Hello dear friends,
It's been a long time since I last posted here, but multiple requests from new and old PMx2 owners, regarding deteriorating headbands have finally made me come up with a fix. First, like everyone else, I tried to seek support from OPPO. Purchased my first replacement from them about a year ago and it worked out well enough. Second replacement I had to purchase was very recently and turned out to be a disaster. I was attaching a second ear cup to a headband and noticed how it already had started to deteriorate, right where pleather meets with plastic end cups.
I then had to contact OPPO customer service again for another replacement, but this time made them closely examine it for possible signs of deterioration before shipping. They did, but had to warn me that most likely new one will also be bad, since all of their stock was manufactured at about the same time years ago. Unfortunately, this second replacement didn't work either. Same issue in the same place finally made me ask for a full refund.
I then decided to take a chance at fixing this issue myself and it's the main topic of this post. Please see the following images for a closer look at what needs to be done, to succeed with this approach.
First I unscrewed and took off both ear cups. Then I used a fairly robust flat head screwdriver to push end cups out of their places on the headband. There is no need to wiggle or bend anything too much, just push it off hard with a tip of your screwdriver. Then I took old, deteriorated pleather skin off from the headband and went straight to a local crafts store looking for a replacement. There, for $5 I bought a scrap piece of lambskin leather, which ended up being a bit too thick, but I still made it work. To everyone else though, I would suggest purchasing 1.5oz lambskin leather from the following link or find something similar online and you will be much better off using it instead (
https://www.ebay.com/itm/403722017843 ).
My next trip was to a local alterations store, where I showed both old skin and a piece of leather and asked to replicate the worn out original. $25 sealed the deal and two days later I had not one, but two replacement skins. They told me that hardest part was to flip the new skin around. It takes a long time with much effort and they could only do one. No problem, I did the other one myself, spending approximately 15 minutes.
Placing this new skin on a headband also was a bit of a challenge, but I took my time and carefully did it in about 10 minutes. Then, probably the hardest part was to tackle new skin into the plastic end cups (for you it has to be much easie, if you purchase 1.5oz leather). First I had to align and superglue the leather to a plastic frame the same way original was, making sure nothing sticks out much (see pictures and don't apply too much glue). I used a superglue gel and dropped a few bits only on black portions of plastic frame. At the end you should end up with both ends of your new leather skin neatly tacked to a plastic frame of your headband.
Then I found a table with straight edges to use as support for plastic end caps and using force, pressed them back into place. All in all whole process took me about 1hr, without travel time and I can assure you, everyone can do this.
One final word, I suddenly noticed how genuine leather headbands have dramatically improved sound quality of these sets. Especially in midrange, lows and highs. Unfortunately, I wasn't smart enough to take measurements of before and after, but am hoping someone else will. All that's left for me is to wait for your impressions. Good luck and enjoy the music!
Empyrean
