superlux HD681 Design review. A look inside some cheap studio headphones 

Prior to my recent HE400se upgrade I used these as my main headphone for 3 years. I used a double layer of covid mask over the driver, rolled up cotton pads or cotton wool tucked in under the pads, and replaced the cable with a short portable Y cable. I also loosened the top screws in the headband to decrease the clamp force.

I used one of those to restore an AKG 240 Sextetts headband, all the parts fit perfectly

Great review, thanks. The Superlux HD-330 seem to be a DT-990 clone, maybe worth checking out.

Agree 100& - Someone left a pair of these in the studio and I was surprised at how 'good' they sound. With a bit of an experienced ear you could just about use them :) IF you could have a look and see if you can do anything to improve them that would be a great service to the community. Exactly as you say - smoothing the mids, reduce bass bloom, etc etc. Thanks for taking the time to do this. Maybe for a lot of people this might be their first headphone? Anyway, i think its well known and I certainly see some potential there thanks 😊

The Superlux Beyerdynamic clone parts are mostly compatible with genuine Beyer DT series parts. The only part that I think might be different is the headband forks, which I should shorter than the modern Beyerdynamic headband forks, since they are based on the earlier 90's versions.

love the pads on em; sound great on me Verum1's ✌🎧👍

Omg i would so happy to buy if you mod these ( i use hd668b with velour pads and tissue mod to reduce lower 4khz to 10khz, it tracks harman target 70 to 7khz perfectly)

I've seen these headphones before but this is the first time I've seen them be taken apart. These might be pretty decent headphones to mess around with some driver swaps, dampening and pad swaps with. Lots of decently cheap drivers available online that could make a huge difference in making something that sounds more premium, even if it'll still look and feel cheap.

good job Jason

The first thing I'd try is to make a 3-4mm hole in the paper membrane with a hot soldering tip. Making them "ported" would probably increase the bass. Also using pads with a layer of leather to increase the bass could work. If the 5000Hz or above is too hot the classic foam in front of the driver will be lowered to an acceptable level. I wonder what is the source of the 4000Hz suckout, I'm guessing a standing wave from a quarter wave distance inside the rear cup. If its a reflection from the back chamber plastic, a large open cell foam(blow through type) filling back chamber could help and fix these headphones. The axial thickness here is important since the distance makes the foam effective. A dense foam will reflect the treble back sooner making the treble response rougher so getting the right foam is important.

What headset do you recommend with a good driver?

I have the Superlux 668B and I was shocked at how good they were, compared to some other cheap headphones. I primarily used them for gaming and they've been replaced by the TYGR 300R.... but man, for the $50 is cost, they worked pretty well. lot of easy mods. even just a pad swap to some thicker pads made a big difference. It was nice to be able to do little random things while on a tight budget.

First headphones I bought was a non boxed samson sr850 for about 21 eur, which are almost identical to the hd681, same drivers, same headband, same pads, slightly different pattern on the rear side of the cup, the samson look a bit better than the hd681, anyway I bought the hd681 as they are very cheap and to compare both, they sound more apart than expected, that said very similar, both are bass light even on the uncomfortable donut pads. One remarkable detail on the drivers, the superlux h681's say superlux but the ones they sell for samson only have some logos, ridiculous attention to detail.

I use hd668b as daily i did many mods here is some of them tissue over the driver mod to reduse treble , tilting the driver mod is one of the easiest mods that improves sound quality, all you have to do is bend the metal headband to the angle of 15 degrees and it makes more natural, using more fluffy ,soft and fuzzy velour pads going to fix the treble peaks at 10khz and above, removable cable mod and Bluetooth mods are essential 😂 and hardest mod is changing the whole headband design to your comfort xd .

These are essentially the exact same as the AKG K240 from the seventies, with different drivers and no passive radiators. Interesting!

One of the first headphones i learnt to mod try adding 3mm wool felt over the driver and use Brainwavz XL hybrid pads works wonders...oh and toilet paper over the driver is another well talked about mod...

the hd681b-s are actually tuned different than the non b variant

Samson SR850s are a good alternative to these. Very similar, but to some peoples ears, a bit more premium.

I would definitely like to see the Beyerdynamic clone and how it compares. Seems Superlux nows what they are doing. Definitely having my eyes on their SM58 clone too. Kinda reminds me of my cheap Switch Pro controller clone. Sure it's a clone one. But I honestly gotta say that other than the original controller being much heavier. It pretty much is the same controller with the PCB, sticks, buttons, latency, connection, etc. And I'm happy to get a similar experience with the Switch Pro clone controller for $20 when compared to my brother's original. I'll really only ever want an original Switch Pro controller if I want to play professional Super Smash Bros or Mario Kart where every exact input needs to be near perfect down to nanoseconds within the limited hardware. So, I kinda wish Superlux. Same great products built a similar way with similar experiences to it's original cloned counterparts. I'm not a professional listener or tuner to headphones. I don't need to use a huge studio to make near perfect audio. Just something similar for my small budgeted studio to enjoy music, movies, and a game or two on my off days. Things like Superlux makes sense in it's niche market for me cause I would just like a similar experience is all. Like these teardowns and videos. There cool dude. 😁

There are 3 versions of this pair of headphones : 681 = bassy 681b = balanced 681f = flat (bass light) EDIT : IMO the best is the B version with red accent color instead on your grey one.

Hard to beat Superlux at the pricepoint they are at, only other cheap headphones I can think of are Koss.

Please try next time the Superlux HD660 Pro

Same driver as AKG K550, 555.

This is the "B" version. They don't sound as good as the standard HD681.

That's not the HD681, you got the wrong cans mate... That's the HD681 *B* (Which standas for "Balanced"), it's got more mids and less bass and less highs, there's also the HD681F (for "flat" which only got much less bass), those letters are not cosmetical variations, they truly care about the tuning despite being such cheap headphones. The HD681 are in fact known for being quite sub bass heavy, adequatly bassy, with flat mids with a slightly understated mid highs and a bizarrily loud extreme highs (it actually falls very close to the Harmann 2018 standard, mids and below, which is a bit too bassy for real pro headphones), these other models exist precisely to sound more like the AKG (which is a mistake imo) and "fix" these "issues" to me both the B and F sound much worse and decharacterize what is otherwise a really unique and good sounding pair of cans, specially for such a price.

I had *three* pair of these. First of I find them really uncomfortable. Second, each pair broke after about three months of use. In summary: You are better of buying some decent 100$ to 150$ Dollar Headphones.