AntOk463 t1_jdbmkjn wrote on March 23, 2023 at 6:01 AM

Reply to comment by CultofCedar in Just opened up my brand new pair of 800s! Amazing. by CultofCedar

This is probably the easiest thing to fix on headphones, and I might even try fixing them myself if i don't want to wait and they will still look good after, but if it's anything bigger, like a damaged driver or housing, then in not even going to try.

I actually tried a ambitious project a few months ago, and it didn't go as planned. I took off galaxy buds plus and wanted to make them into a bluetooth receiver because it's good quality compared to the cheap one I was using and because I have a samsung phone it uses a higher quality bluetooth codec and everyone who has tested said they do sound noticeably better with a samsung phone. There was a a YouTube video I was following, but thatcwas for the original galaxy buds, and looked relatively easy, but for the Buds plus the driver is glued into the housing, so I couldn't take it off, and I couldn't desolder the speaker and expose the contact pads because they were on the other side. I tried for a while but couldn't do anything. Before that I converted them to run off USB instead of the battery and that was successful, I plug them in and they both show up on my phone, but then the project dies there. I already had the wire stripped and ready to solder to the sound output, so I just gave up on it.

I have a cousin who still uses the original galaxy buds, I'm going to wait until the battery on them die and he might just give them to me. Then I might try again. I even made a housing for them.

CultofCedar OP t1_jdbnux5 wrote on March 23, 2023 at 6:18 AM

Honestly after going inside of these I think I’d be tempted to swap out whatever. It breaks down nicely, I was surprised.

I try to stay away from things I don’t understand well like software or batteries so that project already sounds complicated. Especially on something so small. Everything looks easy when someone else is doing it.

Interesting on the Samsung codec. I’ve had every Fold and this is news to me… possibly because I use an iPhone/AirPods for music usually. Folds getting more love these days though since it can output Ldac… not that I can really tell a difference if I’m being honest haha.

AntOk463 t1_jdbqn8k wrote on March 23, 2023 at 6:56 AM

It might be something more than codec, lots of people who are into audio can't tell the difference with better codec, but even normal people can easily tell samung buds sound better on Samsung phones, I think it's the same for Apple as well. Some people say they make other devices purposely sound worse and then say it's just the codec, or they apply a slight eq which makes everyone perceive them as better.

Also the battery and software part was very easy. For software I paired them to my phone and turned off touch controls because I was going to unplug the touch sensor and didn't want it freaking out, turned off transparency mode because it would freak out as well if this worked. And the battery was easy, there was a positive and negative contact pad, you have to solder the positive and negative end of the USB wire to them, the only hard part was soldering them individually and connecting them together into 1 USB port. One bud didn't work so I had to remove it and solder again until it worked.

It was a huge pain to work on it, something so small and I have very little experience and lacked the propper equipment for the job, probably the most janky soldering set up anyone has ever seen.