Audio Technica ATH-7 Electret headphone troubles and questions.

Tech Square

Technical and speculative discussion of amps, cables and other topics.

I blew the left channel transformer in my ATH-7 adapter box and in an attempt to repair I replaced both transformers with the ones from a Stax SRD-4 adapter I purchased off Ebay (I also got a SRD-6/SB at the same time). But alas, unfortunately after trying the various adapters/transformers and switching over the 240k resistors in the earcups it appears the left driver has failed. There's still output but it's dropping; currently it's down about 7db compared to the right channel.
So my questions are:
1) Can the driver be repolarized/repaired or is it toast? There used to be a guy in Europe (I think Germany) who repaired electret's and electrostatic's for a reasonable fee (perhaps he's still in business). Does anyone know this gentleman and have a link or email address? Or is there perhaps someone else who still repairs these driver elements?
2) Or is it possible I could repolarize/repair them myself? Anyone have any experience doing so? I might be willing to tackle them if I could figure out how to remove the driver element from the grill without destroying both :(.
3) Or should I just consider buying another set of new/used headphones? After living with the ATH-7's I'd at least want something of similar or better sound quality. So what would you recommend? It would be cheaper for me if there are currently headphones on the market that would work with either the Stax SRD-4 or SRD-6/SB, but that may be asking for too much :).
4) If you think it's better just to buy new what would you recomment? Perhaps there's some reasonably priced dynamic headphones available that would compete with the ATH-7?
Any help or recommendations would be very appreciated. Thanks.

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Kimber Kable

Topic - Audio Technica ATH-7 Electret headphone troubles and questions. - SquinkyEye 11:09:44 09/17/06 (3)

Any Stax SR-003 users out there? - SquinkyEye 18:23:24 09/18/06 (0)

OEM electrets - nightdoggy 17:47:48 09/17/06 (0)

Re: Audio Technica ATH-7 Electret headphone troubles and questions. - rkeman 15:03:01 09/17/06 (0)

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