[Lemon_juice]

I have been reading these forums for a few days now and decided to buy a pair of new headphones for my portable devices, something that would be better than the cheapest earbuds. I bought Sennheiser 218 and I find the sound quality pretty good for these inexpensive phones. However, I have a small problem with my CD walkman (Sony D-NE270) which doesn't seem to have much output power for these phones. By searching the web I learned that European models of discmen have their volume reduced from 5mW to 1.5mW and I for sure own a European model. Now my question is, is it possible to somehow remove the limit? I image it should not be difficult to do if I only knew what should be done. Any ideas of how to remove the volume limit on Sony D-NE270?

 

[babya]

I have never seen anything about removing volume limits from more recent CD Walkman models.

 

[iriverdude]

Use line out to a portable headphone amp, problem solved.

 

[Lemon_juice]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iriverdude /img/forum/go_quote.gif Use line out to a portable headphone amp, problem solved.

Something like FiiO E5? This player doesn't have a line-out, would this amp work fine with the headphone jack?

 

[iriverdude]

Not really ideal as signal is amplified, and the FIOO is again. I'd set headphone out to about 50%, and disable any EQ and bass boost.

 

[Ubijza]

Are you sure it doesnt have a line out? I remember my Sony DNE920 had only one JACK (headphone out), but I could select "line out" in menu options and that same jack magically transformed into line out....

 

[Lemon_juice]

Ok, I will consider FiiO then.

I'm sure D-NE270 doesn't have a line out because it is a cheaper version of D-NE300 which comes with line out. Nothing in the menu like that either.

Besides, I am thinking about doing a mod on my discman. I have found the service manual and there is a schematic diagram of the inside electronics. And it is clearly marked that European models have an additional resistor in one place. I am wondering if I opened the unit and removed the resistor the volume limit would be removed. This resistor seems to be the only difference between eu and non-eu models so it is likely that it's this one. What do you think about it? I wonder how risky this would be.

 

[Lemon_juice]

Update:

I took the risk and decided to remove the resistor. This turned out to be no easy task since the elements on the circuit board are extremely small, hard to clearly see without a loupe and hard to touch with a normal soldering iron, especially where many elements are close to one another. Finally I did it but the result was a bit unexpected: instead of increased volume a new setting appeared in the options menu, the sound control from the higher model D-NE300! This proves that often differently priced models are essentially the same one where some features are disabled in the cheaper ones. I wonder what else I could enable by removing some more resistors

. BTW, the sound controls are pretty useless to me, it's a simple equalizer with 3 predefined presets and the sound is much worse to me no matter how I customize it, and it makes the overall volume even lower. A simple bass boost would be of much more value. But I am lucky I didn't damage my discman because I was close to it...

Still I haven't figured out how to remove the volume limit and so I will let it be. The volume is quite all right for most music and I don't want to damage my hearing. I know in some noisy environments I would need an amp but most of the time I listen indoors.

Interestingly, my European tiny iPod Shuffle can output so much power to HD-218 that my ears start aching immediately from the loudness. How come Apple got away with it while Sony limits volume to unreasonable degree?