Sony WH-CH730N FCC Teardown
I already compared the 730N and 720N in terms of design, sound, and performance in my review, and now it is time to compare how much the new 730N differs from the 720N on the inside.
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The earpads are removed in the same fashion as the 720N, they slide off the groove on the outer edge of the earcup. Removing them is rather easy, but putting them back on can be tricky. I would have preferred earpads with clips, but Sony opted to save on costs, and kept the same design as the previous model.
The upside is, replacement earpads from the 720N should fit the 730N, but they will be missing the L and R marks on the mesh.
Looking at the driver and inside of the earcup, the design is the same, but some of the screw locations have changed. The feedback microphone is covered just like in the 720N, and is still an electret type. This means the headset can suffer from moisture build up, and eventual damage to the microphone, resulting in a high pitched sound when noise cancelling is on. From what I have read in various articles, the 730N driver unit is carried over from the 720N.
Opening up the right side, we have battery compartment, and the button PCB. The WH-CH730N continues the new Sony trend of enclosing the entire battery in an small box. I opened my own unit to have a look at the battery, and snapped the photo below. I decided not to open the battery compartment as I was still testing the headset for my review.
Here is a shot of the WH-CH720N. The layout is the very similar, PCB near the bottom with buttons, a battery in the middle, and the feedforward microphone at the top.
One obvious difference from the WH-CH720N, is that the 730N now uses a connector for the connections from the right to the left side. The GND and VBAT connections to the left side are still soldered though. The battery connector has 3 pins, so no change here. The WH-1000XM4CÂ is also using the same 3 pin connector, as revealed in the FCC teardown.
- Feedback microphone connection
- Driver connection
- Ground
- VBAT
- Feedforward microphone connection
If the WH-CH730N hinge ever breaks, users will need to desolder the VBAT and ground connections, in order to replace the hinge. This is because the VBAT and ground wires pass through the hinge, along with the connector to the left side.
Not much on the reverse site, except labels for the connections that are on the top side.
The internal battery capacity has dropped by 20mAh to 500mAh in the new model, but the battery life has increased significantly. The reason for this increase is explained as ‘confidential’ by Sony in an article from Phileweb. Cryptic.
There are 3 suppliers for the battery according to the Taiwanese certification.
- Highpower – model 472932
- Chongqing VDL – model 462932PM4
- Springpower – model 472932
The increased battery life is only in playback, with the communication time with NC on/off, unchanged from the 720N.
