[MattFH]

I once bought a used Sennheiser HD600, the whole box of which had a very strong cigarette smoke smell after opening, even the pads on the headphone itself smelled clearly of smoke at first, but this went away after a while. I always wondered since the beginning if this could have affected the sound by laying itself on the membrane as well. One can assume that any effect goes away after a while of use, but who knows, apparently some substances of the smoke can be sticky.

Another case might be vapors from strong cleaners or disinfectants used around (or possibly on) the headphone. Especially if it’s a really thin membrane of “nanometer thickness”, the question is if microsopic drops might leave ever so tiny grooves or differences in integrity by some chemical reaction which might affect sound. What do you think?

 

[bagwell359]

Membranes have a charge due to the presence of strong magnets. That draws all sorts of nasty stuff. My first experience with this was with a pair of Martin-Logans that had these gray circles on the membrane you could see through the stators. The guy cooked stove top 10 feet from the speakers. Got him to pay for new membranes before I bought them. Nobody here smokes, and I don't use strong cleaners, but anyone cooks bacon - or worse in my house, the sound room door is closed, and the vent system and windows in the kitchen get opened regardless of the weather.

Sometimes when I'm away on a trip and the other members of my family are not so careful I put each can in a gallon zip bag and close them up) (my presentation boxes are in storage).