micro usb costs less, and this is likely intended for split keyboard that can easily emulate mouse buttons. Ploopy has a number of USB-C options and products with buttons.

Haha, yes! I agree. It's a super cute trackball, and really useful if you're in need of only a ball (like on a split keyboard)!

Hey Daisy, thanks so much! I'll look into some projects I can create PCBs for and reach out to you when I've got a chunk of time between videos :)

?

Indeed, the lack of click is a bit of a deal breaker.

@@NFSSAMThere are ones with buttons available too, on their website and on their github.

Hi! The purpose of this mouse is actually geared towards going next to/in between your keyboard (ideally one with QMK) so you can program the mouse buttons as keyboard presses. I use it either alongside my BastardKB Scylla (split ergo keyboard) or on top of my Svalboard (integrated directly on it) and it works wonderfully! I'll be releasing a video soon of a more compact trackball that has 5 buttons (called Ploopy Mini Trackball), so stay tuned for that. I agree that it seems nice to have extra buttons on this mouse, but to do that would involve a larger footprint, and make this much less compact.

​@@NFSSAMHi! The purpose of this mouse is actually geared towards going next to/in between your keyboard (ideally one with QMK) so you can program the mouse buttons as keyboard presses. I use it either alongside my BastardKB Scylla (split ergo keyboard) or on top of my Svalboard (integrated directly on it) and it works wonderfully! I'll be releasing a video soon of a more compact trackball that has 5 buttons (called Ploopy Mini Trackball), so stay tuned for that. I agree that it seems nice to have extra buttons on this mouse, but to do that would involve a larger footprint, and make this much less compact.

@beepbuildsathing I figured something like that was the reason. And It's perfectly sound reasoning. However, I just find this form factor hugely more attractive than a Ploopy Adept If there were instructions on how to wire up your own momentary switch to the board I could modify the chassis and be on my way. As it is now, it looks like my only option is to create an entire new chassis for an Adept track ball print-it-yourself kit. Not unfeasible, but a higher hurdle to jump over. Thank you for taking the time to read and reply to my comment

Hi Tomekichi! I don't have the technical know-how to explain why there's only magnets on one side, but I bet you can get an answer in the Ploopy Discord (or on Reddit!). I'd say the audio quality you get from these far exceeds most ~$100-150 CAD Headphones I've tried, and they're also open-source and infinitely repairable, so there's that to consider as well (not to mention you're saving $120 CAD to assemble them yourself vs the preassembled ones!) I haven't tried those Fostex headphones you've referenced, but the cheapest I can find them is around $230 CAD on Amazon, which is around the same price as preassembled Ploopy Headphones, and over $100 more than the DIY Ploopy Kit - did you buy them on sale or something? Either way they look like pretty interesting headphones with a lot of great design features :D Can you explain to me how the T20RP's are DIY-able? Can you build them from a kit as well? Or do you mean replacing parts/modding them after purchase? I've got a set of Sennheiser HD 25-1 II Headphones that have a lot of user-replaceable parts, which was one of my reasons for buying them also. Love when companies factor in the ability to extend the lifespan of their products through user-replaceable parts! <3 Have a nice day! :)

not an audio engineer or anything but from your description it sounds like it's a matter of polarization. These magnets are sitting sideways, so the side facing the coil/driver actually has BOTH the positive and negative poles on it. In contrast if you had them facing inwards only one side would be exposed. (you might be able to alternate them, which would create a similar effect, but I imagine the "resolution" of pole-flips plays some part in this so wider-pole-flips sound worse for some reason) If I'm right and it is a matter of polarization then I'd bet that the reason why these are different is that they're not "planar" (at least I don't think so, again, not an audiophile or audio engineer) but rather use the foam as a flexible membrane like normal drivers. Larger "true" planar headphones that have a flat sheet that vibrates without flexing (which I believe is what makes planar magnetic headphones different) would need equal-force across the plane or it would rotate, flex, etc. during travel, so instead of an alternating pattern they would likely want several points of "support" from the magnets to avoid putting... I *_think_* the technical term would be torsion, on the membrane. So if you had a sheet of paper with the edges fixed-in-place a normal driver (which again is how these appear to operate despite sharing some characteristics with a planar) then you'd make noise by pushing in on the center of the paper, like we see here. But if you had a sheet of paper that wasn't fixed at the edges, but was laying inside of a box so that it could move up and down but not side-to-side and you wanted to make noise with it you couldn't just push on it's center, you would want to lift it from several points so that it stays flat and doesn't bend or try to rotate under it's own weight/inertia. addendum : I did a tiny bit of extra digging just to sanity check this before I post something I *_entirely_* pulled out of my ass, and I think I'm ~80% right, but there could be some minor bits that are wrong based on my mental image of the headphones you're talking about. I was right that these are sort of acting like a weird hybrid between planars and dynamic drivers, and "true" planar magnetics do have two seperate magnetic planes, but I can't say for certain if my exact reasoning is right since I'm not a practicing audiophile and don't have much reference on their precise construction so am mostly relying on mental-models here.

It's just a build guide for those who want to see how it's put together. Nowhere do I mention or promise anything about a conclusion or sound test - not to mention the firmware was not in a great state when I built these (September 2023), so a sound test would not have sounded as it would today. They've made a LOT of firmware improvements since I recorded this video and overall I'd say they're a nice sounding set of open-back headphones, especially for the price they're asking. You are also now able to set up a custom EQ profile in their standalone software (github.com/ploopyco/headphones-toolbox/releases/tag/app-v0.0.5), not to mention tweak other things in there to your tastes. I may do a review and sound test in a later video, but the purpose of this video (as the title mentions) is a detailed build guide only. If you'd like you're more than welcome to make a video build guide in exactly the way you expect others to do so, but as someone who has several other jobs, has started a very small youtube channel, and not enough time in the day, this is the best I can do for those that are searching for a guide on how to assemble these headphones. Don't get me wrong - I appreciate the criticism and will try to improve future videos, but please try not to compare someone with 2 videos to full-time content creators with hundreds (if not thousands) of videos, a dedicated recording space, most likely an editing team, and all the time in the world to make perfect videos.

@@beepbuildsathing Hi Dave sorry I wasn't trying to upset you just found your video shall we say unfinished. if you were the one watching your video instead of making it knowing nothing about these headphones are you saying what they actually sound like is not important to you ? For me and I expect a lot of others what they sound like is probably the most important bit of information when talking about headphones after all your not building them simply to look at. I appreciate that its really difficult to record how headphones actually sound without the right equipment so perhaps a description would have been sufficient to at least let your viewers know if these are even worth getting. Maybe making some comparisons to other headphones as a reference are they as good as or better than. Also pointing out what is their strengths or weaknesses. For example what is the bass response like, how good is the soundstage, what genres of music do they do best with are they good with heavy rock or acoustic guitar music ect. Only reason I made the comment to start with is than a conclusion about what you have built is almost universally done in every other build video so it was surprising by its absense here, the video itself is a good video just seems unfinished.

@@gges1605 Hey, I definitely understand what you mean. I will take your criticism to improve future vids, but unfortunately not much I can do about this one, short of creating a separate video (which I may do in the future). To be perfectly transparent, at the time I built these the audio quality was heavily hamstrung by the firmware so it was in a pretty rough shape compared to today - was distorting beyond certain volumes, which I found difficult to review or compare. At this point with all of the updates and the headphones toolbox Ploopy/the community has put out I'd compare it to a higher quality set of open backed headphones. Unfortunately my experience is almost entirely with close backed headphones so I don't have any headphones I've owned to compare it to. Initially it sounded like the headphone creators underestimated the loudness others expected from a pair of headphones which is why the firmware wasn't ideal, but they get pretty loud now and you can hear a great deal of detail across the frequency ranges. I appreciate your honesty, and will work on making more complete videos for y'all.

In hindsight I'd say my video dramatizes the volume of the trackball a little bit as the mic volume is louder than what you'd hear at your desk/your coworker's desks, and pointed directly at the mouse. The switches on my keyboard are fairly silent (Boba U4 switches), and they also much more audible in this video vs irl. That being said, I don't have a static friction-based trackball to compare it to and you are definitely correct to say the Ploopy bearings are louder than any static friction trackball. They also feel really nice to use, so there's that (not to mention the possibility to do a BTU mod, which apparently feels even nicer but is also louder, heh). I'm sure though many people use Ploopy mice in office environments with no issues. I work from a home office so don't have coworkers to ask about the noise. As a final thought, I am hoping to try a similar mod to my trackballs that I've done to my Scylla keyboard, which is to fill the shell with some scrap neoprene I have to reduce the 'empty' sound it has when first built. Should improve the sound of it by a decent chunk as well. Enjoy your Elecom! :)

Hi. I think Ploopy did not intend for these to be used with other amplifiers, only their own. You can plug it in to any amp (or no amp, but it's much too quiet then) and test it out yourself using the 3.5mm y splitter that's included with the headphones.

github.com/ploopyco/headphones/wiki/Appendix-F:-Frequency-response-graph-interpretation Here's all the information for the frequency response of the headphones. Enjoy!

Here are the STL files: github.com/ploopyco/headphones/tree/master/hardware/mechanicals/STLs

Took about a week, but I'm located in Canada (as is Ploopy). Best way to get an idea for your particular location is to email them directly.

@@beepbuildsathing i asked on reddit😂

Hey Theo! I'm using a standard USB A to B cable (aka a printer cable). Hope that helps.

@@beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep very helpful thank you!

Thanks B! Glad you enjoyed it.

Others might have some suggestions that could help on the Ploopy subreddit. Have you tried pushing the bearing dowels in with something like needle nose pliers on both sides? I had one bearing that was stuck out (at an angle slightly), and louder. I had to push pretty hard to get it in as flush as the others.

Good question. None planned at the moment as lots on the go irl! Hopefully this fall I can get my hands on some more projects to make videos about.

btw, new video out a while ago (more to come soon!) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/d8qel9uay7nDemg.html

Happy to! Was a fun project and hopefully I can make some more for future builds.

Hi HauntdUmami! Nice name. I'm liking it so far for browsing/general use. Can't use it for gaming (yet) as I prefer to use a lower sensitivity (currently still 600dpi) in order to have enough precision for highlighting text and clicking links, etc. This means there's a lot of flicking the ball and catching it, which I tried briefly in a couple first person games and it was uncomfortable/kinda seasick-y - I would have to use a higher DPI for gaming and my precision would suffer I'm guessing. Still using my G400s for gaming which works great for me. Sometimes I still have trouble with very small actions even with the lower DPI Ploopy but I think it's just a matter of getting used to it. I definitely feel the weight of the ball more with using a lower DPI but I don't think I could make it work with usable precision at the default DPI of 1600 yet. Overall I enjoy it and use it daily. I may try a higher DPI as I grow more accustomed to it. Built the Dactyl (Scylla from BastardKB) myself using a kit - similar to this Ploopy actually, but a lot more soldering as there's diodes and switches which adds up! I'd say slightly more soldering experience would be helpful for the Scylla build but I'd do one again if the situation arose or a friend wanted one. I recently swapped out the alpha switches on the Scylla from Boba U4's to Bobagums and am liking the silent linears more for every day typing as well as gaming. Kept the U4's on modifiers and thumb switches. Very happy with my current setup! If you have any more questions feel free to ask :)

Hey Sylvester, glad to hear it! I hope it proves helpful for you. You can also check out r/ploopy for more in-depth discussions if you're really stuck on something! Have fun! :)