Headphones, both wired and wireless, have become an integral part of urban life. In headphones, we hide from the city noise, talk on the go, set the rhythm during sports, take care of others when we watch videos in a public place, and just take our favorite music with us.
As with any technique, headphones tend to break. Sometimes this is due to normal wear and tear, sometimes due to the peculiarities of operation, and sometimes due to careless handling.
Today I want to talk about how I care about my headphones, of which I have accumulated a lot. Perhaps some advice will be useful to you, dear readers.
Filters
Let's start with one of the common problems – earwax contamination.
Unfortunately, sooner or later, every headphone owner faces this problem, one way or another. It's just that we are arranged this way: the release of earwax is a defense mechanism that prevents pathogenic bacteria and debris from entering the body.
And even if you use headphones constantly and 'as long as you can remember', do not experience discomfort in your ears and think that your ears have long been accustomed to the headphones inside them, the body continues to perceive the headphones in the ear as a foreign body, which means that it increases the production of sulfur in order to thus push the foreign object out of the ear.
This leads to the fact that once this very sulfur accumulates on the sulfur filter of the headphone, which can lead to a decrease in sound volume and a decrease in its quality up to a complete loss of sound, and if sulfur enters the headphone, it can cause damage to the headphones.
The most obvious and easiest way to solve this problem is hygiene and prevention.
As for hygiene, it is best to contact an otolaryngologist with this question, I will only say what is not worth doing. Do not clean your ears with cotton swabs – this is harmful.
Image source: www.signia-hearing.ru
To keep your ears clean, you just need to regularly wash your ear with warm water wherever your little finger reaches, and that's it. Your body can handle cleaning the ear canal inside your ear.
The easiest way to solve the problem of earphone contamination that has already occurred is to change the sulfur filter, since today it is not a problem to buy spare filters of any diameter – go to 'Ali' and choose.
The easiest way to replace the filter is with a needle with an eraser-shaped limiter on it (so as not to poke too deep into the sound guide and damage the speaker).
We wipe the sound guide with a damp cloth to remove dirt that can get inside when replaced, then pry the filter with a needle, clean the inside of the landing ring with a toothpick and put a new sound guide. That's it, we're great.
To change filters less often, it is worth doing prophylaxis on the headphones by cleaning both the headphones themselves and the attachments. The outside of the sound guide is best cleaned with a small, medium-bristled toothbrush.
Don't do it with toothpicks and matches – you will most likely just put the sulfur into the filter and that's it.
Pay attention to the place where the ear cushions are seated – dirt also likes to accumulate there, because of which the seating of the ear cushions will be loose, which means that the sound quality will decrease.
I clean these areas with a regular piece of paper folded in half. I just walk it in a circle, cleaning the dirt from the joints of the surfaces, and then wipe this place with a damp soft cloth or cotton pad.
If the filter is already clogged, and there is no time to wait for new filters, or the headphones have a non-standard sound guide (for example, EarPods), you can try to clean the sulfur filter without replacing it.
There are two options here – with and without removing the filter.
If it is possible to remove the filter, the easiest way is to throw it in hydrogen peroxide for five minutes, then blow it out, dry it and put it back.
Peroxide will do an excellent job with sulfur, dissolving it, while not damaging the glue that attaches the filter to the sound guide of the headphones.
If it is not possible to remove the filter, then you can try a trick with elements of balancing act.
We take a shallow container, for example, the lid from a can of Pringles chips or a lid from a food container, and pour hydrogen peroxide into it. Pour in a layer of just 1-2 mm, no more.
Then we take the earpiece that needs to be cleaned, clamp it in a clothespin or clip, fix it so that you can put it down with the sound guide, and put it in the previously poured peroxide for a few minutes.
Our task is to achieve such a position in which the tips of the sound guides with filters are in peroxide, but the earpiece itself is not.
After three to five minutes, we remove the earpiece and, without turning it over so that the liquid does not flow inside, we put the sound guide on a cotton swab or on something that absorbs moisture well.
Do not try to shake the earpiece – no matter how carefully you do it, there is a risk of moisture from the sound guide getting inside the earphone.
After that, we leave in a warm place for a couple of hours to dry. Important: do not use a hair dryer for drying – you will only drive moisture inside with it. And no matter how strong the desire to blow through the earphone (and you will have this desire, believe me), do not follow his lead and let the earphones dry naturally.
Instead of hydrogen peroxide, you can use special drugs, for example, A-cerumen, which can be bought at the pharmacy.
Sometimes it is recommended to use alcohol as a liquid for dissolving sulfur. I would not recommend this, as the alcohol will not only remove the wax from the filter, but will also dissolve the adhesive that attaches the filter to the earpiece. Also, alcohol can damage the earphone housing and, for example, rubber seals that may be in the earphone. In this regard, alcohol is not the best option.
But alcohol can be used for prophylactic cleaning of earpieces or ear pads and their places of landing on the headphone case. Naturally, in reasonable amounts – a cotton pad slightly moistened with alcohol. ?
Wires
Now let's talk about white wired headphones, the wire of which quickly loses its presentable appearance and becomes a grayish tint.
I'll start with a warning about what not to do – forget about using alcohol-based liquids to clean the wire!
The alcohol will simply kill the wire, making it brittle and porous. Because of this, your headphones will stay clean for a very short time and will soon become even dirtier than they were before cleaning.
In addition, there is a risk that after alcohol the wire will begin to bend and crack poorly. This is especially true of modern headphones, the sheath of the wires for which is made with an eye on caring for nature, which means that it is not as durable as before.
There is another very important point – during cleaning, do not pull the wire through a cloth or napkin! This can lead to deformation of the wire sheath and breakage of cores and contacts inside. Forcing is a common mistake when trying to clean the headphone wire.
It is best to use warm water and liquid soap or shower gel to clean the wire.
To do this, we take a soft cloth, drip liquid soap on it, take the cloth in one hand and, as it were, embrace the wire that we hold with the other hand, and then, as if rolling the wire between our fingers, move along its length.
We go through this along the entire length of the wire several times, until it is completely cleared of dirt. Then we do exactly the same procedure, only with a damp cloth without soap, to clean the wire from soap residues.
Make sure that the fabric is not too damp – so that water droplets do not run down the wire and reach the speakers and remote control if you have a headset.
After the end of the procedure, let the wires dry for a few minutes, and rejoice at the result.
Conclusion
Such simple measures for the care of the headphones will help to avoid most problems associated with malfunctions caused by dirt.
Do not forget that headphones, wired or wireless, like any other technology, require care and maintenance, which will increase the service life of this technology and make it comfortable and enjoyable to use.