To celebrate my 500th post I decided to tear into my Edition 9s. Would have happened eventually anyway, curiosity always gets the better of me!
It was surprisingly easy and they are surprisingly simple. For the price I would have thought they might be more... I don't know, complicated, substantial? Nothing wrong with them though, they are well made, solid and everything. I guess most expensive cans are pretty simple when it comes down to it. I remember being shocked when I bought DT-880s and saw them for the first time. "Is that all there is to them!" said I. I thought they were cheap. I learned to appreciate they were actually high quality and now I realize thats just the way things are. The UE9 did impress me on first impressions and have only furthered that impression with time until I opened them and saw they are made the same way as any other headphone. I don't know what I was expecting to find in there, maybe German pixie dust. Anyway it turns out that I'm no less impressed having seen inside them now.
I wasn't concerned about opening the UE9, I'm very careful and know when to stop with these kinds of things. I pull everything apart. Thats how I learn about things. And I'm brave
So, to the pics:
Heres the ear pad about to get pulled off. So to speak
Heres the cloth about to get tweezered up:
Heres the cloth pulled mostly up, exposing the metal plate, it did stick down again just as securely and neatly, you can't see it was touched, just had to line it up carefully:
Heres the metal plate, it was stuck down with contact adhesive, easily tweezered up. I glued it back down afterwards with a touch more contact adhesive:
Heres after the metal plate is removed showing the 3 screw holes, and tape over half the holes in the plastic grill:
3 screws out, and this bit lifts off with the driver glued to it. I saw how easy it would be to recable and starting thinking. I'll keep thinking, see below:
This is the stuff in the ear cup to absorb the reflections off the back of the driver, or reduce resonance, or dampen the enclosure or whatever:
This as much of the face of the driver you can see without going too far and needing to cut the driver out of the housing then glue it back. too hard for me tonight, and more risky. The driver is evidently just a KSC-75 driver anyway
:
Heres the back of the driver, showing the glue where it's held into the mounting plate:
And here it is safely back together. They are back on my head now, sounding happily unchanged of course. Taken apart and putting together took me the time between Rocky Raccoon and Birthday on the White album, which was playing through them the entire time, and is a surprisingly poor recording straight after listening to Love:
After seeing the cable inside them, I am considering an upgrade. The cable is fine, I guess it's as good as any stock hi end HP cable, but I hear that there are better cables available for headphones... I would do it myself but don't know what cable to use or if it's worth it. I would stay single ended as my RPX-33 is single ended. We'll see I guess.