Last week I saw this tear down of the Sabbat X12 Pro's on 52audio.
http://www.52audio.com/archives/6752.html
With this look at how they are internally, I decided to try modifying my Sabbat X12 Pro's to use standard shape drivers and covers. Instead of the original earpod shape ones as those are not 100% comfortable for me, even after I reshaped them.
I did this mostly because I like how much more natural earbuds sound when I want to hear the environment around me compared to the 'ambient' modes I've heard on other TWS (WF-1000XM3 and Buds+). That and I wanted an even more compact package than using my BT20S + MMCX earbud of choice.
Cover off to check clearances and see how much wire was available. No pic of it but the circuit board and battery both lift right up.
Driver and cover off, they come off together. No need to separate them. I pulled the wires out a bit more, for enough length for soldering.
I think the factory has them pulled through the other side to solder to the circuit board. They probably install the drivers first then the circuit board and battery.
Here you can see a slight bit of reshaping the housing where it meets the edge of the driver cover. As the housing edge is a bit wider and overlaps the driver cover a little.
After trying the drivers with no additional port and also a .8mm port, I ended up with an additional 1.0mm port (for now). It can be seen at about the 1 o'clock position from the factory vent located at the bottom of the housing.
The inner lip is smaller than the 14.8mm driver covers, so I used e8000 glue in 4 spots about 3-4mm long to secure the drivers. Some of the residue is visible as I've had the drivers on and off a few times.
Complete (for now
).
I will probably try a few other speaker drivers. It's matter of trying to find a good match with the X12 Pro electronics. As a TWS their internal amp is not near as strong as my BT20S, so higher sensitivity and 32Ω or lower impedance is most likely wanted. The original drivers are 32Ω (verified with my multimeter) and sensitivity is listed as 120db.
I used my extra pair of 32Ω bass unit drivers, as the original X12 ones were lacking some bass. Even with earbud foams I had to EQ them quite a bit. I still do but not as badly.