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DIY Headphones?

post #1 of 28
3/6/11 at 10:48am
Thread Starter 

In the course of my little DIY headphone project, I ran into a few walls, and I'd be grateful for a few clarifications. I was looking for headphone drivers, but I dont know which to choose because they all had different power ratings. Does anyone know the power output of an ipod touch is and the average power rating on headphones are? I'm just curios because I've seen some posts that say ipods put out 30mW per channel, but some drivers need 2-3 W to drive them. 

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post #2 of 28
3/6/11 at 11:43am

3W drivers are probably from some DJ headphones. And headphones would be very, very loud when close to maximum rating. Closed back need probably less power to drive them.


Edited by akgfan - 3/6/11 at 11:44am
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post #3 of 28
3/6/11 at 12:28pm

Yea, where are you sourcing your drivers from? I'd say purchase a pair of drivers as repair/replacement from a manufacturer or dealer and put them in a cheap, beater-type housing. Vintage headphones can be had for cheap off eBay and you might be able to find replacement drivers for Sony, AKG, Sennheiser, Grado, etc. I like the Sony CD series of headphones to use as foster phones, but to each their own.

 

What are you trying to accomplish?

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post #4 of 28
3/6/11 at 2:18pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by khbaur330162 View Post

Yea, where are you sourcing your drivers from? I'd say purchase a pair of drivers as repair/replacement from a manufacturer or dealer and put them in a cheap, beater-type housing. Vintage headphones can be had for cheap off eBay and you might be able to find replacement drivers for Sony, AKG, Sennheiser, Grado, etc. I like the Sony CD series of headphones to use as foster phones, but to each their own.

 

What are you trying to accomplish?

 

http://products.cui.com/categoryproducts.asp?brand=electronic-components&catky=638744&subcatky1=600170

These are the drivers I was looking at. They're nice and cheep and good for prototyping normal_smile%20.gif. I'm just trying to see if building my own headphones was viable since I dont really want to pay alot for a good pair. And cuz i like tinkering :P. I was thinking of just buying drivers and putting them in a homemade wooden casing. 
 

 

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post #5 of 28
3/6/11 at 3:11pm

You haven't seen its datasheet, have you? You'd better buy some broken pair of headphones.

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post #6 of 28
3/6/11 at 10:04pm
Thread Starter 

Why's that?

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post #7 of 28
3/6/11 at 10:18pm

those look like loudspeakers, not headphone drivers to me

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post #8 of 28
3/7/11 at 8:00pm
Thread Starter 

Oh :/ 

http://products.cui.com/adtemplate.asp?invky=6746&brand=electronic-components&catky=638744&subcatky1=174649&subcatky2=&subcatky3=

 

How about these then? They dont have the other ones in stock anyhow. 

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post #9 of 28
3/8/11 at 1:37am

No way. Search for headphone drivers.

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post #10 of 28
3/8/11 at 1:48am

Get these and dig around in the ortho thread for some guidance.  I haven't tried those drivers myself but they are (or at least were) pretty popular.


Edited by maverickronin - 3/8/11 at 1:51am
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post #11 of 28
3/8/11 at 4:26am

Yup. I recently made two pairs of headphones to give to friends using SFI tweeters and they both love their pair. I used an Audio Technica ATH-2 housing and a Sony MDR-CD380 housing. Both sounded great for how much it cost me to make them. Great knock around/beater cans to use on the go.

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post #12 of 28
3/8/11 at 6:29pm
Thread Starter 

Ah ok. Thanks for the advice. The SFI's are shipping. Lotsa people seem happy with those. Time to read up some more about them

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post #13 of 28
3/9/11 at 3:00am

I don't get it, I'm lost here. These tweeters don't go bellow 200Hz well. How they can be good for headphones? I'd rather buy K701 drivers or broken pair. confused_face_2.gif

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post #14 of 28
3/9/11 at 8:01am


 

Quote:
Originally Posted by akgfan View Post

I don't get it, I'm lost here. These tweeters don't go bellow 200Hz well. How they can be good for headphones? I'd rather buy K701 drivers or broken pair. confused_face_2.gif



That's in a speaker application. Once you damp the rear (assuming the drivers you bought are bi-pole, which, hopefully they are) and get your eardrums right next to the drivers inside a nice, cramped, well sealed ear chamber you can get very low and visceral tones with these drivers. You'd be surprised. Even in the CD380 housing which sacrifices some bass for sound stage the SFI's had very nice bass response driven by a laptop or DAP. Good clarity/definition as well as adequate volume. Max bass ala something like the ATH-2 is probably the more favorable for most portable solutions, imo, but the CD380's would be a great choice for beginners. K701's are like $200 while a nice pair of SFI-foster phones ran me around $50. Hell of a deal.

 

PandasRpro: Look around the forum/ortho thread and anything you can't find answered just report back to here, we'll help you out.


Edited by khbaur330162 - 3/9/11 at 8:05am
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post #15 of 28
3/9/11 at 6:07pm
Thread Starter 

Waiting in anticipation for them to ship :D. In the meantime, im looking for some good cable. Anyone know a good supplier? 

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