DIY re-"foaming" of headphones and earbuds with household items. Yay? Nay?
I figure if I'm to find some good, "git 'er done" input/experience on this it'll be from the merry band of CH goers.
So here's the trip. I, as I'm sure many of you all do, have a mountain of various consumer/prosumer grade headphones and earbuds stashed in my gack. They go from the absolutely top end down to total farting shizzlecrap. Of course I have kept this stash so I have a pile of extra sound sources for checking my mixes with.
Well as ancient stashes of headphones tend to do a lot of the foam/padding on these has essentially disintegrated (like literally I pulled one pair out today and the foam crumbled into dust all over me... yuck).
Now I'm not about to hunt down, pay for and have shipped replacement foam for each pair. Some of these sets are ancient and oddly shaped but desirable I'm sure by the "audiophiles" of the world who I'm equally sure will have jacked up the price of any surplus replacement foamies beyond my frugal means (and such replacements are likely so old they'll just disintegrate rapidly anyway). The cheaper stuff... no ones gonna stock that crap anyway but I still of course want to use them.
What I'm scheming...
I figure being the inventive and dexterous dumbass I am I could simply improvise. I only really need to be wearing/inserting these devices to double check mixes (although some of the pairs do really sound good and I may want to use them more than I have for general listening).
Some of these things are really (physically) quite sharp and uncomfortable without the padding (the Portapros or the weird folding Awai set I have... both of which sound good but unique). Also I can only assume (based on memory of their sound when the padding was intact) the padding was also taken into account for the audio output when they designed some of the nicer ones.
After playing with them a bit this afternoon I'm pretty sure I can jury rig the attachment of materials using elastic bands, twist ties or maybe if I get desparate dabs of adhesive.
Mostly I'm wondering about ideal "household" or easily obtainable materials I could use in place of the padding.
So far I have considered...
Stretchy sock material (I have TONS of tube socks, boot socks (the ones I'd use are nice Kodiak ones with fuzzy insides... not the itchy wool lumberjack ones), dress socks, etc that I raid for all sorts of wacky stuff... that's another story)
J-Cloths (I'd have to layer a bit a guess and they're not that stretchy unless moist but maybe that could custom form)
Toilet Paper/Paper towels (lame but disposable/easy to work with)
Old T-Shirts
Wash cloths/Tea towels
Cotton balls (tossed underneath one of the above materials for cushioning/to avoid too much layering)
Makeup removal pads (same deal as cotton balls but maybe without the need to wrap it in another material... also disposable)
And I guess that's all I got. Obviously the major concern is killing the sound so I figure this type of thing must have been done by others so I'm tapping the collective hivemind.
Then of course there are engineering difference between an improvised over ear set up vs. earbud set up... however I did discover that my local dollar store has a mounting of asstastic ear buds for sale (for a buck 25) so I can just swipe those and raid the ear bud pads.
kthx... hope everyone's having a good day... and yes I'm a weirdo spazz.
:-p