Taking Care of Havi B3 (keeping, maintenance and opening (for repair) instructions by Baycode)
I will share my experiences with B3 under this title and I have to warn the non-experienced readers: All the explanations will be done under your responsibility. If you make any mistakes, that's your mistake. Please do not contact to me if you damage your iem!!!!!
Keeping and Maintenance:
Always keep your ear canals clean of dirt. Although earwax is our friend its not friendly to our iems.
Always keep your B3 in a case when not in use. Havi includes a soft pouch and a hard clam shape zippered case in the box. I prefer to use clam shaped zippered case. This way you can keep them away from: some shock, cable bends or breaks, humidity, dust, dirt, other damaging factors. Always put a silica gel bag (1 or 2) in the protective case. Otherwise humidity and sweat that dropped from you on the B3's may cause internal oxidation problems. In the past I lost one of my expensive iem by this way.
Do not burn-in the B3 for extended period of time. Give for example 4-8 hours of burn-in times daily. Do not use high volume while burn-in (and never for listening for your hearing health). I will never exceed 90dB while listening to my iems and headphones. Usually listen between 60-80 dB. I measure the sound pressure with a calibrated, scientific grade SPL meter.
Time to time wipe the golden jack with a dry cotton or microfiber cloth (its included with the B3 package) to remove the dirt/oil on it. Never use a sandpaper or abrasive things like that. This will ensure good contacts and good signal transfers.
You can clean the gorilla glass with a wet wipe and/or microfiber cloth.
Never bend the cables excessively, never step on it or get them compressed/jammed under anything.
Time to time remove the eartip and clean the dirt (earwax) that accumulated on the metal grille (or mesh) by the help of a sharp paper corner (or with a tool that will do the trick). Do not push the earwax in to the mesh as it can clog inside the mesh.
Don't forget to clean eartips after removing them from the iem. You can use wet wipes and a microfiber cloth. Sometimes you can directly rub the dirt/earwax with your fingertip. Sometimes airflow inside the tip can remove the dust. But always remove the eartip from the iem first.
Balance or Imbalance Issues:
(On the photo you can see that the right earpiece is about
5dB quieter than the left one. I have measured this with a
SPL meter. The cause: my right ear canal is slightly
narrower than the left and when pushing them in I had
trouble. Sometimes, the inner part of right earpiece collects
some earwax on the metal mesh at this moment as I push in)
If you have any imbalance issues first clean the jack (explained before).
Check your equiliser and balance settings on your player.
Check the cable for any breaks or shorts.
Check your ears (or get them checked by a medical).
If the imbalance continues and you think that the cause is humidity (or sweat) put the B3 inside an airtight case/bag with lots of silica gel to remove the humidity. After waiting for at least 1 day plug and check the sound.
The last step I explain here can be checked at first:
Recently I had imbalance issues on my B3 and solved the problem by cleaning the dirt and wiping the invisible oil/sweat on the metal mesh by the help of a wet wipe.
Incredibly even the tiniest dirt and/or oil/sweat residue may cause up to 5dB of imbalance in my case. Normally I wouldn't advise to clean the metal mesh with a wet wipe. But for my case it was the last solution and luckily it worked
But if you attend do this type of cleaning you have to remove the excessive earwax with a paper corner. Otherwise there is a possibility that you can push the dirt further in the mesh.
Also do not use excessive force while cleaning the mesh. Its only glued there (mine came off accidentally while cleaning). But you may put it again in to its place if you don't touch the glued part. But be careful and do all the cleaning very gently under well lit area (good light).
Opening the Havi B3 for repair:
You may want to open your B3 for modification or re-cabling purposes. If you intend to do so here is the guide.
First insert the sharp nosed forceps (or very small nosed screwdriver) into the next hole near the upper end of the gorilla glass. Then slowly pry the lens. Be gentle and slow, otherwise the lens may break.
Then remove the nickel screw with a screwdriver.
Now remove the screw stopper rubber from the body of the B3 by the help of sharp nosed forceps.
Then remove the nickel screw with a screwdriver under this plastic (or rubber) stopper.
Its all done. Now remove the back of the B3 plastic part from the body.
Its rather easy to open it. After putting back everything you may need "double sided thin transparent tape" to stick the gorilla glass back (if the glass did not stick directly).
Please note: I will not advise you to open the Havi B3 unless if you want to re-cable it because sound is already near-perfect! (And if the seller provides a guarantee you may void it after opening them)
PS: I appreciate your contributions and will happily add them here.
