It looks like this low-end Sennheiser HD speaker has the same internals as it’s better-brother but has been altered to reduce sound quality. It’s not uncommon for manufacturers to hobble a product in order to sell more units at a lower price that reflects less features. Linksys WRT54G routers immediately come to mind, or perhaps the more recent Rigol 100 MHz oscilloscope hack is a better example.
In this case, that black piece of foam on the left has been added to the 555 version of the hardware to decrease the sound quality you get from the much more expensive 595 model. Take it out and you’ve got an upgrade that would have cost you more than a hundred bucks. Don’t think this is the only difference? There is a bit of a difference in case design, but [Mike Beauchamp] also found that if you acquire a replacement driver for either model you’ll get the same part.
second post after reading everything…
firstly, everyone who wrote seance or likewise… it’s “sense”!
secondly, foam is put into Bose speakers to “improve” the quality… check it out, it’s true.
If you look at the 555’s and 595’s side by side, you will see that they have different housings. Any audiophile will tell you that the enclosure makes almost as big a difference as the driver.
I’m willing to bet that the pad is there to dampen the sound, while it is not present in the 595’s because they have better sound dampening properties built in.
While I like the hack, the price difference seems slightly exaggerated: the 555 costs €100, while the 595 is available for about €120 (The Netherlands). And while I can find a couple of Canadian web shops that sell the 595 for CA$300 or more, there’s at least one Canadian site that shows a US$ price of $140 (at Allshopping, which directs to Amazon). So I’m not sure what we’re hacking here: the headphone, or Canadian customs?
I thought it worth noting that Sennheiser claims that the 595 has < 0.1% THD, whereas the 555 is stated as being < 0.2%. Also, the 595 is claimed to have a larger frequency response range, 12-38500Hz rather than 15-2800Hz.
Also interesting is that the 555 is marketed as having this feature: "Surround reflector improves spatial sound characteristics." I assume this is actually a reference to the foam pad that is removed in this hack. The only other differences in the 595's features are: "Highest-grade components for outstanding acoustic performance," "Special diaphragm geometry reduces intermodulation distortion," "Highly constant, compressed cellulose fleece reduces total
harmonic distortion," and "Headphone holder included – ideal for easy shelf and table mounting
(horizontal & vertical)."
The only difference between the two is really the inclusion of a headphone holder with the 595, and the "surround reflector" on the 555. The diaphragm mentioned in the two differing features are clearly the same, given what we know about the replacement part. And the highest-grade components can be attributed to the leather and aesthetic materials (as we know the diaphragm and shell are clearly the same).
@Garbz
This is quality assurance. What I was talking about was testing for better/worse parts and physically sorting them. The mythical burn-in testing that never happens.
Dont bother telling “audiophiles” that they are overpaying. In Audio world Price is the only true metric of quality. There will always be people convinced something sounds better because its in a big shiny expensive box. For reference just google “Wadia Transport WT3200” or $1000 wooden knobs.
You can show people pictures side by side and they will STILL argue that the cushions are different, that metal mesh changes sound characteristics :D that the CABLE is not the magic Oxygen Free burned-in with White Noise twisted at specific angle wonder!
This is exactly the kind of crap Nikon does to its cameras and Sony does to its products. Its why I won’t buy them. There are other companies with better product that don’t artificially cripple products.
I would be far less pissed that companies go out of their way to add extra crippling and/or locks to prevent their products from doing something they can already normally do, if they didn’t also go out of their way to try and criminalize hacking or repurposing products once they are purchased.
Using criminal prosecution to enforce consumers use of products in only specific ways the manufacturer wishes cannot ever be justified by even the staunchest corporate apologist.
It’s sad that our social ethics are so malfunctioning in so many ways. And parts of that are not On Topic here past perhaps observing as a Hacking vector :>
The foam in the Headphone bit is in a category of Hack I’d term Design re-evaluation for modifications. And as such – it’s damned good work.
What I’d like to see is the ETHICS change for the better. Everything “should” be better in performance, lower in all cost factors and generally the best we can do. Not enslaved by corruptions such as deceit and obscene profiteering or planned crappiness as sabotaged, built to NOT last objects.
@rasz….
I work in industry… We burn in. We bin parts. In fact, my last manufacturing trip overseas was partly to tune our burn in process and fixtures. Quite a bit of literature exits on burn in process, cost effectiveness, efficacy, etc. Calling it “mythical” means you’re either not in industry or you’re not someone I’d want on my team.
—–
There seems to be a little confusion, generally speaking, about the difference between feature quality and build quality. The build quality (materials, fit, finish, etc.) is no doubt the same (or very similar) on both products whereas the feature quality on the 555’s is apparently attenuated.
That said, this is an incredibly low sample size. As someone else pointed out, a future batch may have found the foam to not be worth the cost and it may have been removed from the SOP (standard operating procedure).
Lastly – it’s impossible to avoid buying from a manufacture that limits features… If one factory doesn’t do it on their line – they no doubt use equipment on the line built in a factory that does this practice.
I skimmed through all the comments and I don’t believe this was mentioned… Isn’t it clear that the cheap model is obviously the one priced more appropriately, when thinking about cost of production? But I guess everyone will excuse it with free market, supply and demand etc. etc..
Anyway great hack. At least it’s possible for those who read it to get the product at the right price.
Headphones have stagnated since the hey day of the HD 414’s. I never know what to get to upgrade, vs getting new spaghetti wiring on restyled drivers from years ago. Headphone models shouldn’t change much should they?
Doesn’t this just reveal to consumers that companies are ripping them off despite what products they buy from them?
I know we pay hundreds more for game consoles than it costs to manufacture, license, and distribute them. Same for Intel and AMD chips and cellphones, which manufacture in countries with less laws and freight in to other countries..
I don’t think there is need to complain, I actually believe the opposite. If we work out what’s crippled we can get a better product for lower price. Worst case scenario you get what you paid for.
@ mass_producer
I also worked in the industry (LCD TV factory was the last big one) and we simply discarded full boards with tens of dollars worth of chips on them if they didnt pass the final test. They ended up going to china for recycling instead of being reworked. Too expensive to pay someone skilled to do it in Europe.
> We burn in. We bin parts.
Not COTS market then, or very small batches.
There be trolls,
and the “terrible” A word is not to be found.
HaD editors: for these sorts of stories, could you add a tag ‘uncripple’ or ‘upgrade’? It would be great to be able to search for this type of info before purchasing something.
As for the ethics/economics of this practice: If a lower end product has 99% the same production cost as the high end product, then a rival manufacturer should be able to sell the high-end, uncrippled product for anywhere between just below the high-end price to only slightly more than the low end.
Additionally, in a perfectly competitive market (which, of course, we don’t have), this lower priced rival manufacturer would get all the business, and the price of the high-end product would settle at just above the crippled’s.
I posit: if everyone were a hacker, and knew of all the upgrade tricks, crippled products would be unsustainable, and companies would only be selling high-end product, at a price somewhere between the current high & low end (depending on how the demand curves work out. the supply curve is pretty much unchanged, companies are just able to charge a surplus because of consumer ignorance)
This assumes, of course, that one has a competitive market, with informed, upgrade-hack-aware customers, that advertising & perception don’t hold too much sway, and that laws don’t prevent upgrade hacks. All of these are untrue in reality, to varying extents.
I just purchased these headphones and really like them. Before I start pretending to know more than the manufacturer and assume that this foam is here for marketing/sales techniques rather than technical reasons and yank it out, can someone provide actual technical data to support these theories?
I can’t buy in to internet beliefs without technical data to support them and neither should you.
@xorpunk ‘I know we pay hundreds more for game consoles than it costs to manufacture’ – Uh I don’t think so. Most are sold at cost or at a loss with the intention of making money on the sale of games. That’s why so many people built server farms from PS3’s; because the hardware is sold at a loss. You get more for your money than buying the equivalent hardware in a PC style.
@Digital
To a manufacturer, crippling a product makes sense if it makes cents.
I’ve owned 555’s for ages, as well as using friends 595’s/600’s on occasion, I can assure you that removing the padding does not sound anything like the 595’s. I’m sure that’s more down to the case design. Admittedly it’s most likely still the same internals, but before you go crying about being the poor consumer consider that often these products are sold at a reasonable price due to the economies of scale gained by quality-binning and slight changes like this.
After all, you don’t see other non-enthusiast-only brands offering full replacement parts, disassembly guides and repair FAQ’s freely accessible online.
This mod has always irritated me — for example, the 580, 600 and 650 use the same part number, but not the same driver. The best drivers are picked and matched for the 650s, where as the 600 have lower quality control and no matching.
So yeah, the piece of foam isn’t gimping the headphones, and will limit back reflections from affecting the sound.
Another example is that their CX300 are made by a Chinese contractor and use generic parts — this is part of the reason why there are so many fakes, and exactly the reason there are so many near-identical headphones by other manufacturers — however, the Senns have different quality control and sound different.
As for the replacement drivers? Yeah, there’s a bunch of reasons why you would package them as being for more than one model. It’s not like you can match them to the existing driver, so I guess they compromise.
Actually, if memory serves me correctly, the 580 and 600 were around at the same time, with the 600 drivers being matched to within 1dB & the 580 drivers matched to within 3dB.
The 650 was released much later and the drivers are possibly revised.
@Stevie
>>That’s why so many people built server
>>farms from PS3′s;
Never seen one, past research projects… I very much doubt there are many data centers out there running racks of PS3’s. Getting them racked would be a pain in the arse. They have limited connectivity, memory, no LOM, dubious hardware reliability.. where do you get spares?
And aside from very specific code what advantages do they have over generic Dell x86/amd64 boxes? Except that Dell can ship spare parts and complete machines same day, offer support, actually support loading your OS of choice on the hardware etc… combine that with the fact that you aren’t personally paying for the hardware and probably want save yourself the massive headache of trying to mount non-standard hardware in standard racks etc.
I have seen some weird things in data centers.. like a micro-country’s complete phone system running out of what looked like boards in cardboard boxes.. but if you think there are lots (read: any) production environments running PS3’s you are deluded…
@Thread
Whats wrong with the WRT54? It wasn’t crippled.. it did it’s job. You could do more with custom firmware granted.. but its not like they shipped a lower end model with the CPU down clocked or half of the memory disabled.
@cantido: http://www.reghardware.com/2008/02/28/ps3s_put_to_use_simulating_blackholes/
I bought a Samsung TV earlier this year, the model was advertised as 720p and had a big brother model for 1080p for a few hundred more. Lo and behold, as someone had pointed out, the 720p model was actually 1080p. I tested this with several devices and it outputs at true 1080p. So they didn’t even cripple that product, just changed a label and assumed no one would notice.
@cantido
Very specific code comes with very specific advantages for the types of situations where a PS3 cluster is usable.
Our university built one. It served it’s purpose quite well. Throw on a linux cluster distro and you have a scalable supercomputer optimised for parallel linear transforms typical of hardware designed for graphics processing. Sure it won’t make any difference to you and me but for simulating physics there are many users.
They do rack quite nicely:
http://windows7themes.net/pics/ps-3-server-cluster.jpg
The Computational Biochemistry and Biophysics Lab in Barcelona runs one according to wikipedia.
The USAF run a 336unit 53TFlop cluster:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/05/how-removing-ps3-linux-hurts-the-air-force.ars
@uky
16 PS3’s on shelves in a rack in a room somewhere is hardly a data center full of machines is it? Unless 1 PS3 with its massive 256MB of system memory is worth like 100 $150 refurbished 1U dual socket boxes with 4GB of system memory for “server farms”. People here seem to think there are massive clusters of PS3’s out there in the wild or something. Yes some people did HPC on the cheap with them 3 years ago.. no Google isn’t running on a cluster of PS3s.
I’ve got an SH4 board on my desk running Debian with Lighttpd.. can I say that I have a farm of SH4 boxes?
http://www.imgbin.org/index.php?page=image&id=3420
@ uky
Thats impossible. 720p models ship with different panel. Scaler will accept 1080p signal, but downsample it. You are probably one of those people that dont see the difference between HD and SD.
@cantido
I haven’t seen anyone at all suggest that there are data centers full of PS3’s or massive clusters. Simply that numerous people/organisations used them to build server farms/clusters. A small server farm, yes, but one none the less.
16 PS3s with the IBMs cell chip is equivalent of a 400-node supercomputer. I’d say that’s a reasonable cluster.
@Stevie
>>I haven’t seen anyone at all suggest
>>that there are data centers full
That’s why so many people built server farms from PS3′s;
Posted at 10:02 am on Feb 13th, 2011 by Stevie
.
.
.
So what you actually meant was “A few people doing scientific research gathered up some PS3s in the same room and attached network cables and a switch”.
And here I was thinking a server farm was a “farm of machines serving stuff” but apparently if I own a single cat or dog I have a “farm”. ;)
I do wonder though.. if the Cell processor is so great why does no one except Sony want to actually fab the things? Amdahl’s law is a bitch for anything but a very small set of problems eh?
This is a VERY standard practice.
Difference between Sennheiser HD580 and HD600, $100 and just nicer screens on the outside. ALMOST EXACTLY THE SAME IN EVERY OTHER WAY.
Difference between Audio-Technica ESW9 and ES7, wood cups and leather earpads and $150-200. Same Drivers and cup size!
Difference between Sony CD3000 and CD1000, crippling foam discs and extra foam everywhere with removable cups on the CD3000 – $200 difference when new. SAME EXACT DRIVERS!
Point is that this is a VERY common practice, especially in the audio world where the difference between higher end amps is literally bigger/better caps on the power supply.
Consumerism is a B^tch!
I’ve made the mod and I don’t like it.
Yes, more base, but the response seems unpleasant. The base used to be more clear before. Although there wasn’t such a low frequency response, it was clearer.
I prefer clearer base to stronger one. It is why i built some VTP speakers and gave up my BR.
@CuntIdo: You don’t consider 300+ machines as a server farm/cluster? – http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/05/how-removing-ps3-linux-hurts-the-air-force.ars
This is great. Now someone set up a site that logs purposefully crippled devices and how to uncripple them.
Yes, people do *LOVE* urban legends and conspiracy theories…
@Stevie
>>@CuntIdo
I like that! Pat on the back for you old sir!
>>You don’t consider 300+ machines
>>as a server farm/cluster? –
That’s a number crunching cluster. Maybe 5 such clusters of PS3’s having existed in the world does not equate to lots of people. HPC != Server Farm.
I guess there are more x86/amd64 boxes plus Nvidia GPU boxes out there in the HPC world now anyhow…
Still you have to chuckle at the fact that the US Airforce itself couldn’t source the Cell chips it wanted from IBM and had to import chips fabbed by Toshiba (Note, there is zero market for the Cell outside of the PS3, hence Toshiba has sold/is selling its portion of line pumping out Cell chips to Sony).
A “server” serves something i.e. files,.. which is very different from niche distributed number crunching applications. Having spent a few months packaging projects to be deployed on “one of the most visited sites on the intawebs” I can personally tell you that the closest thing to a PS3 running in that massive “server farm” was some old PPC Mac hardware that was there for legacy reasons and the build machines refused to build anything for them. I can also tell you that a single X86 box with enough memory can serve a lot of video.. I ran a server running a youtube like site for a major consumer electronics manufacturer.. you would wet your pants if you saw how much that machine was “serving”. And it cost .. 49 euro for the month it was running. So you can keep your PS3 cluster kthxbye.
@rasz
So you’re applying your experience with LCDs in European to speakers? Despite the high level differences, I feel there’s some fundamental difference between analog and digital here…
If you sent to China for recycling – do doubt it ended up (at least partially) at places like segem and then in other products. Effectively, you’re outsourcing your binning process to China. Maybe it was your modules I saw being hawked in SEG last year :)
Binned components are not for COTS on their own. But when you make more than one FG, it’s easier to cost down with binning ;) Especially analog components (speakers, for example) that do not have a binary pass/fail.
It might be small scale compared to a Tier I facility – but it’s also not a small quantity (we’re investigating other facilities as ours can’t handle more than 100K/mo). This is also manufacturing in China.. Binning processing does not need skilled labor (much less skilled European labor).
Insert component into fixture -> press button -> read screen -> place into bin screen tells you
Lastly, in binning – one of the bins is for rejects :p I didn’t say rework was part of the process :p
What a good way to rip someone off, polish a turd slap a bigger sticker on it
on a more positive note, and equally off-topic… after hacking the canon 400d/xti firmware, you find that there were additional features, but they were not implemented because the results simply didnt live up to canon standards. even though the three digit model name indicates it is solely conssumer/prosumer grade, they were -not- going to put their name on a substandard product, theyd rather eat the development cost for the unused features and simply disable them.
sometimes it works both ways.
This process in crippling high end models is quite normal. It happens everywhere and all the time.
Why does this happen? Companies don’t settle with inferior products. Think about it for a moment here.
If you’re making an audio device, you will always do it at the best of your capabilities – there’s no point in cutting corners since you weill produce items that are not competitive.
If the high-end and the low-end share most of the aspects like code, most of the hardware and speakers – the only way you can make the low-end model (so consumers have a choice) is to use lower end parts (not always possible) or somehow cripple it with foam.
They spent a lot of money to make a high-end item and they’re pulling some of the funds in by varying the items on the market.
This is completely NORMAL.