Headphones bottoming out? Help

[Chris Tch]

I know I just posted a review of how much I love my AD900s, but there seems to be a problem with them. Whenever I turn the volume up to a moderately loud level, the right channel especially seems to make a clicking noise during heavy bass passages. It claims to take up to 700 mW of power, and I seriously doubt I'm giving it anywhere close to that. The left channel makes a slight fuzzy sound when the bass is loud, but the right side is the one that's worrying me with the clicky noises. If anyone knows what the problem might be, please let me know. I doubt it's a hair, because it would make more of a buzzing than a clicking noise. Also, if there is something wrong with it, do you think Audiocubes would take them back for repair?

Edit: Seems to happen mostly around 20-35Hz. Also, does anyone know how easy it is to take off/put back on the earpads?

Thanks,
Chris

 

[ericj]

What's your source or amp? I'd bet it's clipping.

Oh, and you pull on them.

 

[Chris Tch]

I have a laptop output into a Mini3 amp. I doubt it's clipping, but I'll try another source to make sure. Also, is it easy to put the pads back on, or would I need some sort of device to slide them back on?

Edit: Nope, other source does the same exact thing. It's definitely the headphones.

 

[ericj]

Yeah the mini3 isn't likely to be clipping into a 35-ohm load.

Check for hairs poking through the cloth over the driver?

 

[Shahrose]

sounds a lot like amp clipping. but make sure you don't have any enhancements on your source, like crazy high eq'ing or some sort of feature that adds loudness or bass.
check for hairs.
otherwise it could be the phones.

 

[Chris Tch]

I don't see any hairs, and I shined a flashlight through the back to see if I could find anything. I don't use any bass enhancements except for EQing, and I lower everything else below 0dB instead of raising the bass. I tested it with GoldWave, which has a pure expression evaluator.

 

[ericj]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shahrose /img/forum/go_quote.gif sounds a lot like amp clipping. but make sure you don't have any enhancements on your source, like crazy high eq'ing or some sort of feature that adds loudness or bass. check for hairs. otherwise it could be the phones.

Yes but unless the battery is nearly dead, or the mini3 is malfunctioning, it aint clipping. Unless the source is clipping, but into a 35-ohm headphone, he shouldn't need to crank it all the way.

The average mini3 has an 8.4v battery and the opamps used can swing very close to the rails. His headphones only need about 5v peak to peak to achieve the max 700mw.

 

[Chris Tch]

I tried it directly out of the sound card, and the same thing happened. Again, I'm sure it's the headphones...

 

[ericj]

one last question - did you build the mini3 or buy it?

If it has a dc offset, that would change the minimum or maximum excursion of the driver, which could cause some very bad things to happen.

So, if you built it yourself, you did test it, right? And you know your source has no DC offset? Because the mini3 will amplify any DC offset it gets in the input signal.

 

[Chris Tch]

I got it from Rockhopper Audio. And since I plugged the headphones into the card, the Mini3 is out of the equation. (I see we posted at the same time, lol)

 

[Chris Tch]

Any other ideas what it could be/how I could fix it?

 

[MaloS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Tch /img/forum/go_quote.gif Any other ideas what it could be/how I could fix it?

Got any other sources?

 

[Chris Tch]

I've tried both sound cards on different computers. Last night I took the pads off, but didn't see anything that could be rattling that much.