[Xtrem]

First of all, I would like to introduce myself a bit, just to make sure you won't think I'm just a child, who's found something he doesn't even care about.



In my chldhood I didn't have any chance to share audiophile activities with my grandfather, this because he died in 2000 and I've only got to know him in 97'-98'. Even though it might sound like I had no time to share any interest or passion with him, I actually tend to focus on the same activities. He was a very calm and cold man, who loved quality over quantity on everything he would buy. From photography to informatics, all he bought had to be the best he could afford and, for this same reason, I've found myself with objects I don't even know where he got the money for.



Almost 10 years ago, my grandma used to play the piano a lot and her annoying neighbours would ask her to stop every time. For this reason she needed to use headphones on a new electronic piano. She used to complain all the time because the headphones she was using were broken so she replaced them with some chinese low-end panasonics.

However, the broken headphones were the Yamaha's YH-1000.



I didn't know of any big difference between different pairs of heaphones back then, and I couldn't really test these since they have a 3,5 mm jack (as a kid I found that really aknward), so I didn't really care about them.

As years have passed, I started to create my own interest over music and music quality, which got me to be an audiophile very soon. For this reason I began to listen to my grandfather's jazz vynils collection (he also was a jazz drummer), started to take drum lessons, got into producing music, buit/bought my own home hi-fi, etc.

Few months ago, I remembered about these headphones my grandma didn't use anymore and asked her why.

She told me she could hear from just one side and that one was completely detatched from the frame, not to mention she didn't have any idea of where to find the headphones.

Fortunately, she still held them in the same place.

Unfortunately, she was right about the defects.

The problem is she doesn't care as much as my grandfather did, so when the headphones fell she didn't bring them for any repairment, so I decided to try my luck and fix them.

Although I managed to fix the non working driver's issue and they both work now (as I'm currently using them), I am still unhappy on the condition of these beautiful headphones. This because the "maid" who cleans my grandmother's house every once in a while, trashed both earpads and also made the plastic junction that holds the drivers to the frame disappear. 2 big losses in 1 small sweep, GREAT!

I unfortunately can't take any pictures at the moment (that because I'd need to take them completely apart), but I will post them afterwards, however I found some pictures of some YH-1000s which have the same issue and a picture showing the plastic junction that holds the drivers (one is from a YH-1).











 


So, after all this chit chat I'm asking you, head-fi's community, to help me with any idea on how to fix this or advice on where/how to get replacement parts.

I am sorry for writing so much and for my bad English, although I'm pretty sure that more passionate head-fiers are reading the end of this right now.



PS: if anyone is interested then no, I'm not going to sell these, sorry.



Edit: this guy right here has a thread on a refurbished pair, although I find no help from his thread rather than the pictures and the fact he used one of Yamaha's HP-1 junctions to replace the HP-1000's.



Thanks in advance, have a nice day!

 

[leeperry]

nice find 

 
you may wanna ask in the ortho thread.

 

[Xtrem]

I had a look at that thread before posting this, but did not think about asking directly on it. Thanks!

 

 

[Kabeer]

Hello Xtrem, im assuming im "that guy" . 
Great find on a HP-1000, iv wanted to hear a pair to see if it was at all different to a YH-1000, but doubt ill get the chance. Are you located in Japan?
 
As for the repair, can you tell us how you managed to get the non-working driver to produce sound please?
 
Now im assuming the only problem left is the broken strut (the joint you posted my photos of)?
 
If you could show me photos of the broken parts i can hopefully give you some repair ideas based on my experience with YH-1000 struts.
 
regards

 

[dBel84]

The biggest problem with these headphones is the drivers that stop working, you have managed to repair this portion of the problem and thus most of the battle is won. The strut repair is no minor task as a change internally can impact on the damping and sound of the headphone which is something that should be kept as original as possible. 
 
Kabeer did a great repair on his strut, iirc there is a "how to" posted in the massive thread. 
 
..dB

 

[Xtrem]

Oops my bad, I've swapped the YH with HP. I actually own the YH model.
I've been looking up the internet to find the name because I couldn't remember it properly (just typed in yamaha orthodynamic 1000 on google). That because I still had these at my grandma's and couldn't check while I was writing the thread. Too bad I did not check which model I had before posting this, although they should be completely the same.

Shame on me! 

Anyhow, the problem is the broken strut indeed but I still have the part which has to be inserted into the driver's shell.
Here are the pictures.



1. You can clearly see I've tried to melt the missing part onto what's left of the strut. It did hold a bit, but the weight of these drivers is crazy and it broke immediately the first time I put them on my desk. 

 

2. This is the driver I fixed. The only thing I did was removing the cables, blowing little air onto the driver with a small pump (the ones used to clean photo cameras) and rewiring with a solder. Don't know why it worked to be honest, it was a big surprise.
 

3. Isolation. You can see it's not in its perfect conditions, that because you need to move it away to actually remove the strut (pretty obvious) and I did it a couple times when trying to repair them.
 

4. Mounted driver + casing. You can clearly see the corrosion done by just wearing the headphones: the cleaner area follows the shape of an ear and the other casing has the opposite (mirrored) corrosion. Even though I noticed this, I have not found any corrosion inside the casing/driver.
 

5. Free/lock system with the missing screw that should hold the strut.

For Kabeer: I live in Italy, and sorry for calling you "that guy", wanted to correct that but forgot about it afterwards. I was traveling and confused the hell out of everything. 

 

[Kabeer]

Hi Xtrem,
 
So you have lost the screw that holds the strut (in ur pic 5?). Id reccomend you find a replacement screw.  Screw specifications can be found in the service manual at the bottom of this page: http://wiki.faust3d.com/wiki/index.php?title=Yamaha_YH-1000
 
Its a shame you melted the broken strut halves together, as now a repair will be more difficult. Remove the strut joint from the cup (as you know you have to remove the damping first, be careful, and dont squash the damping with your fingers, use a tool like a thin screwdrive to carefully remove the damping and keep it aside). And then take the other half as well. 
Can you now post a photo of both halves of the broken strut together please? to see how bad the damage from melting is?
 
My reccomendation as long as the damageisnt too bad, is to still use the method i used. I cant actually find my post now. But it involved drilling a small tapped hole through both broken pieces, with a countersink  in the 'dish' side. And then putting a small thin screw through that to join them together, i also put superglue between the two broken pieces, but since you melted yours it wouldnt be a good fit, so maybe some kind of epoxy? and try and get it to match the normal repaired joint. Youd need to make sure the screw you use is not too long nor the hole you drill, as it shouldnt mess up the connection to the brass screw holder on the other end.
 
Alternatively if you have enough enough skilll, you can even drill through the brass holder and run one long screw through.

You just have to make sure that on the 'dish' end, that nothing inteferes with the 'socket' jointnature of it, so it can still work smoothly as a ball and socket joint in conjuction with the metal cup. And then drill through and make sure the middle is strengthened with a piece of metal (i used a tapped hole with a screw in bolt, but you can even just use any thin metal pole, and fill the gaps with glue).