ThatGuyAgain
Forum Supporter
Disclaimer: If you choose to follow in my possibly misguided footsteps, please be aware that you might destroy your headphones and not be able to get replacements for some time.
I got a Manticore in the mail about a month ago and love it with only a few small caveats. The biggest annoyance for me is that the headphones are absolutely horrible. The ear cups are nice and large, but they don’t have a pivoting head, so they don’t conform to your head at all - even less than prior Minelab headphones. As a result, they feel a bit like someone took old 80s/90s Walkman headphones and make them over-the-ear instead of on-ear. Then there’s the waterproofing issue. It isn’t that these aren’t waterproof. It’s that they aren’t environment proof. There are reports of these headphones failing from high humidity alone - given I live by the ocean and do most of my detecting during or just after bad weather on beaches, this is a pretty huge limitation.
So what is good about these headphones?
I have an old pair of Sony WM1000-MX4 headphones that broke but I kept swearing I would fix them. If I remove the guts from these, I might be able to fit the Manticore components inside the Sony body, giving me a much more compact, robust, and comfortable headphone with better weatherproofing. It still wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be a big step up.
I did a teardown of the Manticore headphones yesterday and they are remarkably simple. There are two boards, the battery, and the speakers. The main board is exactly the size of the 1000mAh battery that was in the Sony’s previously, so it already has a new home. The secondary board has 3 tactile buttons and the USB-C port as well as the voltage regulator / charge module. The battery is a simple 500mAh li-ion battery. The boards are both well labeled, so it’s a fairly straightforward teardown. I’m planning to put together some wiring and board schematics for anyone else who wants to try this.
Where I stand today: I have verified that all the parts will fit inside the Sony body with some minor modifications. I need to grind down the secondary board slightly, cut new button holes in the Sony body, and remove part of the inner structure on the Sony. I’ll then need to run new wiring through the headband and de/re-solder everything. I have decided not to expose the auxiliary headphone port since these will still not be waterproof and I’d rather just use my Grey Ghost headphones if I’m going in the wet. I’m waiting for some heatshrink to come in the mail before I go all in on this operation, but hopefully I’ll have an update here in a week or two.
What am I risking?
Well the obvious answer here is my Manticore headphones themselves. I have 17 years experience prototyping and doing both hardware and software development, but that doesn’t mean all my experiments work. I have had my fair share of “damn…I really hoped that would work” moments. There is also potential that I will succeed only to find out that I somehow impeded the low-latency signal with the new headphone body or that I really did want an aux-in plug. For now that’s a chance I’m willing to take.
What do I stand to gain?
I got a Manticore in the mail about a month ago and love it with only a few small caveats. The biggest annoyance for me is that the headphones are absolutely horrible. The ear cups are nice and large, but they don’t have a pivoting head, so they don’t conform to your head at all - even less than prior Minelab headphones. As a result, they feel a bit like someone took old 80s/90s Walkman headphones and make them over-the-ear instead of on-ear. Then there’s the waterproofing issue. It isn’t that these aren’t waterproof. It’s that they aren’t environment proof. There are reports of these headphones failing from high humidity alone - given I live by the ocean and do most of my detecting during or just after bad weather on beaches, this is a pretty huge limitation.
So what is good about these headphones?
- They have a low-latency wireless connection to the detector
- They charge via USB-C
- Uncomfortable - They don’t seal around my ears and just generally feel cheap
- BULKY - They don’t hinge or fold anywhere for packing
- Flimsy - the exposed wires are just begging for them to break
- Weatherproofing - If a humid day can take these out, then they aren’t likely to stand up to stormy weather on a beach.
- The optional wired connection. I want a wired headphone when I’m planning to submerge the control box. Why would I want that when the headphones themselves aren’t waterproof? In fairness, I have seen this kind of logic in the past with Minelab. When I got my 800, the WM-08 unit that came with it included a waterproof headphone connector, but was not waterproof itself and would not work with waterproof headphones (this led to a very long and confused call with Minelab)
I have an old pair of Sony WM1000-MX4 headphones that broke but I kept swearing I would fix them. If I remove the guts from these, I might be able to fit the Manticore components inside the Sony body, giving me a much more compact, robust, and comfortable headphone with better weatherproofing. It still wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be a big step up.
I did a teardown of the Manticore headphones yesterday and they are remarkably simple. There are two boards, the battery, and the speakers. The main board is exactly the size of the 1000mAh battery that was in the Sony’s previously, so it already has a new home. The secondary board has 3 tactile buttons and the USB-C port as well as the voltage regulator / charge module. The battery is a simple 500mAh li-ion battery. The boards are both well labeled, so it’s a fairly straightforward teardown. I’m planning to put together some wiring and board schematics for anyone else who wants to try this.
Where I stand today: I have verified that all the parts will fit inside the Sony body with some minor modifications. I need to grind down the secondary board slightly, cut new button holes in the Sony body, and remove part of the inner structure on the Sony. I’ll then need to run new wiring through the headband and de/re-solder everything. I have decided not to expose the auxiliary headphone port since these will still not be waterproof and I’d rather just use my Grey Ghost headphones if I’m going in the wet. I’m waiting for some heatshrink to come in the mail before I go all in on this operation, but hopefully I’ll have an update here in a week or two.
What am I risking?
Well the obvious answer here is my Manticore headphones themselves. I have 17 years experience prototyping and doing both hardware and software development, but that doesn’t mean all my experiments work. I have had my fair share of “damn…I really hoped that would work” moments. There is also potential that I will succeed only to find out that I somehow impeded the low-latency signal with the new headphone body or that I really did want an aux-in plug. For now that’s a chance I’m willing to take.
What do I stand to gain?
- Greater comfort
- Improved weather sealing
- Smaller pack size
- No more exposed wiring —> Improved durability
- Improved sound isolation for easier identification of faint targets
, a disappointment , upgrade no , an unexpected higher priced machine you--- expect better--- headphones , nope a rip off ! The company should replace them NO CHARGE !!!!!!!! DO TO poor quality with a higher priced machine !!!!!!
