[DivisionSt]

A recently acquired a set of Grado SR-60i headphones from a friend. He said that his son jerked the cord one one side one day and after that it progressively started fading over the course of a week. He said as this progressed it also developed a crackle. The other channel still works just fine.
 
I have opened them up by following the headwize guide. Once inside, I was really, really hoping for something simple like a broken solder joint but no such luck.
 
I'm not having any luck getting the transducer out as the headwize guide describes. I was wondering if any of you have suggestions for me? Should I maybe just go ahead and desolder the cable and try a new one? Send them back to Grado? Give up and let a great pair of headphones just go to the landfill?

 

[Tsujigiri]

Grados are actually pretty easy to resolder. I had the same issue with my SR80i's after I fell on the cord while skateboarding. The cups are friction fit, so you can just pull them apart. The solder points on the drivers are also large and easily accessible, so you can just resolder the leads without having to take the drivers out. If you didn't see anything disconnected in there, it's most likely a disconnect in the cord or y-splitter. Do you see any strain along the cord? If you need to replace the cord, I think Grado charges something like $50. You'd be better off finding a cord and repairing it yourself, since that's almost the cost of the headphones.

 

[DivisionSt]

Cool, thanks for the advice. I didn't see any visible strain on the cord, but the zip ties they use inside the cups seem suspiciously tight. I'll see if I can replace the cable. You're right the solder joints are big and easily accessible so hopefully it won't be too hard.

 

[kramer5150]

Did you check the cable for continuity and resistance?  I'd do that first just to take the cable out of the equation... before you really dig into the driver and earcup.

 

[DivisionSt]

Ah, thanks for the suggestion Kramer5150.
 
I googled how to test continuity and broke out my dmm. All four solder joints showed continuity to both conductors on the 3.5mm plug. The cable does not seem to be the culprit here unless I'm missing something.