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Recently, the acoustic emission (AE) technique has been widely applied in the field of geotechnical engineering. One of the main applications of this technique is to locate damage sources, which is known as the AE source location technique. In this research, the 3D AE source location technique based on the time difference of arrival is verified by conducting pencil lead break (PLB) tests on a cylindrical metal specimen. From the results of this study, the existing method is proven to have the least error in terms of distance from the coordinate origin, but with some errors along x, y, and z axes. When the PLB sources originate in the middle part of the specimen, the calculated result has a higher accuracy, as compared to other positions. It seems that the calculated AE sources tend to be concentrated on the central part with some errors. Moreover, outside noises induced by a hammer hit have virtually no effect on this AE source location technique.