What Are Headphone Filters?

Have you ever purchased headphones and found yourself unsatisfied with the way they sound? Even if you purchased the new, high-end flagship headphones from your favorite manufacturer for thousands of dollars, you may still find some problems with them. And these problems will often stem from personal preference. Not everyone has the same ears or perception of sound, which is the reason why stock headphones have a tough time satisfying everybody.

However, this is where headphone modding comes in, specifically using headphone filters to tune headphones the way you want them to sound. Previously, we’ve discussed replacing your earpads and cables, and how this can improve the quality of your listening experience. However, in this post, we will be discussing how applying filters to your headphones can improve the quality of your favorite stock headphones and how you can apply them.

If you’d like to watch a video on this topic, you can check out our Dekoni U video where we discuss headphone filters and how this can affect your listening experience.

What Are Headphone Filters?

Before we jump in, here’s a quick anecdote about filters to give you guys a better understanding of what they are. 

There was a studio engineer who had the Legendary Yamaha NS10 speakers set up at his recording desk. At the time they weren’t legendary. The engineer wondered why his speakers didn’t sound great and noted the harsh high-frequency content when playing music. 

So, he grabbed a piece of tissue paper, put it over the tweeter, and thus the legend was born. He noticed that his tissue paper was able to attenuate the sound of his speakers so that they were able to deliver his perfect sound. 

But what does the word attenuate mean? Attenuation is simply reducing or altering the value or effect of something. Much like how walls can greatly alter and reduce the intensity of sound. If you’ve ever listened to someone speaking in a separate room, you’ll notice a muffled version of their voice. This is because the wall between you and the other person attenuates the sound you hear. This is essentially the purpose of filters. 

Now, we understand that the short anecdote we just told you relates to speakers and not headphones. But filters can easily be applied to headphones as well.

Not only can filters reduce the amount of dust or debris that gets caught up in your sound tube or driver, but they can also attenuate certain frequencies of your headphones to the way you prefer. Different filters have different types of acoustic impedance, which can reduce the velocity of the sound. This reduced velocity of the sound inside your headphones effectively acts as dampening. Depending on the type of material or where the filter is placed, it can be used to increase or decrease extension, boost the bass, and shape the midrange or reduce treble peaks.

Headphone filters are made with a variety of different materials. Some of the most common materials include specific types of paper, woven polyester meshes, woven metal meshes, and foam. Here, at Dekoni Audio, we offer headphone filters within our attenuation kit, which comes with filters that are made of a variety of foams with different densities. 

Some manufacturers make their headphones or true wireless in-ears with filters inside them to change the sound signature of the headphones. Some also ship their headphones with different types of filters included in the packaging. A notable manufacturer is Dan Clark, who includes different acoustic filters with their headphones in order to give customers the ability to attenuate and make the headphones sound the way they want them to sound.

If you’re someone who’s interested in playing around with the sound signature or if you’d like to improve the sound quality of your headphones, don’t be afraid to test out different filters that offer different acoustic effects to your headphones. There’s an array of different materials used in filters that can attenuate and potentially modify your headphone listening experience for the better. 

How Do You Apply Filters?

Before we get into applying the filters into your headphones, make sure you watch our videos on how to change pads for your model, to ensure you don’t damage your earcups, pads or headphones when removing the pads. Never put direct pressure on the driver of your headphones, especially when exposed.

Applying filters to your headphones is a very simple process. Once you’ve found the filter of your choosing or if you’d like to play around with different materials, there are two quick and easy ways to apply the filters to your headphones. 

The first way to do it is by removing the earpad off of the earcup. Then make sure your filter is sized correctly according to your driver. Then insert the filter and re-attach your earpad to the earcup. 

If you notice that your earpad is more difficult to remove or is adhered to the headphone itself, you can simply insert the filter inside the earpad. 

Either one of the methods for applying filters to headphones can work, just make sure that the filter fits properly inside your headphone.

Once you’ve got the process down for inserting and replacing filters, feel free to experiment with different materials until you’re able to find the sound that works best for you.   

Conclusion

Hopefully, you were able to gain a better understanding of headphone filters and how they can affect the quality of your listening experience. If you’re interested in modifying your favorite pair of cans instead of purchasing new ones, applying filters can be a great way to help your headphone produce the sound you’re looking for. 

It’s also a very quick, easy, and cheap modification that can give you great results. Don’t be afraid to try modding your headphones with filters. Great quality sound has always been subjective. There are no right or wrong answers for what makes the perfect sounding headphone — this will depend entirely on your ears and your taste. 

If you’d like to experiment or improve the sound of your headphones, check out our attenuation kit, which includes four different densities of foam to offer a wide variety of tuning options. Our foam generally targets the high-frequency range, reducing the highest frequencies and essentially “softening” or reducing the “brightness” of your headphones.

You can also experiment with our high-quality Dekoni earpads. Our customers have stated that our earpads have helped attenuate the harsh 8k frequency range, which we normally attribute to our dust cover built into some of our earpads. For all of our other high-quality headphone accessories that are sure to upgrade your listening experience, head on over to Dekoniaudio.com.