sony mdrv 150

[Jiminsandiego]

I've been wondering if my $60 eagle headphones were hampering my ability to hear tones on my gt, but didn't want to shell out the $120 for a set of pro golds...So I bought the $20 set of sonys because of what I've read on this forum. The sound from the sonys is much, much better than the eagles. They let in more outside noise but it really hasn't bothered me much. (good thing for rattlesnake areas).However I would like to now how to put them in peltor 105 for when I'm in "loud" areas. Have any of you been able to compare the sound of the sonys with the sound of pro golds? I would hate to buy the pro golds and find out that I like the sonys better.
Thanks again everyone for all of your help in steering me in the right direction.
Jim

 

[CladJunkie]

Never used nothing but the Jolly Roger headphone so can't say but will say don't go cheap on a set of headphones. A quality set of headphones are worth the price

 

[synthnut]

I posted in another thread that I am awaiting a couple of pair of 105 Peltors ....I'm going to use the Sony earpieces and mount them in the Peltors ...I'll let you know how I make out when they're finished ....Jim

 

[Critterhunter]

The end caps or two part plastic area of the Sony's will pull apart if you pry on it just right. Inside you'll find a simple circuit wired up to the speaker. If it were me I would unsolder the head phone wires right there where they come to the solder point and then solder the speakers into the new headphone enclosure. That way you can use the stock wire/hardware of the other headphones and are just replacing the speakers with the Sonys. If you want I can take some pictures of what to do with them. Real simple.

Yea, the Sonys do put out some great audio. Haven't used a pair yet that gives as much audio detail, but I still want to compare them to the Sun Ray Golds and the Treasure Ears. Anybody have them to compare? My only complaint with the Sonys in the lack of a limiter and volume controls on each ear. I plan to modifiy mine with a limiter so I can run the volume on my GT full blast, as even the Minelab techs claim best depth that way. I still suspect no difference, though, as so far so long as I can hear it at full volume if I lower it I can still hear it just fine with these Sonys.

I like being able to hear somewhat what is going on around me with the Sonys. No worse than most headphones, though not as quiet as those big bulky ones that are meant to drown out all sounds. I prefer being able to hear things around me. Using other headphones my ears sweat or I've had dogs sneak up in the woods and put their wet nose on the back of my leg while wearing shorts, which I promptly almost soiled while jumping ten feet in the air. Nothing like zoning out for six hours in nature while your mind wanders and then all of a sudden having the tar scared out of you.

If anybody has compared the sound qaulity of the Sonys to the Sun Ray Golds or Treasure Ears I'd like to hear about it.

One word of warning...Don't plan on shortening the cable by cutting it and resoldering things. I found out real quick that they are using bare wire in there that is lamenated, meaning it's an absolute horror to solder to unless you clean the stuff all off using a harsh chemical. Even flux won't clean it off. I still haven't fixed the first pair I cut the cable on with plans to shorten, so I went right out and bought another pair. A friend bought a pair too but he never uses them on his particular brand detector, so if mine ever go south on me I plan to "borrow" his off him since he never uses them.

 

[synthnut]

The comparison of the Sunrays and Sony's .....

The Sunrays are NOT nearly as loud....The actual quality of the tone is very similar to the Sony's ...The limiter circuit in the Sunray Golds is very good .....It acts like a limitter should ....The volume is normal until a spike in volume is hit , and then they kick in and soften the blow .....On the Gray Ghosts , the limitter limits the volume altogether right from the start as if you turned the volume down, but still retains the high end ..... What I DID like about the Gray Ghosts is that they have a very "Thin" sound ...Not at all full sounding , so you hear a very limitted frequency response that is very nice for detecting .....Most other headphone manufacturers just use normal 150 ohm stereo headphone elements that have a full frequency response .....The limitted frequency response allows for a much crisper , and sharper , tone that is more defined and you can hear every nuance of the tone much better than the phones with a broad frequency responce that can tend to "Muddy" the tone and cover up the nuances of the tone .. .... The cheaper Sony's that we all know and love, are 64 ohm phones and therefore are LOUDER because of the lower ohm rating .... Since my hearing is not all that good , and I can adjust my volume, and the gain , on the E Trac itself , I will do so .....There is no volume control on the original Sovereigns ....It's all or nothing ..... I will be putting it up for sale shortly .... I want to try a Pulse machine ....

My Peltors came today and they block a TON OF NOISE !!!..... I got the 105's ......30 db of blocking ..... Anyone or anything that sneaks up on me will be shot on site !!..... I am writing this as I am waiting for my battery to charge on my drill ....I de soldered the ear transducers from the Sony phones, and will make a mount to glue them into the Peltors today .... I have a sneaky suspiciaon that these phones are gonna be LOOOOOOUUUUUUUD !!!!!!........ I'm not adding any volume control , nor am I adding a limitter circuit as its not going to be needed for the E Trac .... If I get another Sovereign , I will get one with a volume control ... or will wire in my amplifier that I recently got and control the volume from the amplifier ....

Just so you know , you can take a new/sharp exacto knife and scape the crap off the the treated wires on the phones ....Be careful not to cut thru them and your good to go .... They will then solder like any other wire .... It's tedious to do , but in my case it was a matter of throwing out a nice set of Koss phones with a volume control on them ...or fixing them by scraping the wires ...I scraped the wires ......They work GREAT once again !!.....Jim

 

[synthnut]

The comparison of the Sunrays and Sony's .....

The Sunrays are NOT nearly as loud....The actual quality of the tone is very similar to the Sony's ...The limiter circuit in the Sunray Golds is very good .....It acts like a limitter should ....The volume is normal until a spike in volume is hit , and then they kick in and soften the blow .....On the Gray Ghosts , the limitter limits the volume altogether right from the start as if you turned the volume down, but still retains the high end ..... What I DID like about the Gray Ghosts is that they have a very "Thin" sound ...Not at all full sounding , so you hear a very limitted frequency response that is very nice for detecting .....Most other headphone manufacturers just use normal 150 ohm stereo headphone elements that have a full frequency response .....The limitted frequency response allows for a much crisper , and sharper , tone that is more defined and you can hear every nuance of the tone much better than the phones with a broad frequency responce that can tend to "Muddy" the tone and cover up the nuances of the tone .. .... The cheaper Sony's that we all know and love, are 64 ohm phones and therefore are LOUDER because of the lower ohm rating .... Since my hearing is not all that good , and I can adjust my volume, and the gain , on the E Trac itself , I will do so .....There is no volume control on the original Sovereigns ....It's all or nothing ..... I will be putting it up for sale shortly .... I want to try a Pulse machine ....

My Peltors came today and they block a TON OF NOISE !!!..... I got the 105's ......30 db of blocking ..... Anyone or anything that sneaks up on me will be shot on site !!..... I am writing this as I am waiting for my battery to charge on my drill ....I de soldered the ear transducers from the Sony phones, and will make a mount to glue them into the Peltors today .... I have a sneaky suspiciaon that these phones are gonna be LOOOOOOUUUUUUUD !!!!!!........ I'm not adding any volume control , nor am I adding a limitter circuit as its not going to be needed for the E Trac .... If I get another Sovereign , I will get one with a volume control ... or will wire in my amplifier that I recently got and control the volume from the amplifier ....

Just so you know , you can take a new/sharp exacto knife and scape the crap off the the treated wires on the phones ....Be careful not to cut thru them and your good to go .... They will then solder like any other wire .... It's tedious to do , but in my case it was a matter of throwing out a nice set of Koss phones with a volume control on them ...or fixing them by scraping the wires ...I scraped the wires ......They work GREAT once again !!.....Jim

 

[synthnut]

The comparison of the Sunrays and Sony's .....

The Sunrays are NOT nearly as loud....The actual quality of the tone is very similar to the Sony's ...The limiter circuit in the Sunray Golds is very good .....It acts like a limitter should ....The volume is normal until a spike in volume is hit , and then they kick in and soften the blow .....On the Gray Ghosts , the limitter limits the volume altogether right from the start as if you turned the volume down, but still retains the high end ..... What I DID like about the Gray Ghosts is that they have a very "Thin" sound ...Not at all full sounding , so you hear a very limitted frequency response that is very nice for detecting .....Most other headphone manufacturers just use normal 150 ohm stereo headphone elements that have a full frequency response .....The limitted frequency response allows for a much crisper , and sharper , tone that is more defined and you can hear every nuance of the tone much better than the phones with a broad frequency responce that can tend to "Muddy" the tone and cover up the nuances of the tone .. .... The cheaper Sony's that we all know and love, are 64 ohm phones and therefore are LOUDER because of the lower ohm rating .... Since my hearing is not all that good , and I can adjust my volume, and the gain , on the E Trac itself , I will do so .....There is no volume control on the original Sovereigns ....It's all or nothing ..... I will be putting it up for sale shortly .... I want to try a Pulse machine ....

My Peltors came today and they block a TON OF NOISE !!!..... I got the 105's ......30 db of blocking ..... Anyone or anything that sneaks up on me will be shot on site !!..... I am writing this as I am waiting for my battery to charge on my drill ....I de soldered the ear transducers from the Sony phones, and will make a mount to glue them into the Peltors today .... I have a sneaky suspiciaon that these phones are gonna be LOOOOOOUUUUUUUD !!!!!!........ I'm not adding any volume control , nor am I adding a limitter circuit as its not going to be needed for the E Trac .... If I get another Sovereign , I will get one with a volume control ... or will wire in my amplifier that I recently got and control the volume from the amplifier ....

Just so you know , you can take a new/sharp exacto knife and scape the crap off the the treated wires on the phones ....Be careful not to cut thru them and your good to go .... They will then solder like any other wire .... It's tedious to do , but in my case it was a matter of throwing out a nice set of Koss phones with a volume control on them ...or fixing them by scraping the wires ...I scraped the wires ......They work GREAT once again !!.....Jim

 

[Critterhunter]

I tried that, as it's my usual routine for getting varnish of wires before treating with flux. No dice. I think this stuff is what they call foil wire, and soldering to foil takes special solder or it's super hard to do. I've managed to solder to foil tabs on lipo cells but it isn't easy and must be sanded/fluxed just right and even then it's touch and go. I'm sure I can solder this stuff, I just threw it aside for another day because I didn't feel like going through the whole dance of cleaning it up and getting it ready.

 

[synthnut]

I cut a wire clean on a brand new set of Koss phones .....I then tried to wire them back together with no luck because of that coating that they put on ...I took a sharp exacto knife and scraped the wire in a quick motion and the coating came off after due dilliagance ... ....I had to turn the wire over and scrape as the stranded wires faned out ....I don't know what you are doing or not doing, but it works for me and my phones are working ....Scrape it down to the bare copper ....You also have to scrape the copper ground wires as they are ALSO coated with clear !!......You can then either solder the wires that you just scraped , or tin them for future use .....Jim

 

[Critterhunter]

Yea, but like I said I think these Sonys are using a foil based wire with a coating on top. Strip the coating off with a knife and it still won't easily solder because of the foil content of the wire. I haven't played with them enough to know yet but that was my impression the first time I tried to solder them. I scraped the wires and tried cleaning them up with some flux and they just didn't want to hold solder. I'll try again down the road here and see what gives. I'm in the process of cleaning the garage to get things nice and clean and organized for my winter projects. I've got some planes to build and some metal detecting electronic projects to tinker with. Nothing like firing up the propane heater, turning on the radio, and losing myself in a nice beer buzz for a few hours to forget life's problems.

 

[synthnut]

.....not sure on the Sony's ......Just cut the Koss' wires ...... I won't do that again !!!....I learned my lesson !!....I almost threw them in the garbage and they're not even a month old !!..... Enjoy the buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz !!....Jim

 

[synthnut]

I tried that, as it's my usual routine for getting varnish of wires before treating with flux. No dice. I think this stuff is what they call foil wire, and soldering to foil takes special solder or it's super hard to do. I've managed to solder to foil tabs on lipo cells but it isn't easy and must be sanded/fluxed just right and even then it's touch and go. I'm sure I can solder this stuff, I just threw it aside for another day because I didn't feel like going through the whole dance of cleaning it up and getting it ready.



Critter,
I pulled the wire out of my little 3.5 mm connetor that came with the Sony's .....I was kneeling down digging a target and went to get up and the straight wire ( I HATE STRAIGHT HEADPHONE WIRE !! ) got caught on my knee pads and pulled down hard on the phones input .... I now shortened the wire so no more issues ...The point I am making is that I did the same thing to the Sony wires as I did to the Koss wires .....It must be the same coating they put on the wires and even the same color !!....Red and Green ..... Untwist the braided wire and the white material will flare out ....Hit it quick with a lighter and it goes away ......Then scrape the wire very ightly with a sharp exacto knife , and it will solder just fine ....I did this and soldered to a new switchcraft 1/4 inch stereo plug and all went well ....No flux or anything else .... It's a good strong connection ......Just thought you might like to give it a shot ....Jim

 

[Critterhunter]

I've got to throw a limiter in the pair I need to repair. Might as well do that inline in the cable where I cut it. Maybe that'll be my winter garage project for today. I'm going to dry the dual diode basic limiter first to see how that goes.

 

[synthnut]

Did you come up with a limitter design that you are happy with ? .....Jim