[sumitagarwal]

Hey everyone,

I recently bought a pair of SRH840's for use with my iPhone 3Gs, and so far I'm liking the lush sound (didn't sound so great out of the box though).

However, I'm worried I might possibly have damaged one or both drivers. Very occasionally in the right ear I feel like I hear a minute crackle on some notes (in the midrange). These may just be distortion on the guitar tones or other things in the recording itself.

It's minor enough and infrequent enough that I would normally chalk it up to the recording, except for one thing: I accidentally drove the headphones at maximum volume overnight!

I had thrown the headphones into a drawer and set my library on shuffle for burn-in purposes. Later, out of habit, I did what I always do before going to bed: repeatedly press the volume + button to ensure the ringer is at max volume for my morning wake-up alarm. I forgot that because music was playing, that button controls the headphone out instead of the ringer volume!

In the morning when I opened the drawer I was surprised to hear the headphones blaring so loudly. Once I got to work and listened to them they sounded fine but with time I felt like there was possibly a little roughness in the right channel, which I only noticed on rock or other heavier music with distortion. I haven't identified it on clean music yet.

So two questions:
1) the SRH840 is rated to up to 1000mW, and I believe the iPhone is only around 37mW per channel. Is it even possible to damage the SRH840's from an iPhone?
2) What's the best way of isolating and identifying whether there is indeed damage? Would a simple frequency generator do it?

Thanks!

 

[momomo6789]

just play the same song with a crackle and see if its their at the same place 2 times in a row.

 

[miloxo]

It could be just a hair stuck in the driver. Just blow gently to remove it, if there is any.

 

[sumitagarwal]

Thanks guys, I don't think I've ever gotten as quick feedback on a forum before.

I do hear the same sound at the same places repeatedly in songs. And I'm trying to listen to more clean songs now and I don't think it's there.

I probably just am freaking myself out since I'm used to much more detailed and defined headphones (Triple.fi 10, Ety ER-6, Grado's, Alessandro's...).

It's certainly a process getting used to this very different sound signature! That's half of why I bought these, for a different sound, and half because I wanted comfortable all-day high-isolating headphones that were easy to put on and take off.

While people regard the SRH840's as not great for rock (they can sound a bit lazy on most rock) they are absolutely fantastic on some sub-genres. Sludge metal sounds phenomenal on these! And I find that they encourage me to listen to other genres that I either don't listen to often or haven't listened to in a while... I'm enjoying acid jazz in a way I never could on Grado's, Ety's, or even the Triple.Fi's!

 

[azncookiecutter]

If the iPhone is anything like the iPod Touch (audiowise), then there's definitely not enough juice from it to blow the Shures up. I wouldn't worry too much about it.

I burned in the Shures with my old Zero DAC/amp, with the volume knob at 2:00, and it's still fine. These cans can take some power before blowing.

 

[sumitagarwal]

Cool, thanks. If there is any one word that I feel sums up the Shures in almost all respects (build, weight, sound, power handling, etc) it would be 'beefy'.

I was surprised that when I heard them blaring at max volume, they sounded almost small speaker-like, rather than the purely-high frequency tone of other headphones overheard when you're not wearing them. You can hear the bass at a distance!