Sony MDR1000X Headphone Preventative Repair

UPDATE 9/9/2017: As promised by Sony, I received my replacement headphones today, and will start using them everyday and we’ll see if they incur the same problem or not.

Original Post:

It appears that the Sony MDR1000X wireless bluetooth headphones have a deficiency in design whereas the headband starts cracking at the junction point where the ear cups fold in for storage. The pin used for the pivot places a lot of pressure on the plastic when you are opening and placing the earphones on your head. See image here. Check your headphones, and you may see this crack and that it widens when you try to stretch the band to put them on. No pressure seems to be placed on the joint when the ear cups are folded in, only when stretching to put them on.





After hearing about this, I checked my own and indeed my own headphones started showing a crack after a few months. Some very small, one pretty large. It also seems based on further research on the web, that Sony is reluctant to make repairs under warranty. Certainly they do not have a fix for this, they would just be exchanging these every 6 months for every customer until they redesign the construction of the headphone joint. So I wanted to come up with a stop gap measure to stop the cracking and keep the unit from completely breaking off.

My theory goes, by compressing the pivot point and adding more pressure on the plastic, will hopefully stop the tension on the metal pivot pin and plastic joint. This fix will not allow the ear cup to fold in anymore, but that’s not a problem for most people, I’d rather keep the headphone from breaking, I don’t need to fold it up for storage.

I placed a small 1/8 inch square plastic wedge with a piece of double sticky foam tape on the exact point of the pin, to add some pressure to the joint and then used a cable tie to wrap up the connection very tightly. If you don’t add the filler/spacer under the cable tie, it won’t actually put pressure on the joint., it needs to reach in a small amount from the surface of the band.

Hopefully this will hold the headband joint from flexing and keep the junction intact. Your results may vary, as I don’t know how long this will last, but I think it will hold until Sony comes up with a proper replacement.

Update: According to more reading of the Sony community website, it appears the problem occurs in serial numbers 5000001 - 5256984 and Sony is starting to replace the defective units. However a customer received his replacement, serial number 5282734, outside the affected range, and reports this brand new unit already had a crack on the headband in the very same place. So, who knows!!!???!! Stay tuned.