Fallingwater
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2006
- Posts
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I have a pair of old Altec Lansing iM716 (I think a rebrand of something by Etymotic). They were sold used to me with a broken cable, and they went through four more cables before I lost them. I've found them again in a drawer today without a cable, so I soldered one on and tested them.
And found that the right one's volume is significantly lower. Like, I need to set balance 60% on the right for them to sound the same.
I then remembered that they had this problem when I last swapped the cable, which was the reason I'd taken it back off; then I grew lazy and eventually misplaced the phones before fixing them again. Now, it's been a long time, but I think they developed this problem in use, with the cable they had before, rather than after a cable swap.
What could be the problem? In my experience phones either work or break altogether - this is the first time I've seen a pair misbehave like this.
Notably, the little flex board where I solder the cables has what looks like a tiny surface mount resistor between the two contacts. It looks OK on both 'phones, but I guess it could have broken, or gotten disconnected if its solder joints broke in an impact. Could this be the cause of the problem? Or maybe I connected the wire in reverse - though I doubt this, since I left markings the first time I took them apart and I followed them every time I installed a new cable.
Any ideas?
Edit: I've installed the Viper Audio driver on Android and if I set channel pan to 0.2:0.8 the headphones sound identical - and not actually bad. Or at least, I can't tell the difference. This is going to work as a stopgap measure, but my phone isn't the only device I want to use these on, and I really don't want to be setting balance on everything - especially since most other portable devices don't even have a balance setting.
And found that the right one's volume is significantly lower. Like, I need to set balance 60% on the right for them to sound the same.
I then remembered that they had this problem when I last swapped the cable, which was the reason I'd taken it back off; then I grew lazy and eventually misplaced the phones before fixing them again. Now, it's been a long time, but I think they developed this problem in use, with the cable they had before, rather than after a cable swap.
What could be the problem? In my experience phones either work or break altogether - this is the first time I've seen a pair misbehave like this.
Notably, the little flex board where I solder the cables has what looks like a tiny surface mount resistor between the two contacts. It looks OK on both 'phones, but I guess it could have broken, or gotten disconnected if its solder joints broke in an impact. Could this be the cause of the problem? Or maybe I connected the wire in reverse - though I doubt this, since I left markings the first time I took them apart and I followed them every time I installed a new cable.
Any ideas?
Edit: I've installed the Viper Audio driver on Android and if I set channel pan to 0.2:0.8 the headphones sound identical - and not actually bad. Or at least, I can't tell the difference. This is going to work as a stopgap measure, but my phone isn't the only device I want to use these on, and I really don't want to be setting balance on everything - especially since most other portable devices don't even have a balance setting.
