Hello 13 cats,  Just peel off very gently the ear-pads ( they are glued to the baffle ) , and you will find 5 screws under a layer of "sticky stuff" ( glue ) . I suggest protecting the glue from dust and re-assembling the headphones only after all the modifications are complete ( I also...

First you need to spray a primer ( after a thorough degrease of the parts - with alcohol - ). Look for a primer specifically made for plastics or at least an "universal" one. In my experience chrome paint ( the procedure you mentioned in correct , by the way ) should only be applied in a...

After some "googling" I came to the conclusion that balanced amps are used only in high frequency applications ( microwave band ) , the only thing similar, as far as audio signals are concerned, is the impedance balanced line used for connecting  microphones to preamps or mixers or connecting...

What exactly do you mean by "balanced amplifier"? LM386 is not an opamp , it's a power amp and it is pretty much limited to what you can find in the data sheet ( a notable variation being the headbanger amp ).

Since you use the cmoy with a source that can drive ( poorly ) 32 ohm headphones it's possible to use even lower values for the pot ( like 1k or 4.7k ) , values higher than 10k are useful only if the source requires it . Commercial amps usually have an input impedance of around 50k because it's...

Most likely dried-up electrolytic capacitors ( given the age of the amp and the symptoms ). It would be a good idea to change all of them ( most electrolytic caps don't last more then 10-20 years ) , it's a pretty big job but well worth-it ( I did it with my Sanyo DCA20 and I could't be happier...

Nice work! It will probably last longer than any headphones you will ever own .

Finished yesterday : cmoy in a old PC ( Siemens ) PSU "improved" with wooden face and sides ( stained and oiled ) . Inside standard cmoy ( 6 gain , 10k pot , 0.47uF Wima input caps,  +/- 12 volts stabilized power supply ) ; for now it has a njm(jrc)4556 but it's socketed and I ordered...

As vintage as they get: circa 1940's 2000ohm ( each ) headphones - made in France , it says Pival on the headband(s) . Got them at the flea-market , cleaned them , re-cabled ( I kept the original plug ) I still use them on my crystal radios .

1) No idea  , just remove all the screws ( if any ) and make sure you don't force anything . 2) Try a paint stripper ( look for one that can be used on plastic ) and if sanding is necessary  use 600 grit minimum ( any coarser and it will leave deep grooves in the plastic ) and finish with 1200...

Nice work woodzwork , you may want to make a "conventional" one too ( you seem to have the necessary skills ) just in case you re-arrange the furniture  .

If you use good quality components ( including wires, switches, power supply etc. ) on a well designed PCB  and a good enclosure ( preferably steel or at least aluminum for EMI shielding ) you can even outclass commercial HI-FI equipment ( don't take my word for it , go to www.diyaudio.com and...

Nice find tdockweiler . From my experience in speakers  building I know that the type and quality of an speaker enclosure is as important as the driver ( a good quality speaker in poorly designed an/or build enclosure will sound bad most of the times ), so even if the drivers are almost...

Since the receiver works ok with spdif it means the power amps are ok but you might have a problem with the analogue input stages ( a preamp after the source selector or a muting circuit ). 

Nope , it's a "headbanger" =  2 x LM386N ( not quite as good as a cmoy but with some care in the construction it comes close ). I had a cmoy but I gave it to a good friend for his birthday a few weeks ago and I'll probably build another one soon , but first I want to do a Grado RA1 clone.

Thanks, it's the "natural" color for the backplate ( it's some sort of old plastic similar to bakelite ). The AGK77's don't sound very good in their "raw" state ( the enclosures are pretty thin plastic and you can hear that , same with the baffles ) but with these mods...

Headbanger variant :  9volt stabilized mains power supply , gain reduced to about 10 ( 15 K resistor in the feedback loop ) , 2 inputs , added 22 ohms in series with the output. It's stable at any load , no hum , no hiss and souns GREAT! . From the front:

I wanted for sometime now to make a headphone selector and a couple a days ago i finally got around to it ( in another words I managed somehow to drag my fat ass to the work-desk  ) and when I started to look for options for an enclosure I realized there is a lot of unused "real-estate" on the...

40mm

After repairing the cable on the K77's a friend gave me ( it was broken a couple a mm before the plug so I just replaced the plug ) I decided I have to do something about the sound ( they sounded like all entry-level AKG's : plastiky , to much highs , some sibilance , an overall crappy sound )...

P.S. you might want to give this a try before starting shopping for a new card : http://support.creative.com/kb/ShowArticle.aspx?sid=26162

Creative cards are notorious for their problematic drivers ; the problem you describe is quite common , but it usually appears with internal soundcards ( poor PCI transfer with certain chipsets ). If you have the latest drivers for your card ( and motherboard chipset ) there nothing much to do...

A couple a weeks ago a friend gave me a pair of fairly new  AKG K77 ( he managed to brake the cable and decided he wanted an "upgrade" anyway so he bought a pair of Sennheiser 555 ). Yesterday evening I finally decided to replace the cable on the AKG's and when I opened the up the driver looked...

Only if you manage to re-solder the voice coil wires to the solder plate ( and that is possible if you de-soldered them prior to removing the plate from the driver ) . If those wires broke when you "looked beneath the soldering" I don't see a solution ( those wires are very thin - 0.1 mm or less...

yes