Ever revive a driver with a whack?

RemoWilliams

Addicted Member
I have had a pair of Audio Technica MX 40s for over a year - they were purchased from a Seller on Ebay for 29.00 - minus the ear pads and cable so I was unable to really test them until those items arrived. A month later I had it together and found, to my dismay, that the right driver was not ping sound. Unfortunately the Seller disappeared although his or hers track record had been good up until then and so was unable to get a refund at the time - or at least some help. apparently a few others never even received the items they had paid for, they were all various AudioTechnica products that were being sold at very decent prices. Wonder what became of it all.


I removed cover and tested the resistance which Indicated a possible short etc. and have been contemplating a replacement driver ( about 50.00 Cdn. ). Tonight decided to plug it into the Schiit Magni. 3 and of course no sound from that driver so I casually gave it a good couple of smacks with the palm of my hand just for the heck of it and the dang thing decided to work. So far so good.


I wonder if the diaphragm was slightly stuck - the wiring appears fine where it is soldered although it does travel along the headband from the left side. Has anyone ever experienced something similar? Hoping it will now behave itself - perhaps the headphone amplifier helped compared to the Luxman L 215 I had initially tried - maybe a higher output gave it the necessary current it needed.

If it continues to behave itself perhaps I can give them a good listen and see how the stack up against the HifiMan HE400i.
 
Lots of things have been "fixed" with a good swift "whack", and seem to resume "normal operation", but, ultimately, nothing was ever really, truly fixed, and even if it continues to function, you will never know if it is actually functioning correctly.

Could be a bad solder joint, cracked wire, or even if it was just a piece of crud that hung-up the driver that was dislodged, it is still there, and the "issue" can return.
 
Makes sense - in fact after an hour of listening simply removing the headphones had that right driver back to not functioning. last time I checked with a multimeter I had a reading of around 35 ohms on the left, nothing on the right as expected from a perceived driver issue. however now I find I am not getting any readings at all for the left and it still works. I had checked the cable itself as well. The battery checks out at close to 9 v for the meter so not sure what is happening. I do get a momentary reading of 32 ohms for the left side and then it returns to zero.


Interesting.
 
I mistakenly had the wrong setting - the left side does show 35 ohms which is a good reading for the MX 40, nothing on the right side so will be looking into a new driver element.
 
Maybe there is just a poor connection, usually if a driver fails it is caused by abuse, yours sounds like the whack made the connection come back for a little while.
 
Seems like it might be a connection issue - maybe even at the driver itself? I barely moved the headphones when I removed them which seems a bit odd. I do not see anyway of accessing the driver side, the soldered connections look fine and so do the wires but will try and go through everything and narrow it down. Would be great to have them working without resorting to replacing a driver.

The driver and small board are bonded to the base that attaches the driver to the main body of the headphones, it could be there is a problem between the underside of that board and the driver, one would most likely break the plastic if an attempt was made. There is continuity in the wire going from the left side to the right driver so it is definitely confined to that driver. Maybe I will continue giving it some light hits just to see if it functions again.


I found one for 30.00 with free shipping in the U.S. so with the Cdn. dollar factored in I would be closing in on the 50.00 to buy one here, they are back East so the shipping might be a bit ridiculous - something that appears to be all too common nowadays with Canada Post.
 
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Seem like it might be a connection issue - maybe even at the driver itself? I barely moved the headphones when I removed them which seems a bit odd. I do not see anyway of accessing the driver side, the soldered connections look fine and so do the wires but will try and go through everything and narrow it down. Would be great to have them working without resorting to replacing a driver.
You probably have a broken lead to the driver.
 
Back in the old days I once revived a stuck SCSI HDD by whacking it with the handle of a large screwdriver.
 
I had to whack a buddy of mine once. He was the driver and fell a sleep at the wheel. :D

You stole my thunder.

In 1971, my friend Harold and I had just scored some weed, rolled a joint, and were heading down a four-lane urban street in my mom's car when we lit up. I don't know why I let him drive.

A buddy had told us we could magnify the high by blowing against the base of our thumbs with a lungful of the smoke, not allowing anything out. Being young and dumb, we tried it.

Harold passed out for a few seconds just as we were passing a shopping center. I came near it myself, and watched in helpless alarm as the car jumped the curb and side-swiped a metal light pole, which bounced us right back into the road, just as I slapped Harold's shoulder, and he regained his senses, completely unaware he'd lost them in the first place.

"Pull over, man! Pull over!"

"What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"You ran off the road and hit a light pole! I wanta see the damage!"

He started laughing, "You done gone crazy! I think that big hit got to you-"

"You passed out just long enough to miss it! Now, I'm serious, pull over!"

Turned out we were lucky. A dime-sized shallow dent in the corner of the right front bumper that no one ever became very curious about. I did the driving after that.
 
You stole my thunder.

In 1971, my friend Harold and I had just scored some weed, rolled a joint, and were heading down a four-lane urban street in my mom's car when we lit up. I don't know why I let him drive.

A buddy had told us we could magnify the high by blowing against the base of our thumbs with a lungful of the smoke, not allowing anything out. Being young and dumb, we tried it.

Harold passed out for a few seconds just as we were passing a shopping center. I came near it myself, and watched in helpless alarm as the car jumped the curb and side-swiped a metal light pole, which bounced us right back into the road, just as I slapped Harold's shoulder, and he regained his senses, completely unaware he'd lost them in the first place.

"Pull over, man! Pull over!"

"What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"You ran off the road and hit a light pole! I wanta see the damage!"

He started laughing, "You done gone crazy! I think that big hit got to you-"

"You passed out just long enough to miss it! Now, I'm serious, pull over!"

Turned out we were lucky. A dime-sized shallow dent in the corner of the right front bumper that no one ever became very curious about. I did the driving after that.
Too funny. My friend had drank too much before he came to pick me up. Luckily I lived out of town. He nodded off while driving down a dark country road. His foot slipped off the pedal and I watched as we rolled to almost a stop. Then I wacked him. :biggrin:
I then got out of the truck, walked around to the drivers side and pushed him over into the passenger side. He was a bit confused when he came around and I was the one driving.
 
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