Yo,
@number1sixerfan , can I get your input on a minor "situation" that has come up? So last night, after we exchanged PMs about how great the SGL was sounding on electronica, I developed my frequent late evening craving for some ice cream, in this case a scoop of mint chip and a (BIG) scoop of Belgian triple chocolate. Häagen-Dazs, of course! As I headed back to the sofa in the den, it was kind of dark in there and I
accidentally tripped over the SGL cable and (I'm
such a klutz!) the ice cream dish went sailing and landed upside down on my new leather sofa, followed by my landing (on my butt, fortunately) on top of the dish and breaking it into a few pieces. Good news, bad news: I'm perfectly fine (but
really annoyed with myself),
but I had left the SGL on the sofa, and
of course the ice cream (and I) landed squarely on top of it. (
Always seems to happen that way, right?) So I couldn't believe what had just happened, but I learned a long time ago that staying calm and proceeding logically is the best strategy. I took a bunch of deep breaths and went to get some rags to clean up the sofa leather. Then I took a nice hot bath (this whole thing was just a little stressful, even with the deep breathing) to get cleaned up myself. Finally, it was time to deal with the SGL, which I had set aside during the sofa cleanup and bath. The first thing I noticed was that the Belgian chocolate had
completely melted into the right side grill assembly, but I was super relieved when I saw that no ice cream had gotten into the left driver assembly. (I've always been a glass half-full kinda guy!) Now, I've had to deal with some "impossible" cleanup situations before, but this one had me a little stumped, frankly. After a few minutes of deep thought, the light bulb went on! Off I went to the laundry room to soak the driver assembly in the basin. You'll be happy to know that I added a dollop of laundry detergent to the soak to help loosen up all of the chocolate. Of course I took great care to keep the left driver dry, because these aren't MY headphones after all, and I wanted to handle them with the utmost care. Anyhoo, after about twenty minutes, with me swishing the SGL around in the water, it appeared that all of the Belgian chocolate had been purged from the driver assembly.
I can't tell you how relieved I felt when I saw that!
So now I wanted to get back to listening ASAP since I'll be returning the headphones tomorrow. Clearly, it would have been
insane to plug in a soaking wet estat given the high voltage involved. What to do? Then it dawned on me: hit the driver with a hair dryer! (Brilliant, if I do say so myself!
) Five minutes later, no traces of moisture that I could detect. The diaphragm had gotten a bit darker in color, but I'm not sure if that was from the intense heat or just some residual chocolate stain. In any case,
I doubt it has any sonic impact. Now it was time to get back to listening! Only one other
minor issue: landing with my entire body weight had seriously bent the metal headband. "A mere flesh wound" in the grand scheme of things, I thought. It was actually pretty straightforward to bend it back into (reasonable) shape. Of course, it's never going to be perfect, but the cups still line up pretty well, certainly within half an inch in any dimension. As far as I can tell, these drivers aren't too sensitive to exact ear placement, anyway. (Dodged a bullet there, eh?) Oh yeah, one other
minor cosmetic issue: the broken ceramic dish scratched up the anodized aluminum a little bit. You can probably just buff it out with steel wool! If that takes the black finish off, I'd suggest just buffing ALL of that finish off. You'll have the only natural brushed aluminum SGL on the planet! Think of the value added for such a custom piece! You're welcome, my man!!
OK, so you, SixerFan, wouldn't be human if all of this didn't make you a bit
anxious, shall we say, and I
totally understand that. Relax, dude!! The SGL still sounds
great. It's not scientific obviously, but I actually think it sounds a little better this morning than I remember! The only (again,
minor) issue is that the right channel seems to distort (and occasionally cut out) with super low bass. I put a -6 dB low shelf below 50 Hz and it (mostly) fixes it. Honestly, I'd recommend a planar for music with really heavy bass anyway. But I
totally understand if you don't want to live with this. So I'm going to generously offer to disassemble the entire right driver and see if I can troubleshoot the issue. It's probably something as trivial as the force of my landing on it caused a connection to become dodgy. But anyway, I just wanted to ask you before I went ahead with the disassembly. These are
your headphones, after all, and I want
your input on how I handle them. But if you'd prefer to just send them back to Hifiman for service, I'm sure this is all covered under the warranty. The only downside is you may be without an SGL for like six months, but dayum, this X9000 is no slouch! So, please let me know ASAP how to proceed, OK?
Dude, just wanted to thank you AGAIN for the generous loan. I feel
really bad about all of this, but I can promise you I'm going to be WAY more careful
in the future when you loan me expensive stuff. I can't tell you how many times I've tripped on headphone cables, but I think this time I've
finally learned not to leave them dangling between the coffee table and the sofa. You've helped me grow, and it's a beautiful thing. I feel like the least I could do is buy you a beer or something. And I'm talking micro brew on tap, DUDE!!
Cheers, B. Science
