[Steve Dave]

Hello,

Sorry if this is the wrong forum, not sure if it's just for complete DIY builds.

I've got a pair of Honeywell Howard Leight Stereo Sync headphones which are basically noise protection earmuffs with 40mm drivers in them.
They're ok for audiobooks and podcasts which I like the isolation for but listening to music on them makes me angry.
I need to replace the faulty 3.5mm jack socket and thought may as well put in some slightly better drivers while I'm in there.

Having spent a bit of time looking into 40mm drivers I'm unsure whether take a chance on a low end wool or titanium diaphragm pair ($10-$15) or just go with an even cheaper more common type.
Would wool or titanium be overkill for my needs?
Not looking for anything too high quality, I bought some Soundcore Q30s a few months ago and find them satisfactory as all rounders so something at that level of sound.
Would be very grateful for any advise and recommendations?

Thanks

 

[559060]

Also interested. Following

 

[Steve Dave]

I realise that for most people here they're not going to put cheap drivers in their passion projects so perhaps not that many with hands on experience of the lower end of the market.
Personally, I bought a new soldering iron and workstation last summer and have only used it once so have been looking for reasons to play with it.

At the price I'm looking at I don't mind taking a chance and buying blind but I would still like to narrow it down a bit on diaphragm material if possible.
With the sealed nature of the headphones I should imagine moisture is a factor over extended listening sessions.
Could anyone please tell me if this would effect the wool or silk diaphragm drivers more than the titanium or graphene?

Thanks.

 

[DeweyCH]

There’s not really an overkill factor on diaphragm material so much as different timbres. Are you going to stick with a similar impedance? You shouldn’t have to worry about moisture. The diaphragm itself is exposed to ambient humidity in the front, including if you sweat while listening.

I’m not a big fan of titanium drivers, personally. I’ve tested a wool one that was ok, and for my own projects I ended up liking beryllium the best, but it’s a question of what timbre you want. Beryllium in my experience is super neutral with the occasional threat to start sounding a touch metallic. Wool is a little more organic and warm with a touch more bass. Same with biocellulose.

Honestly I don’t think you can go wrong with whatever you choose, but what’s right for you might require you getting a couple options and comparing them.

You’ll also want to make sure the mounting system will jive with them. How do the stock drivers adhere to the baffle?

 

[Steve Dave]

Thank you so much, that's exactly the kind of info I was hoping for.
Will help me avoid making any howling mistakes.
The beryllium drivers sound like they'd be worth trying first and yeah the baffles are designed to take very thin drivers so I may well have to mod them a bit.

Thanks again, really appreciate it.

 

[DeweyCH]

Thank you so much, that's exactly the kind of info I was hoping for.
Will help me avoid making any howling mistakes.
The beryllium drivers sound like they'd be worth trying first and yeah the baffles are designed to take very thin drivers so I may well have to mod them a bit.

Thanks again, really appreciate it.

Given that you're going from a sound that legitimately makes you angry, you may want to do some experiments with damping first. Even cheap-o drivers can sound decent to pretty good if you tune them well. I know exactly nothing about the Honeywells you have, but I'd be willing to bet when you crack them open the cups are just untreated plastic and they reverberate like crazy.

Try getting some Dynamat and some adhesive foam to minimize the echo chamber, and maybe some non-drying modeling clay to add mass to the baffle. Look for your basic mods for a T50rp and try them out.

Then you'll be in a better place to determine if you need better drivers to begin with. Without any tuning/treatment, my fear is that you'll spend some time and money on drivers and then be pissed that they still sound like butt.

 

[Steve Dave]

Thanks yet again Dewey, more very useful advice.
I wasn't being totally serious about them making me angry, slightly annoyed may be more accurate.

Actually the cups are filled with moulded rubberised foam, no real open spaces.

Your posts have given me confidence to experiment, cheers.

No reviews but will probably roll the dice on one of the bellow 40mm beryllium drivers;
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003960324978.html (part beryllium part graphene?)
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003993873229.html

These connectors look pretty much the same as the original.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000640677390.html

If this repair goes well I might give another old broken set I have a try with one of these.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002372449832.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002372497066.html

I doubt anyone is going to try the same thing with the Honeywell Howard Leight Stereo Sync headphones but here's some pics just in case they're of some use to someone.

 

[DeweyCH]

I’m suspicious of any headphones with resistors in them… as far as the connectors, you don’t need new ones, just desolder the wires from them and solder on new wires from the new drivers.

ETA: you can get the hot glue off with a heat gun. With the new drivers, I wouldn't replicate the setup with those two resistors. I'm not sure what the purpose of them is on this build, but the jack looks to be a standard 3.5mm, which I always connect directly to the drivers. For an initial test, you may try taking the resistors off and soldering the wires directly onto the pads. Blue on the left outside (in your picture) and black on the right outside. You can also fiddle with things like putting adhesive felt or little rubber adhesive nubs onto some of the holes in the driver surround (the ones covered up right now by white paper).

ETA2: I'm guessing the resistors are to try and replicate a higher-resistance driver. What is the stated impedance on these cans?

ETA3: Totally glossed over your saying that one of the jacks is jacked. Any standard 3.5mm female jack should do fine. Amazon has some that are cheap and reliable, so long as you don't hold the iron on them too long as you're soldering, and I've started using Switchcraft jacks from Digikey. No sense in waiting on Aliexpress shipping.

 

[Steve Dave]

I’m suspicious of any headphones with resistors in them… as far as the connectors, you don’t need new ones, just desolder the wires from them and solder on new wires from the new drivers.

Yeah, I guess it's down to them being noise protecting in nature, no point in protecting your hearing from external noise if you're just going to blast music into your ears at dangerous levels.

The jack socket is actually faulty and needs replacing, that's what stirred me to attempt this in the first place.
Why do a simple job when you can overcomplicate it.

 

[DeweyCH]

Yeah, I guess it's down to them being noise protecting in nature, no point in protecting your hearing from external noise if you're just going to blast music into your ears at dangerous levels.

The jack socket is actually faulty and needs replacing, that's what stirred me to attempt this in the first place.
Why do a simple job when you can overcomplicate it.

Yeah, I realized that after I posted (see the edits... all like twelve of them). And what's the fun of this hobby if you can't overcomplicate the bejeezus out of everything, right?

 

[AudioCats]

try some low-end grado drivers, ( iGrado, eGrado, SR60/80 )
I put some into my bose QC2's, and use them often as computer phones.
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/bose-quietcomfort-headphones-mods-conversions.889538/#post-14500253

e/iGrados are around $50 on ebay.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1624988162...Iw9jKXnsV0pwkv8YzLrfo3hrknE=|tkp:BFBMtJjC359g

 

[Steve Dave]

I’m suspicious of any headphones with resistors in them… as far as the connectors, you don’t need new ones, just desolder the wires from them and solder on new wires from the new drivers.

ETA: you can get the hot glue off with a heat gun. With the new drivers, I wouldn't replicate the setup with those two resistors. I'm not sure what the purpose of them is on this build, but the jack looks to be a standard 3.5mm, which I always connect directly to the drivers. For an initial test, you may try taking the resistors off and soldering the wires directly onto the pads. Blue on the left outside (in your picture) and black on the right outside. You can also fiddle with things like putting adhesive felt or little rubber adhesive nubs onto some of the holes in the driver surround (the ones covered up right now by white paper).

ETA2: I'm guessing the resistors are to try and replicate a higher-resistance driver. What is the stated impedance on these cans?

ETA3: Totally glossed over your saying that one of the jacks is jacked. Any standard 3.5mm female jack should do fine. Amazon has some that are cheap and reliable, so long as you don't hold the iron on them too long as you're soldering, and I've started using Switchcraft jacks from Digikey. No sense in waiting on Aliexpress shipping.

Sorry, replied before I saw your edits.

I will indeed remove those resistors and I think I have some thin rubber strips that I could cut up to block some of the holes to see what it does to the sound.

My multimeter is out on loan at the moment but from searching on the Honeywell site it might be 20.24OHMS, if 'input impedance' is the same as just impedance.

Seriously, thank you for all the advice.

 

[Steve Dave]

try some low-end grado drivers, ( iGrado, eGrado, SR60/80 )
I put some into my bose QC2's, and use them often as computer phones.
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/bose-quietcomfort-headphones-mods-conversions.889538/#post-14500253

e/iGrados are around $50 on ebay.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/162498816283?hash=item25d5af291b:g:QdcAAOSwvbdZANmr&amdata=enc:AQAHAAAA0MNATYMzYm2a2OmXf25Cza0KnhZiXZTnj9Hc2Yvb7RqPTT6dtx+SU5Z55mv7gSjqC7ip5sZiHCBT8vbOVL5QDZivT0q57kfWK3Vi2WpQiMtT82WE44jcVwSXYdXCp93xasbJsxwA/Ea7A4Dax8Ut9Hvs+evGd13OX7zn2Tia0xijvBS/bKixymkQJ4VTUmOwC/8kiXpo9K6m6ky3scIR9iXzJaeK5vGkdkS0pRI60YLNtWd9qaIT5u+g+Z6VIw9jKXnsV0pwkv8YzLrfo3hrknE=|tkp:BFBMtJjC359g

Thanks for the suggestion.
If I was going to use these to listen to music regularly those drivers look like an ideal upgrade but to be honest I'm just looking for something a wee bit better than they are now.... and cheap.

 

[DeweyCH]

Sorry, replied before I saw your edits.

I will indeed remove those resistors and I think I have some thin rubber strips that I could cut up to block some of the holes to see what it does to the sound.

My multimeter is out on loan at the moment but from searching on the Honeywell site it might be 20.24OHMS, if 'input impedance' is the same as just impedance.

Seriously, thank you for all the advice.

Yeah, it should be the same. That's super super low... funny to me that the Honeywell site doesn't seem to list impedance or sensitivity. I guess because they're ear protection first and foremost. If the resistors are green-blue-black-gold-brown (looks like) then that'd be two 56 ohm resistors. If those are technically in parallel (I'm not much of an EE... they might not be parallel, I certainly don't know) then they'd be giving you 28 ohms of impedance.

I may or may not be talking out of my ass here, though... circuit design is not something I'm really at all knowledgeable on.

 

[AudioCats]

Thanks for the suggestion.
If I was going to use these to listen to music regularly those drivers look like an ideal upgrade but to be honest I'm just looking for something a wee bit better than they are now.... and cheap.

grado drivers have great mids, especially good for listening to audiobooks. Well worth the upgrade cost.



judging from the photos, larger drivers can be mounted behind the baffle (hot glue), it doesn't have to be the exact same size as stock driver.

Koss SportaPro drivers have 44mm OD at the flange, main body is 40mm; ~$20
https://www.amazon.com/Koss-155475-...eywords=koss+sporta+pro&qid=1653756839&sr=8-2

Koss KTXPRO1 is the same size, and about the same price.
https://www.amazon.com/Koss-KTXPRO1...653756915&sprefix=koss+ktxpro1,aps,282&sr=8-1

Sporta and KTX both have 60 ohm drivers, basically the same except the diaphragm, Sporta diaphragm is non-coated, KTX is titanium-coated. Resolution/detail level is about the same, the KTX sound is a bit more bright/energetic, but can (more easily) lead to listening fatigue. Sporta is more easy-listening.

overall, the i/eGrado driver has the best price/performance ratio.