Fitz

Duggeh!!!!

New with extra butter.

And keep the moar gooder one I shall.

2nd pair, later production to compare to my earlier production over an extended period of time. Timing was amazingly good as I actually have funds for it at the moment, but I doubt I'll be able to afford keeping it indefinitely.

I didn't know Fred, but now I do and I hate him. Very much.

Epic is not sufficient to describe it.

You didn't do it Patrick style the whole way? Lame.

Thanks for the offer Ari. I'm probably not going to worry about the PCBs for now, as I doubt I'll have the time or motivation to do any extensive comparisons in the near future.

If it's working anywhere near 2kHz, then I'll definitely want to figure out it's exact parameters before even considering removing it.

But just "notch filter" doesn't tell you frequency, bandwidth, or gain. With how finicky the K1000 is to position, I wouldn't want to go chasing after shadows trying to say whether the change is positive or negative. It's much easier to decide when I know exactly what the difference I'm listening for is.

I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of the PCB is, as I still haven't gotten around to examining it. I wouldn't want to remove it until I fully understand its function and any effects on the sound, as I'm sure AKG put it there for a reason. Well, I've gotten excellent results using my own Black Clover cable. I don't usually make a habit of recommending competitors' cables.

Pictures as requested by teh duggeh: http://www.head-case.org/forums/do-yourself/6139-k1000-recable-guide.html

I've seen posts here and there commenting on the difficulty of recabling the K1000, and it's definitely not something a novice DIYer should attempt, but I think most of the fear and confusion over recabling them comes from their unusual construction and lack of information regarding safe disassembly. I hope this guide will help clear up the process for advanced DIYers who are already comfortable recabling normal headphones, but wary about working on the K1000. A few notes before I begin... You should have your cable already built and ready to go before starting disassembly, so the K1000 is not left in a partially disassembled state, and complete the work on one earspeaker before disassembling the next one. Unless you intend to modify the enclosure, the wires and any heatshrink or sleeving must be as small as the stock cable. And finally, if you have any doubts at all about your ability to successfully complete the recable, do not attempt the recable. You definitely do not want to find out the hard way whether or not it's beyond your current skill level. Now then, to start disassembly, you need to remove the bottom plastic cover off the earspeakers. One screw is visible out in the open, and the other is hidden underneath the rubber strain relief. With the screws out, the piece will slide easily down the cable away from the earspeaker, giving you access to removing the ring that holds the grilles on. It's snapped down over two pins, and to remove it you will need to lift it up off these pins. With each side free of the pin, let it move outwards so it is just loosely sitting on the earspeaker frame. If the grilles have never been removed before and the adhesive is still holding strong, you may have to work it loose manually. Don't worry about the rear grille at all, just get the retaining ring and front grille loose. When everything is loose, remove the front grille and set it to the side, so you have full access to the front of the earspeaker. Go ahead and resecure the ring to hold the rear grille in place. This is a lot easier than taking the grilles completely off and trying to put them back on later, and keeps the back of the driver protected while you're working on the front. Once you get it snapped back in place, remove the two screws that hold the PCB down. This is where it gets interesting. With the screws out, the PCB is still held in place by the metal posts that connect it to the driver. The problem is these posts are soldered to the PCB. There are different ways to desolder the posts and remove the PCB, but this is the one I find to be the safest and easiest as long as you have somewhat steady hands. It's a two-handed procedure, and you'll be soldering millimeters from part of the driver, so make sure you have all your actions thought-out before doing it. You will need to heat both solder joints at the same time with the iron (not necessarily as I'm holding it in the picture, use whatever angle and technique you're most comfortable with as long as you stay clear of the diaphragm), while gripping the coil and using it to pull the PCB up and away. The side of the PCB towards the driver is notched out, so you don't have to come straight up the whole way. Instead, you can come up a little to clear the enclosure, then forward towards you. Do not leave heat the posts for more than a few seconds. If you find you can't heat both up to the melting point quickly enough, either raise the heat on an adjustable iron or use a hotter iron. If you can't do either, then you should abandon the recable attempt and reassemble the earspeaker, because excessive heating at these joints could cause damage to the driver. If you successfully removed the PCB, then while everything is still heated up clean up the pads on the PCB and the solder posts of any excess solder. You want the notches on the PCB completely visible and the posts free of any solder blobs. Be very careful about the driver if you do have to run your iron across the metal posts to remove some excess solder. On the back side of the PCB, you can see where the cable solders to it. Before removing the old cable, make note of the polarity on how the stock cable is soldered down in case there are any variances on the PCBs and yours doesn't have the same polarity as mine. When you remove the stock cable and solder the new one on, be sure to remember to transfer the bottom cover / strain relief to the new cable. Also make note of the channel the cable has to fit into behind the PCB, as it has a couple protrusions that you must fit it around, otherwise the PCB will pinch the cable against the enclosure. It can be a little awkward getting the cable to fit right and the PCB set back in place, but once you do get it back in, immediately screw it down so it doesn't pop back out and force you to start over. Now you're almost done, and it becomes clear why the excess solder was removed from the posts and PCB earlier. The posts have to be resoldered to the PCB, and I recommend heating the PCB first and adding a bit of solder to replace what you removed earlier, and then heating the posts to make the solder joint. Just serves to further minimize any potential risks caused by excessive heat. Once both posts are soldered back down, you'll want to test that side before reassembling it. If your music or test tone comes out, then you're good to go, and can reattach the front grille the same way as it came off, and screw the bottom cover back down. If for any reason you don't get any sound out of that channel, take a short break to avoid any further mistakes caused by frustration. After the break (I strongly advise against skipping it), double check there isn't any problem upstream by plugging another pair of headphones into the amp (or however you're getting a test signal to them), then use the spots to the top right of the PCB to check for continuity from the end of the cable to the PCB. The problem most likely will be found by checking these two things, as your drivers should be fine if you followed the guide carefully. And with one earspeaker completed, you can repeat the entire process on the other one, which should be much easier than the first one. Perhaps you'll feel much more confident about the process and won't even need to look at the guide the second time around. Either way, once the second one is done, you can sit back and enjoy your newly recabled K1000s, with the satisfaction of having done the task yourself.

$95 and a bag of doritos!

Thanks! No, I didn't take photos of the process, but it probably wouldn't be too big of a deal to take one side back apart for photos tomorrow. The grilles are annoying sometimes, but I wouldn't call them tricky to reassemble so long as you know how it's supposed to go together. I'd be pretty concerned over what kind of ape is doing the soldering if they manage to cause damage from heat. The way it works is a little weird to describe without pictures, but I'll give it a shot anyways. The voice coil solders to a pair of metal posts on the back side of the enclosure, these posts do a couple bends to bring them closer together then come out the front side of the enclosure. The PCB has two slots on one side with solder pads around it, so it slides in place against the rods then it's soldered together on that side. The cable has to be soldered to the PCB before it goes in like this, as it routes behind the PCB and is soldered on the back in a different spot. Getting the PCB out to replace the cable is ridiculously easy... remove the two screws then hold the soldering iron across both solder joints for the posts (they're real close) while pulling the PCB away. Only takes a couple seconds to heat it and remove it with a proper soldering iron. Same thing going back in... might have to reflow the solder on the board if it's blocking the little slots for the posts, then just set it back into place and resolder the posts to it.

Finally got pissed off enough at the stock cable being annoying due to cable memory, so I recabled my K1000: I gotta learn to take better pictures than this if I'm ever gonna put a website back up though. I've also seen posts lately about the K1000 being difficult to recable / easy to damage, which leaves me a bit confused after having gone through the process myself. I guess it's difficult if you've never really recabled headphones before? I found the whole process fairly straightforward, especially since I didn't have to make any new strain reliefs or anything like on some other phones.

You let your sister make a mold of your dick? You sick freak!

Ah c'mon don't tell him to duck, I was looking forward to seeing some shovel=>cranium action tonight.

I bought it from otaku.com since Alex had a copy, but it's available a bunch of other places (would've gotten it at amazon.co.jp if they still offered cheap shipping). I've seen the scans online someplace, but it's not an expensive book and the art looks way better in person, so it's worth buying it. Here's some sample pics I snapped though:

Just got the book today. It's actually smaller than I expected... B5 size like a doujinshi rather than an artbook. The art is really good though, somewhere around 40-50 full-page drawings in a wide variety of styles. Each headphone (and some other equipment) has a full review too, although I haven't tried to read any of them yet. The back of the book also has interviews with a bunch of people involved in music for anime/games, as well as Sony and Stax. Definitely worth it if you can get a good price on it.

While waiting for a guy to come by and pick up some speakers, I had an epic failure taking a DVD out of its case: :palm:

Finally decided to order a copy:

If you look at it frame by frame, it looks like the door behind him breaks from the leftmost door hitting it, not from him getting sandwiched between them. From what I can tell, he walks right into the door ahead of him, or nearly does and stops suddenly, then gets pushed back by it. A split second before he backs into the door behind him, the door behind it slams into it and the glass breaks and half the frame falls into the lobby. The guy goes through the shower of glass and hits that other door instead, which instead of breaking just gets pushed back until he clears out, at which point it starts trying to move forward again. Something probably got bent or twisted on the frame when the doors started collapsing in like that, possibly at the central hinge, which damaged the glass enough to shatter it. I know first hand how hard it is to try to break tempered glass just by hitting it (such as if he were sandwiched between them), but since the edge of tempered glass is it's biggest weak point, even minor damage to the edge from when the frame got fucked is enough to cause the whole pane to shatter.

The AKG signal processor arrived today. Haven't had much time with it to get a feel for how good it really is, but my two biggest concerns were either the effect being very subtle and borderline useless, or absolutely trashing the signal every which way, neither of which seems to be the case. The effect is very noticable and not at all unpleasant, except when switching back to the original signal... the soundstage just collapses when you're suddenly hit with the full channel separation again, until your ears readjust.