This is not a review of new technology, but rather a comment on how impressed I am with an older product. I purchased these headphones in 2001, for about $70, if memory serves. I don’t think you can find them new anymore, but Sennheiser should offer a comparable product today. I used them rather heavily when I was living with roommates. When I got married (and around the same time, switched to my own office at work), they languished and were mostly used during travel until I broke down and purchased Bose noise-canceling headphones in 2005. Anyway, the Sennheisers have made a comeback since I switched to a cubicle environment at work. They have very comfortable pads that allow hours of use without fatigue. And of course, they sound truly excellent. Recently, though, I noticed the right channel would occasionally fade out when I repositioned the headphones. Not good. I thought I’d crack it open and just see what I could do… Best case, I thought, would be borrowing a soldering iron from the lab and doing a quick repair, if the wire was frayed near the contact with the driver. Worst case was a kink that was too far away from the driver to spot-fix.
It took me about ten minutes of fiddling with the casing to open it without damaging it, but my persistence was rewarded. There was no solder point at the driver. Instead, I was amazed to see that the wire was connected via jumper. For those who have never worked in electronics or inside a computer, a jumper is a plastic sleeve around the copper contact. Two copper prongs slide into the jumper, much like an electrical plug in a wall socket. In the case of my headphones, heavy use had caused the jumper to slip off the prongs over time. I just slid that puppy back down firmly, snapped the phones back together, and viola—he is clean: perfect sound once again.
This may seem like a rather archaic detail to you, but I was very impressed. A spot-soldered connection would be much cheaper to manufacture than a jumper, perhaps by several cents. A few pennies on every unit shipped is a big deal, more so because it is a detail unlikely to be noted by the customer. Gotta love that German engineering!
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ReplyDeleteThank you. I've had a broken pair for years. I fixed mine using your instructions.
ReplyDeleteHow did you prise apart the speaker case? My Sennheiser 280s seem to be one piece.theres a thin crack between the back and foam earsurround but it wont come apart. What holds the Sennhiesers back shell to the foam surround?
ReplyDeleteBob,
ReplyDeleteThe HD570's have a plastic dome-like cover that attaches to the main headphone casing. I am not familiar with the 280's so I do not know if they have a separate cover piece. The 570's cover is held by four plastic tabs. I inserted a thin piece of metal (actually, it was one of those slot covers used in desktop computers for unused PCI slots) between the casing and the cover and wiggled it slightly to pop the cover.
Mine stopped working, and with your help I was able to fix it within 20min. Thanks for posting this!
ReplyDeleteIf anyone has trouble opening up the casing use a small 2mm flat head and pry open the casing on the broken side. You'll need to pop open the egg shaped plastic piece on the back of the non-working head, this can only be done after popping up the plastic piece surrounding the egg shaped piece.
Hope these additions to the instructions help. If anyone comes across this and wants a youtube video showing you how to do it, reply to me or email me and I'll post one up.