Hi Folks,
I am in the process or resurrecting my CD3000s I purchased back in 1992. When I opened the storage box up, I was met with a sticky mess of degraded foam headband, ear pads, etc. I decided to try and replace the headband myself and went to Hobby Lobby and purchased a 3" x 9" section of soft lambskin, some thin black leather lacing, and a 4-hole miniature punch to make some holes for lacing. I decided to install the leather right over the top of the old headband material and that was a good idea IMHO. The headband came out very nicely and, next, I tackled the spring loaded headband "tensioner" that had also turned to mush. I laminated two very thin pieces of leather, one "belting" leather and one of soft goatskin and sandwiched the small "u-shaped" pieces of metal in which the spring attach. Accomplished to my satisfaction as well.
I decided I didn't have the talent to manufacture ear pads myself and was lucky enough to land on a pair of leather/memory foam replacements available on Amazon.
Now the headphones look and feel very good. Firing them up, however, was less than completely satisfactory. There was some buzzing with low frequencies, first in the left phone that ultimately migrated to dead center in the stereo image on my head. The buzzing would almost go away as the headphones were used so I decided to go inside and investigate. When I removed the plastic cups containing the drivers, I was met, yet again, with more decomposing foam. The foam that had lined the black acoustically transparent cloth protecting the drivers was also gone. Hoping beyond hope that this foam was vibrating and was the culprit, I carefully removed and vacuumed the failed foam from both ear pieces. I fired the headphones back up yes, the buzzing was gone and the full range sound of the bio-cellulose speakers sprang to life!
I am a very happy camper and still think these phones are some of the absolute best!
