Audeze lcd2 lucky membrane tears

So my lcd2's pads just dissolved and I ordered new ones.
I'm the only owner, and once I removed the old pads by just pulling them out, I'm greeted by the sight of a couple of gaping holes in the membrane - none on the traces (that's why cans work). The tears were between the trace and "coupler" parts of the membrane, and between that non conductive coupling part and the assembly outside.
I've read quite a bit about lcd driver failures, and apparently you are not supposed to press them to your head as it can rupture the membrane (possibly what happened here).

I figured it's probably ok to leave it as it is, and those tears are in a way probably even protective cause now the air has a hole to go through, but then again as the drivers work, it might promote further tearing...

So anyway, I wasn't happy disassembling the entire magnet structure, so I managed to plug the holes using epoxy and thin kapton tape. Unfortunatelly I don't have the "before" pics.

It was a bit nerve wrecking but it worked out, and the drivers still work fine and are undamaged.



epoxy, plastic screwdrivers and nonmagnetic tweezers



glued the torn nonconductive part of the membrane all the way to the outside assembly





Tears between traces and suspension part.

 

Maybe I can even them out from the other side a bit

 

Problem is that this fix adds significant weight to one membrane vs the other so there will be a channel imbalance and likely poorer performance out of the fixed side due to not being able to move as fast. I’ve had Audeze membranes tear and actually could not hear a difference if they still functioned. Though I of course would not sell them like that.

but if they sound good then it’s fine don’t stress it. I just wouldn’t worry about a small membrane tear if the drivers still work and sound ok. For other viewers out there. I bet there’s some sub bass loss from the tear but most music doesn’t have much sub bass. Remember really good bookshelf speakers roll off way higher than sub bass and sound great.

 

Ah, the resident ortho specialist. Yes, you are of course correct.

I applied almost the same amount of tape to both sides (both sides were torn), and it's on the most eccentric part of the driver.

I was mostly worried about the rip spreading.

Regarding the tuning effects, I believe that due to the absolutely tiny amount of the tape applied it probably won't be detectible, but I plan to measure them on my incoming gras clone system anyway so it doesn't bother me much.

Maybe I shouldn't have done that fix, I don't know...

It just seemed like an opportune time to do it, to remove the risk of it spreading.

 

Sorry I should have also congratulated you on the incredible fix! Those membranes are so fragile, you were incredibly precise and gentle to do that fix. Nice!

 

Thanks!
Well, I can tell you that this shit is far gentler than conjunctiva/retina. I was surprised. It's very, very fragile.

 

Lucky for you. In my case when I tried to tear down the driver to fix my pre-faz LCD2 that died for no reason, I mistakenly pinked the membrane hardly with my magnetic screwdriver and it just left a small concave mark (the driver was laid on the table). The membrane looked fine with no tears but still got no sound. It seems that Audeze has done too good job to thin the membrane.

 

Everything working flawlessly. I detect no problems