[Carl Pearce]

Hi,

I've got a set of Sony MDR-Z7s and hadn't used them for a while. I plugged them in recently and noticed that although audio was playing through both channels the right didn't appear to have any, if little, bass.

I took them off and listened from the port opening on the lower section of the cup and there was a lot less volume coming from the right side.

I removed the driver from the cup and couldn't see anything obvious so put it back together and the issue was still present.

I decided to play a 60hz test tone through the headphones at moderate volume, whilst wearing them, and all of a sudden the right side came back to life after a disconcerting 'pop'.

They have been fine since doing this but wondered what could have caused it? Could the driver have been stuck due to a dust build up?

Anyone else experience this phenomenon?

Thanks,

Carl.

 

[obobskivich]

FWIW, I've never seen a speaker or headphone do this, but some amplifiers with bad pots (or other maladies) may have channels suddenly "come on" if you run the level up enough to heat them up or move some lube around the pot or whatever (and sometimes when it isn't "working right" it is still putting out some sound). Alternatively some amplifiers just have pots that don't track well at low levels but don't completely cut off the audio output, so you get very unbalanced sound until you cross a certain point. Most drivers on headphones aren't really designed for significant excursion, but even on speaker drivers, the construction doesn't really let them work like those little rubber pop-up toys.