falconz
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2013
- Posts
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Hi!
I have a small collection of vintage Pioneer headphones, all sorts between late 60s and early 80s. One thing I've never been willing to do is pull them to bits for repair without knowing how to do it; too worried I'll damage them by forcing something that isn't designed to be forced.
Case in point - a beautiful pair of SE-50s. With their original box, they look superb. Unfortunately they don't work so well; one channel sounds good, but the other channel is severely low, and neither of the volume controls work properly. They both attenuate to some extent, but neither goes to 0%, you have to listen really carefully when turning the knob through its full travel to tell which way is full volume and which is lowest! Surely that's not normal? The low channel actually has OK sound quality, it's just too quiet. So I want to pull them apart and find out what's wrong, but I really don't want to damage the things.
So - does anyone know of a good overall guide to disassemble this style of headphone safely? I guess it'd be the same for the SE-20, SE-30, SE-50, SE-205, etc. I've searched but haven't had any luck.
Edit (sort-of irrelevant): OK, discovered part of the issue with the SE-50s. I think the 'low side' driver has come loose. If I hold the phones one way, it gets louder, and at a certain position it rattles with the bass, but stops if I tilt the headphones a tiny bit either way. Also if I listen very carefully and shake that side, I can hear something a bit loose moving inside. So I still need to get into the things safely to anchor it! Maybe the strange volume control behaviour is as designed though...
I have a small collection of vintage Pioneer headphones, all sorts between late 60s and early 80s. One thing I've never been willing to do is pull them to bits for repair without knowing how to do it; too worried I'll damage them by forcing something that isn't designed to be forced.
Case in point - a beautiful pair of SE-50s. With their original box, they look superb. Unfortunately they don't work so well; one channel sounds good, but the other channel is severely low, and neither of the volume controls work properly. They both attenuate to some extent, but neither goes to 0%, you have to listen really carefully when turning the knob through its full travel to tell which way is full volume and which is lowest! Surely that's not normal? The low channel actually has OK sound quality, it's just too quiet. So I want to pull them apart and find out what's wrong, but I really don't want to damage the things.
So - does anyone know of a good overall guide to disassemble this style of headphone safely? I guess it'd be the same for the SE-20, SE-30, SE-50, SE-205, etc. I've searched but haven't had any luck.
Edit (sort-of irrelevant): OK, discovered part of the issue with the SE-50s. I think the 'low side' driver has come loose. If I hold the phones one way, it gets louder, and at a certain position it rattles with the bass, but stops if I tilt the headphones a tiny bit either way. Also if I listen very carefully and shake that side, I can hear something a bit loose moving inside. So I still need to get into the things safely to anchor it! Maybe the strange volume control behaviour is as designed though...
