What Is Wrong With The Stock AH-D5000?
Initially, when I got the Denon D5000, I was pretty disappointed with it. As has been well documented, it has this flabby almost flatulent bass response that can sound like a giant farting sound or like a woopie cushion deflating into your eardrum. The bass response is nothing short of obnoxious and guaranteed to give you a bass headache within 5 minutes of putting them on your head. In addition, the over-sized bass intrudes heavily into the lower midrange, muddying the sound considerably.
This overwhelming bass force causes the whole flimsy assembly of these headphones vibrate, shake, rattle and roll all over your skull. One thing no amount of mods will fix is the disappointing build quality of these $450 headphones. When you take them apart during this mod, you will see for yourself what I mean.
On the positive side, you can afford 8 AH-D5000s for the cost of one Sony R10.
I myself plan to eventually own 2 of them, an "heir and a spare", as the English say, just in case.
Another major problem with the D5000 is the ultra-thin cushions within the ear pads which insure that the drivers are practically sitting right on top of your ear drums. This made them somewhat obnoxious and overblown, creating a "wall of sound", where everything comes at you at once. You want to duck behind your comfy chair to get away. Also, one thing the Sony R10 and the JVC-DX1000 (two of the soundstaging champs of all time, IMO) have taught me, is that one of the keys to obtaining a proper soundstage is to simply move the driver away from the ear. Both those cans have a lot of space between your ears and the driver, and this allows the soundstage to expand left and right and lends the image a sense of depth and layering. Moving the driver away can also reduce the feeling of air being pushed against the ear drum which tends to localize the sound inside the ear cups. With a driver so close, it's constantly calling unnecessary attention to itself by pumping and vibrating. It can spoil the illusion of a soundstage outside your head, always reminding you that you are actually listening to two tiny speakers strapped to your ears.
Nevertheless, I could still hear there was an incredible amount of potential in these cans. It occurred to me that the main source of the issues was not the D5000’s drivers, but rather the flimsy and borderline pathetic construction of the rest of the headphone. There is no damping of vibration whatsoever. If you could start to eliminate the added vibrations, you could go a long way toward correcting the problem. Hmmmmm…
Advantages Of This Mod Over Stock:
--Remarkable tightening of bass response, to the point it actually sounds coherent and no longer intrudes into the rest of the sound.
--The tightening of bass allows the previously recessed mids and highs to bloom a little more, improving resolution, and restoring balance to the frequency response. But don't panic! You lose none of the Denon's remarkable bass depth, it will still plumb the nether regions like no other phone. You are only removing the extra false resonances of the assembly and ear cups. This is not real bass information.
--Removal of most of the vibration in the assembly, which yields a much less “farty” bass sound and less blurry image. Your mind's eye is now free to wander the soundstage/headstage as your brain is not being reminded of the twin little drivers vibrating away on your skull. No more bass headaches!
--Midrange allowed to bloom and come forward with the lower midrange no longer muddied by overwhelming bass.
--Thanks to the mods to the pads, you get a bigger soundstage left-to-right and up and down, plus signicantly greater soundstage depth.
--Partial closure of the gap in the center of the image.
--Blacker background.
--Slightly improved isolation.
I myself plan to eventually own 2 of them, an "heir and a spare", as the English say, just in case.
