Hearing The Difference

[The_Stalker]

A forum member sent me a personal message and ask me: "What is the difference in depth between the Tony Eisenhower AQ headphones and the original headphones that came with the AQ?"  I was having lunch at the beach condo and trying to think how to answer and quantify the response.  Fortunately I did find a 14k mens wedding band this week, I have some string in the car, and a dollar bill is 6 inches long.  So I tied the string to the ring, measured off 18 inches and went down to the beach with the AQ.  After digging the hole to 18 inches and covering the target I proceeded to sweep the AQ over the target with Tony Eisenhower's high efficiency headphones on and could clearly hear and would stop to investigate the target.  There is a little wind and wave noise today, but the signal clearly came through as a dig me target.  Switching to the original headphones, I could not hear the target and would not have stopped to investigate the signal.  Tony's headphones have more volume, eliminate more background noise and present the target with more clarity.  How much deeper are Tony's headphones?  I don't know.  They are and I am digging some craters on the beach with this combo.  My favorite question of the week is: "What the hell are you digging for?"   

[Joe Beechnut OBN]

It's amazing what a Good set of headphones will do for any machine, specially PI's.  I've always been on the "The better the headset, the deeper targets" Mission

 

Thanks for sharing! 

[bklein]

Anyone take apart the stock headset?  Cheapest route would be to modify it. Those MSA L/R’s are like $60 to begin with, Tony made nice replacement piezo plates. What he is charging for his headset is probably reasonable given the background work he had to do to come up with a product.

I wonder what the high efficiency mod is. Good to know it’s right to get for the AQ.

I just received the 50mm black rimmed piezos today. I’m just not that anxious to start this project… might just buy Tony’s and do mine later.

OBN, you said Alexandre uses a JBL Clip for his demo. So he uses it as an amplified speaker (not Bluetooth)?

 

[Joe Beechnut OBN]

23 hours ago, bklein said:

Anyone take apart the stock headset?  Cheapest route would be to modify it. Those MSA L/R’s are like $60 to begin with, Tony made nice replacement piezo plates. What he is charging for his headset is probably reasonable given the background work he had to do to come up with a product.

I wonder what the high efficiency mod is. Good to know it’s right to get for the AQ.

I just received the 50mm black rimmed piezos today. I’m just not that anxious to start this project… might just buy Tony’s and do mine later.

OBN, you said Alexandre uses a JBL Clip for his demo. So he uses it as an amplified speaker (not Bluetooth)?

 

I have some pictures of the insides of a 2 sets they were playing with along with the stockers, originals.  Also on the JBL, Yes..as a amped speaker..not bluetooth. 

First 3 pics are the very first set they made for the AQ, I got them. Blue shells, double piezos poor audio (86)

Black set comes with the current AQ, even worse audio, single piezo (82)

The next is the second generation Blacks they made for the next AQ's (which was never shown or sold) 65mm piezo, much better audio (94) 

And my guess is the piezo tony used in the Stalkers headset? I told tony about the 65mm's last January.

My db audio test is using a nickel at 4 inches, on my test swing. And just a note, the set I make "Skullies" that I have a post about showing how to make them using the 50mm piezo and the 3m seal come in at 106 db's so you can see the advantage I have with my AQ. 

 

[bklein]

Big honkin’ wire on the black original!

What would be the result if you were to make a cutout the diameter of the piezo in the backplate? (Ignore waterproof aspects) Guess I’ll have to play with them. Sorry to ask again but what is the goop covering the piezos in the photos? Does the thickness or coverage affect results?