I have an old pair of headphones that I love. They don’t sound good but they use an aux jack as the input cord. This means that I have been able to use these as a headset for making calls. While I have a bluetooth headset, they always seem to run out of battery when I need them. There’s something relaxing about the reliability of a cord.
But they sound terrible.
So I opened the casing, measured the drivers (1-1/2″) and ordered replacements. Today I popped out the old ones, popped in the new ones and now have some of the best-sounding headphones I’ve ever used.
If you want to see audio stats these drivers, check out homebrew headphones. He designed a pair of headphones to be 3D printed that use these drivers. Someday I intend to build his design, but for now my 3D printer doesn’t have a large enough build volume. So instead I applied his experience to upgrading my old pair.
The only strange thing about the upgraded headphones is that I have to turn up the volume for the same sound. I am guessing that the drivers I replaced were a lower impedance. These are 32 ohms and sound wonderful, once I turn up the volume.
I definitely need to build the homebrew ones! I didn’t see how awesome they are until now…
You definitely should! The only thing I would change on the homebrew design would be to figure out how to use an aux cord as the input jack–that’s so useful. It would mean figuring out how to pass the audio through the headband for the other side, but that might not be difficult.
Yeah, I am not currently talented enough to CAD that up but practice makes imperfect skills!