K340 electrett died?
Oct 3, 2011 at 9:54 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 4

foet

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I recently bought another pair of K340's for a little mod project.
The owner sold the pair mentioning one side had a lower volume, so thinking it was most likely a broken cable or solder joint, I took them.

Now, first I re-cabled them using some canare mini starquad and did the default PCB bypass mod. I completed the unit and had a listen and.. bleh, very dark muddy sound. Cutting the wires to the PCB/electrets made the issue clear, the sound did not alter so there had to be a problem there.

I once again took them apart, soldered the electrets from the PCB, reflowed all solder connections, replaced the tiny cables with 24awg SPC. Placed and soldered everything in place again and.. the right side seems to be working fine. If I test some higher frequencies (8-14k) the right side seems to be handling fine if just a tad quieter then my NOS K340. But the left side is very quiet and not capable of the same range and sound pressure as the right side.

So, is my electret broken? Or could there be another issue like a bad resistor or anything alike.

I still have spare parts from my second K340 which had damaged PCB's, so I actually do have spare electrets if its as simple as replacing those. If so, should I just replace the pair or is there no difference in sound between versions (grey, green, red dynamics might have different electret too?).
But before going ahead and soldering (again..) I'd rather get some input.

I really seem to be having bad luck with these :frowning2:
So if anyone could give his insight on this, appreciated.
 
Oct 3, 2011 at 11:45 AM Post #2 of 4
Sorry about your misfortunes.  I've never heard of an electret dying although it is possible to happen.  To decouple the problem with the electret vs pcb I would swap in another electret and see if you have the same problem.  If the other electret doesn't work then you probably have a damaged pcb, but if it works then your electret is bad; that is probably the easiest and quickest way to tell.  Larry at headphile claims that all of the different drivers sound relatively similar once modded so if something is wrong with your driver you should be able to replace it, but check it against some other headphones to make sure that this is true.
 
Oct 3, 2011 at 5:34 PM Post #3 of 4
probably the crossover. should replace all parts on the crossover and it should fix it if there is no sign of any wear,scratches,burnt marks,ect. on the PCB board itself.
 
Oct 9, 2011 at 7:38 AM Post #4 of 4
Thanks for the replies, I'll try to solder the spare electret somewhere today and see what that gives me.
About replacing parts on the PCB's, as far as I can see they consist of 2 resistors and a well.. copper winded core (no idea how to call this by its proper name in English :)). I can measure resistors fine but could the problem lay with the bigger component? And if so, how would I replace this or find it original value?
 
Because, if all components could be found and replaced, can't I just fabricate my own DIY direct soldered solution?
 

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