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Recabling a pair of headphones

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Recabling a pair of headphones

Postby maxray on Thu Sep 16, 2010 8:10 pm

My trusty Grados SR80 are fine, but the left channel on the cable sometimes stops working, which can only mean that it's been worn out at the place where two mono cables become one stereo one. Unfortunately I am too unaware of the market to buy a new wire and too sloppy to actually recable anything. Is there any place in Fife or Edinburgh where I can fix this problem before it gets worse?
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Re: Recabling a pair of headphones

Postby Fawksie on Thu Sep 16, 2010 8:39 pm

You could PM Duggeh or should that fail, e-mail dm49 and he should be able to recommend someone to repair them, or do it himself.
The fox is a crafty and deceitful animal that never runs in a straight line, but only in circles.
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Re: Recabling a pair of headphones

Postby wild_quinine on Thu Sep 16, 2010 9:15 pm

That's such a coincidence, because my Dad gave me a pair of his old cans a while back because they had exactly the same problem... It was a dry connection at the plug, as you might expect.

I left them lying around for months because I'm such a lazy bum, but in the end I ordered a new plug from some ebay dude, and got to it with a soldering iron. I daresay someone else could have done a better job, but it wasn't as delicate as I'd thought it might be.

The weirdest thing? Mine are Grado SR-80s as well! I'd never heard them in all their glory till I finally got around to fixing them. And wow, what a wonderful pair of headphones! Definitely worth getting 'em fixed. :)

If you think that the problem is with a connection at the plug, it's not hugely difficult to buy a replacement. If you do decide to try it yourself, or you buy the parts yourself, I'd recommend either of these:

Switchcraft 3.5mm Stereo Jack Plug Gold Plated Pro
NEUTRIK NYS231, 3.5mm stereo jack plug

I looked into it a bit at the time, and they were both highly recommended as replacements.

Also, this set of videos shows someone rewiring almost every part of a pair of 60s, just in case you think the problem might be elsewhere...

QW
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Re: Recabling a pair of headphones

Postby maxray on Thu Sep 16, 2010 9:40 pm

Unfortunately it's not the plug: it's the cable wear at the triangular thingie that connects all the cables. Partially caused by the wires twisting all the time and me being too lazy to fix it on every occasion.
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Re: Recabling a pair of headphones

Postby wild_quinine on Thu Sep 16, 2010 11:26 pm

maxray wrote:Unfortunately it's not the plug: it's the cable wear at the triangular thingie that connects all the cables. Partially caused by the wires twisting all the time and me being too lazy to fix it on every occasion.


Shame, I did wonder from your description if it was that or the plug, but I wasn't sure. Sounds like you might just have to re-wire the whole way up to the headphones. The vids for the SR60 rewiring guide that I linked to will give you a good idea of what's involved.

I can understand if you don't want to try it yourself, but you might pick up some tips on what to buy, and what equipment would be needed - I guess you might have some friends who are handy with a soldering iron, or so forth?

I don't know what a pro would charge, but I'm guessing that if they supplied parts as well, it could wind up being a significant fraction of the current value of the headphones. I'm guessing they're worth about 70 or 80 quid used...
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Re: Recabling a pair of headphones

Postby maxray on Thu Sep 16, 2010 11:59 pm

Well, I think I still officially am a 4th Degree Technician in Russia, which means that I can solder stuff together with an iron and do some more technical stuff, however I am afraid that I will, as always, mistake one wire for another, make it all look ugly and beyond repair (that happened already). So all I actually seem to need is just some guidance on what to buy and where to get a soldering iron, I guess.
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