They look absolutely beautiful!
Thanks they certainly are!
Just some insight to the cup design from Mark - I'm sure he wont mind me sharing his thoughts on my question... How did you decide on the size of the cups??? to which he replied.. (that I agree with completely)
"Myself, I feel one can only obtain just so much info from measurements, the real test is listening.
Rather than just making a copy of the original cups, we wanted to make as many improvements as possible to the design.
Cups serve a purpose, acting as a combination of speaker cabinet and body of a musical instrument.
If you treat them seriously this way, you can get a lot more out of the headphone itself.
We are on the second generation of our cups, original versions (2008-2011) were also deeper than stock cups and were an excellent upgrade.
Ultimately, with some very sophisticated new equipment providing almost total control, we were able to do everything we ever wanted in terms of perfecting the shape inside and out, getting wall thicknesses to taper just right, etc.
Development of the current generation was extended, many forms/shapes were tried before we reached the shape you now see.
I may be in minority, but I genuinely prefer closed to open headphones, all other things being equal.
But the catch always is reduction of soundstage size and a bit of a reverberant “sea shell” effect.
Bigger cups with correct internal volume and shape really help push the soundstage out.
We use a small piece of acoustic foam inside the cups which helps prevent some of the internal reflections which also helps the enclosure disappear a bit.
Customers are constantly surprised at what a difference cups can make.
Enjoy!
Mark Lawton"