths, very fun 3D presentation with depth)

  • Delta Sleep - Single File (instrument placement and mid-bass warmth during the intro)

  • Halo 3 ODST OST - Overture / Yet Alone (Rear horns emanate from the void itself, more on this track down below)

As Iā€™ve been listening to them more Iā€™ve started to like their very ā€œforwardā€ in your face sound.
Update: I found a track I actually prefer on these, Killing Spree by Obrother, it presents such good detail with dimensionality and it only gets better when the final breakdown occurs!

The Bad

As others have commented these have something going on in the mid range and can sound compressed at times. I noticed they had particular trouble with complex/loud pieces that are mid range heavy, see 3:05 in Fight With Tools which sounds very cluttered, but not all mid range heavy songs have trouble, see Meshuggah - Bleed or Tool - Fear Inoculum to be wowed. They also do weird shit to some vocals, either compressing (pringles-can) or recessing them into the mix too far.

Since these are planars I went in expecting bass ā€œslamā€ and good bass presence, I came away a bit disappointed. The sub bass is weak and slam is nonexistent when it calls for it. Paradise by Mersiv and Fryar comes across weak as hell, and the second drop @ 3:10 which should be oppressively bassy sounds hollow even when compared to the bass extension of my DT880s, itā€™s simply too weak in the sub-bass region. This is apparent on the majority of my heavier electronic library.

These also really mess with strings, that mid range compression effect doesnā€™t just jack with vocals. This can lead to strings sounding unnatural.

They also seem to be a tad rolled off, maybe this is my Beyerdynamic tastes coming out, thereā€™s noticeably less ā€œairā€ than Iā€™ve become accustomed to. I noticed this playing Ghosts N Stuff by Deadmau5 if you can believe it, which is never a song I associated with ā€œairā€.

They are also quite heavy. My neck started hurting due to the weight increase over my DT880s after a moderate listening session, guess I need bigger lats?

Soundstage can actually become quite narrow given the right instruments or frequencies (I think this is related to the vocal effect)

Tracks that ā€œshow offā€ these aspects of the GL2k:

  • Trevor Something - Isolated (weird compressed/pringles can vocals)

  • Denzel Curry / Kenny Beats - Take_it_Back_v2 (overly soft, lacks bass slam)

  • Mersiv / Fryar - Paradise (lack of bass sub-bass pressure listen @ 3:10)

  • Delta Sleep - Single File (pringles-can vocal effect, vocals are obnoxiously present in the mix now when they should be relaxed but still energetic, lack of bass slam and overall muddy presentation once the song gets loud/complex listen @ 2:45)

  • Manaka Kataoka - Main Theme from the BOTW OST (The piano sounds like it too is emanating from a pringles can, bass notes in the louder section become flabby and almost intrusive to the strings)

  • Manaka Kataoka - Opening from the BOTW OST (Again crushes the piano and removes the dynamics from the strings however the 3D/background detail is /superb/, conflicted)

  • Eernesto Schnack - Sober (An acoustic cover, the GL2k are almost unlistenable, the compression or pringles can effect murders this and thereā€™s no background elements to save it)

  • Halo 3 ODST OST - Overture / Yet Alone (Intro rain sounds seem compressed, almost like theyā€™re echoing in a box, strings lose detail and are pushed very forward into the mix and lose fullness)

  • Hans Zimmer - Waiting For a Train (During the final crescendo of the song the strings which present very wide and enveloping on other headphones stick to a center narrow image instead, allowing other elements such as mid bass/low bass and horns to become the blanket you wrap yourself in, could be a pro or a con)

Detail retrieval is also finnicky, on some tracks all of the elements are present and gel but on others, such as Mombasa from the Inception OST it loses pieces. This track is my best example of this as the GL2k loses a large amount of string texture and background percussive elements. Perhaps Iā€™m missing these in the presentation because of the lack of dynamic range paving over smaller details such as synthesizer growl/high hats/whatever the hell else it decides to suppress.

On that note, these headphones do not work well with tracks that have high dynamic range and use it. Listening to Dream Within a Dream from the Inception OST was significantly less terror inducing on the GL2k because of the compression, it simply does not get as loud as I would like when called for.

Conclusion

I know this sounds like I dislike these headphones, I donā€™t, they simply donā€™t work with some tracks/sounds for me. My general observation is this excels with lower volume tracks that have a lot of quiet pieces moving at once, or energetic tracks that ā€œbounceā€. The placement of background elements and panning effects is so chewy and easy to get lost in on tracks that it gels with, even tracks it doesnā€™t work with can still have tasty backgrounds that show me things I hadnā€™t thought to look for before.

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If not too much trouble, how does does the latest mod sound with the hybrid pads (apart from less bass, which seems to be a given)?

Iā€™m particularly interested in tonality (ā€œnaturalnessā€), soundstage (depth, separation and layering).

Thanks in advance.

Dropping my pair here if any one is interested, $300 shipped, comes with an XLR terminated cable as well



So from what Iā€™ve been able to tell, what it does is it seems to stop the ringing/resonance they had a bit of and the bass feel is drastically improved. I suspect its because the bass wasnā€™t translating into the cups at all to begin with and you werenā€™t getting any feel out of it and the ringing seemed like a result of the driver not being very solid and the resonance was coming through the cups and being a little exaggerated. Now it translates right through the cups into the pads. Bass is noticeably elevated but more than that you feel it in your skull. Overall frequency response isnā€™t changed a whole lot but it added a noticeable amount of texture and feel. Itā€™s hard to put into words and after all the a/b testing I did with my second unmodded pair, the difference was night and day.

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Also I will add that the bass feel you get after the felt tape really helps with making the sound more natural. Itā€™s a solid improvement.

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I thought you liked them?

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i do, im selling to pay stuff off, trying to buy a house in the next couple, prolly putting my Hemps up as well, i just have too much right now

Hi, Iā€™m interested. Not sure how you go about such things. Only ever buy things from retailers. I am in the UK. My son loves mine and I said Iā€™d buy him a pair if a set came up at a reasonable price.

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Hi Dave, so, Iā€™ve never shipped anything outside of the US, so you have any experience with that? Iā€™ll try to find a way to look up what shipping might be