Firstly, I’m kinda impressed with that last post. It was entered on the keypad of my Kenwood TH-D7 Handheld Radio, sent as an APRS message, sent as email to a mail account, and then ‘popped’ from there and dropped onto the blog.

So, to get back to the title, apparently I have a small head, so Bob Heil told me in an email.

Let me explain, I recently purchased a pair of Heil headphones, but on trying them out, I immediately found a problem. The “Self Adjusting cushioned Headband” was allowing the speaker cavities to drop too far. I emailed Heil to see what they would say. This is what I got as a reply.

Hi John

The only answer is that you have a small head. To adjust this, it is very simple. Remove the two screws that hold one side of the support band…the one that rests on your head. When you remove those small screws, you can slide the vinyl cover that normally touches you head from this assemble. This will expose a plastic ‘Chinese spring’ assembly. Using a plastic wire tie, tie about 3 or four of those plastic springs together, causing the tension to be tighter. Replace the cover and the screws and you should be okay.

Hope this helps

BOB HEIL

After I stopped laughing, I tried them on again, I knew I wouldn’t be happy with them as they were, so I got a small philips screwdriver and got to work.

As the headband only has two screws holding it onto the heaphones I removed both and detached it completely. I then undid both screws at both ends of the headband and removed the vinyl cover. That left me with this:

The plastic cover popped off quite easily, so then I tried to ‘shorten’ the spring.

Neither solution was suitable for two reasons. The first attempt was prone to sliding left or right AND when I tried putting it back into the plastic cover I spotted that it would be in the way of the ‘centering’ plastic protrusion. The second attempt (trying to avoid the protrusion) still wouldn’t work as the ‘pull-ties’ were just too big.

I had a look around, I couldn’t get Insulating tape on properly without getting annoyed. So I got some thread, tied a few loops around the centre, of the ‘springs’ to shorten them. Once compressed it was much easier to get tape in around them to keep the thread in place and stop it from slipping to the side. The result was:

After all that, I think I may have made the springs slightly too tight, but the headphones definitely ‘sit’ better than before, only time and usage will tell.

Thanks Bob for replying to my query, and you might think of ‘smaller’ heads in future, 73!