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<article>
  <h2>{{ .Title }}</h2>
  <p>As mentioned in my post about <a href="#202410251">my new SR60is</a>, I made plans to fix up my old pair of worn out SR60s. Thanks to the low cost of Chinese manufacturing and AliExpress, I got all my replacement and upgrade parts for ~$10 including the cable.
  <figure>
    <img src="/static/media/Custom_SR60/SR60_Custom.jpg" alt="Original Grado SR60 headphones with Aliexpress drivers, detachable cables, and custom 3D printed driver housings." width="1000" height="750" />
    <figcaption>Finished SR60 modification.</figcaption>
  </figure>
  <p>The new drivers I bought were 40mm, smaller than the stock Grado 44mm, so I needed spacers or whole new cups for the drivers to mount in. Since I planed to do a removable cable mod, I opted to design and 3D print new cups based off of the original.</p>
  <figure>
    <img src="/static/media/Custom_SR60/SR60_Custom_Open_Driver.jpg" alt="40mm aftermarket driver installed into custom 3D printed housing." width="1000" height="1000" />
    <figcaption>Driver installed in new housing.</figcaption>
  </figure>
  <p>The process was relatively smooth. I had to make a few revisions to the original file to accomodate for the solder ball that forms on the 2.5mm jack ground pin and the wire that wraps from the voice coil around the front to the rear of the driver. When modeling, I built to exact dimensions which did not account for plastic shrinkage. I found that scaling up the model by 1% in the slicer was enough to hit the target dimensions. Since shrinkage rates are different between plastics, I am debating whether to incorporate this scale change into the original model or just enlarge the file at the slicer level.</p>
  <figure>
    <img src="/static/media/Custom_SR60/SR60_Complete_Driver-top.jpg" alt="3D printed custom housing mated to original Grado ear cup." width="1000" height="1000" />
    <img src="/static/media/Custom_SR60/SR60_Complete_Driver-bottom.jpg" alt="Bottom of custom housing featuring the original hole pattern from the original SR60." width="1000" height="1000" />
    <figcaption>Final driver assembly.</figcaption>
  </figure>
  <p>I was lucky that the 2.5mm jack fit perfectly into the existing cable hole , so no extra modifcation was needed other than separating the original cup and housing, and it sit almost perfectly flush with the outer surface.</p>
  <h3>Listening Impressions</h3>
  <p>Bad. Very bad... at first.</p>
  <p>The 1-2kHz frequencies were very pronounced, muddying the sound (I don't actually know proper audio terms, so bear with me if I misuse a word). Luckily, after some EQ I was able to get it closer to something that was relatively enjoyable to listen to.</p>
  <figure>
    <img src="/static/media/Custom_SR60/EQ.jpg" alt="EQ profile for aftermarket 40mm in my custom SR60 headphones. Modifications as follows: +3db 30Hz, +1db 62Hz, n/a 125db, n/a 250db, -1db 500Hz, -4db 1kHz, -3db 2kHz, +3db 4kHz, +4db 8kHz, +4db 16kHz." width="1000" height="562" />
    <figcaption>EQ profile to remedy some issues.</figcaption>
  </figure>
  <p>After the EQ, they sound much better. Pretty pleasant actually. Enough that it's gotten my back into listening to music, which is good because that was the point of the project. I was trying to mimic the sound of my SR60is with their own EQ profile. I don't think this matches it. I have to do some more back-to-back, but these have their own sound. If anyone ends up trying this and aren't trying to mimic the Grado house style, definitely feel free to ignore the sharp raise of the high frequencies. Lowering the 1-2kHz frequencies significantly is the main thing that needs to happen to make these drivers listenable.</p>
  <p>My next steps are to figure out some hardware mods I can do to get them sounding closer to my EQ. EQ is cool, but when you want to cycle through different headphones with their own EQs, remembering where the sliders are and changing them each time is a bit annoying. Also, the cheap split 2.5mm cable I got starts to short when you touch the connectors at the headphones, so I'll need to get or make a new cable, or modify the existing one.</p>
  <p>For now, though, I'm pretty happy with the results, and these are gonig to be my main pair of headphones away from my desktop and on the go.</p>
  <p><b>Created:</b> {{ .Date }}</p>
</article>
{{ end }}