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Hello,
I live in Chicago and I've a broken headphone input on my H4N. It still works, but when trying to monitor, I have to fiddle with my headphones in order to get a signal. I called but they charge too much for labor and I don't have a soldering kit to fix it myself yet. Does anyone know a good place to get is fixed locally or somewhere dependable in the states?
I did that to my old H4. The headphone jacks on that one were mounted straight onto the circuit board, which was not accessible without destroying the device.
that's kind of the tradeoff with super compact recording devices. You may be out of luck.
I can't help with a place that will fix it, but if you do decide to try to fix it yourself here's a step by step guide for disassembling the H4N.
If you're handy with electrical repairs, you should be able to get to the PC board. Now the tricky part is to remove the old part, the headphone jack (you can call the company and they will give you a replacement jack). There are 6 soldering points. To remove the old one, you have to use a wick or vacuum to remove the solder from the 6 contact points. Once you do that, the new one goes in.
WHAT IF YOU DON'T HAVE A SOLDERING IRON? Do the removal of everything, then take the PC board and the new jack into a repair shop and they will do it for you for a minimal fee. Try a professional audio gear rental place (especially for musicians or productions or tv).
That doesn't seem all that impossible (ignore the red marking):
Why not invest in a soldering iron (with a small tip, and preferably temperature control) and DIY?
