How-To: Repairing Faulty Headphones
Welcome Lifehackers! Looks like another one of my posts has been lucky enough to be featured on Lifehacker! Very cool. I hope you enjoy my how-to.
About a year ago I picked up a pair of Shure E2C headphones. Well worth their somewhat expensive price, I use them all the time. They provide a ton of isolation, so they’re great on the bus and when flying.
But, in my experience, the actual headphone plug leaves a lot to be desired. Within about 8 months of regular use, I started getting the traditional crappy connection problems you get with cheaper headphones. After a few months of constantly trying to tweak the connector in order to get a good connection, I finally decided to replace the connector myself.
The final product was quite impressive. For more details, read on.
Step 1: Acquire supplies
Obviously you’ll need a pair of faulty headphones. And a new connector. I picked up a gold-plated 1/8″ connector from Radio Shack for about $3.99. I could have bought the standard chrome one for a buck or two cheaper, but in this situation, “bling” is worth a few extra bucks.
Step 2: Strip off old connector
First step is to remove the old crappy connector and strip it down to it’s bare wires.
Strip off the main cover for an inch or so, and then strip the individual wires. They will be incredibly tiny. This is where it pays to be really good at soldering. I won’t elaborate, but I’m not that good at soldering.
Step 3: Solder on the new connector
Now solder on the new connector. This is where reading becomes important.
According to Wikipedia, the three connections on a headphone jack are as follows:
- The “Tip” (the end of the connector), which handles the left stereo channel. For me this was the blue wire, which I connected to the shortest terminal.
- The “Ring” (the first segment of the connector), which handles the right stereo channel. This was the red wire, which I connected to the middle terminal.
- The “Sleeve” (the second segment of the connector), which is the common ground. For my headphones, this was the conductor with no insulation on it. This was the wire with no insulation, and it connected to the ground terminal.
It may or may not take you some experimentation to figure out what wire is which channel in your headphones. Once you figure it out, solder or screw the connections down to each channel.
Step 4: Reinforce the connection
This step actually came later for me. At first I just soldered up the connections and used the plastic sleeve that came with the connector, but after a week or two my connection was flakier than the original. The tiny wires were moving around too much within the connector. So I re-soldered my connections and then encased the whole deal within a protective layer of cheap two-part epoxy.
Afterwards I waited for the epoxy to dry, and then shaved it down small enough to fit into the screw-on connector.
I’m very happy with the final results. After the epoxy modification, I’ve got a connector that is rock-solid and as good if not better sounding than the original jack. And I get tons of great compliments on how cool the “bling” connector is.
There you go. About $5 and less than an hour’s work to save a $100 pair of headphones. I hope you find this as helpful as me.
48 Responses to “How-To: Repairing Faulty Headphones”
Leave a Reply
del.icio.us- Kelly Kettle® - Lee Valley Tools
- Arduino - ArduinoBoardNano
- spellr.us | Automated Website Spell Checking
- hudson: an extensible continuous integration engine
- www.saturdayhouse.org - Seattle Saturday House
- Alloc Init | Downloads
- scottberkun.com » Asshole driven development
- Free boat plans, online boat plan sources, at svensons.com
- Royal Pingdom » What the inside of a container data center looks like
- SMS data rate is 4x more expensive than data from the Hubble - Boing Boing
August 10th, 2007 at 5:10 am
Good advice - just one small point.
Remember to slip the new metal cover over the cable * before * you start soldering.
August 10th, 2007 at 5:29 am
One other possible solution . . . Shure has a great replacement program . . . I have the same headphonesa and 2x over a 2 year period, this happened to me. I sent them back to Shure, and within a week each time, I had a brand new pair.
August 10th, 2007 at 5:45 am
And if the cable broke like half way? You can use some kinda connector? Cuz i got 2 great pairs of sennheisers laying around with the same problem
August 10th, 2007 at 6:12 am
But would this work a second time?
August 10th, 2007 at 6:14 am
You wouldn’t want to use a connector with this small gauge wire. If they are large diaphragm speakers, desolder the wire leads inside the headphone housing and resolder a new wire. On the other end, follow this guide to add a connector. These mini-plug (1/8″ stereo) connectors can be purchased all over the place in many styles and sizes.
August 10th, 2007 at 6:15 am
Awesome - I’ve done this before - not as nice though and it’s worked great. Now if only someone could show me how to fix the internal headphone jack on my Creative Labs Mp3 player we’d be set.
August 10th, 2007 at 6:15 am
Hey,
Are the e3cs? What buds are you using?
August 10th, 2007 at 6:18 am
Yeah, I’m with Luc -
I’ve had my Shure’s replaced - no problem. There’s a two year warranty that resets when you get a new pair. Even if you don’t have the original receipt or anything - they cover it for two years from manufacture date.
IMHO, not worth the time to solder and all of that if I can get a brand new pair for the cost of postage.
August 10th, 2007 at 6:19 am
Sorry - let me be specific..
not worth it for Shures..
But it’s a great write up for other brands that do not have as good a replacement program. Didn’t want to come across as negative.
August 10th, 2007 at 6:29 am
Nice pictures, maybe you should clean your headphones before you post pics on the web, eeewww ear cheese!
August 10th, 2007 at 6:41 am
[...] How-To: Repairing Faulty Headphones [chrismetcalf.net] [...]
August 10th, 2007 at 6:57 am
[...] how he replaced a faulty connector on his best earbuds with a big shiny new one from Radio Shack. How-To: Repairing Faulty Headphones [...]
August 10th, 2007 at 6:57 am
<
blockquote cite=”Bryan Says:
Good advice - just one small point.
Remember to slip the new metal cover over the cable * before * you start soldering.”>
Great point Bryan, same goes for the plastic sleeve. I can’t tell you how many times I have forgotten to slide the connector housing or heat shrink over a solder connector.
One more tip, instead of epoxy, hot glue works just as well.
August 10th, 2007 at 7:35 am
For most headphones, the signal wires are colour coded with enamel (green for left, red for right) while the grounds are bare copper. I’ve been told that you need to strip the enamel to get a good solder joint but I’ve never had any issues.
August 10th, 2007 at 8:36 am
I think in the main tutorial you should list the colors of the whires and what connects to where, but this is a great tutorial.
Scott
August 10th, 2007 at 9:58 am
That connector will ruin your mp3player’s audio-out, because it isn’t flexible when you are moving it around in the pocket. Better go for a connector with a 90-degree turn on it, that will rotate in your pocket, instead of ruining your precious device.
I have atleast broken 4 gadgets like that over the years
August 10th, 2007 at 10:08 am
@Bryan - Very good point. I’ll update the howto :)
@Everybody who mentioned the Shure warranty - Well… I never even thought of that for some reason…
@tech - Generally I clip my Nano to the strap on my bag while I’m out and about. Rarely do I stick it in a pocket. So I haven’t had much of an issue with the straight connector.
And sorry about the ear cheese…
August 10th, 2007 at 10:19 am
[...] http://chrismetcalf.net/blog/archives/2007/08/07/how-to-repairing-faulty-headphones/ [...]
August 10th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
The E2C’s are great headphones, I recommend them to anyone who doesn’t mind to spend some money to protect his hearing. There’s one thing that keeps them from being perfect: the cables themselves. These tend to grow fragile and less flexible after a while, tending to crack if bent. For the price, they surely could provide some more robust cables, I think.
But hey, other than that, great product!
August 10th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
[...] chrismetcalf.net - blog » How-To: Repairing Faulty Headphones Great advice about adding a dollup of two-part epoxy to reinforce the solder connections. I’ll have to use this on all of my connections. Say for example my MacBook Pro power adapter. (tags: howto Hacks headphones) [...]
August 10th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
[...] Good to know. Haven’t tried it. [...]
August 11th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
[...] chrismetcalf.net - blog » How-To: Repairing Faulty Headphones (tags: audio build connection gear hack hacks how-to howto ipod electronics diy headphones repair) [...]
August 12th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
[...] How-To: Repairing Faulty Headphones (tags: audio diy earbuds earphones electronics fix gear hack hacks ipod headphones repair howto) Bookmark to: [...]
August 13th, 2007 at 12:39 am
[...] how he replaced a faulty connector on his best earbuds with a big shiny new one from Radio Shack. How-To: Repairing Faulty Headphones [...]
August 14th, 2007 at 10:55 am
I have exactly the same problem with my e2c’s, thanks for sharing this!
August 14th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Step 2.5:
Do a quick dissection on the stub of cable that’s connected to the old plug. Use your multimeter to figure out which colour conductor connects to the tip, and which connects to the ring.
No guesswork required!
PS: Aren’t there any real parts stores in Seattle? Being pwned by The Shack can’t be any fun…..
August 14th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
@Jonathan Blundell:
Typically with jack connection problems, you’ll have cracked solder joints where the jack component connects to the circuit board - they’re usually not secured with any kind of glue, just solder. Almost always, the repair procedure is as simple as re-flowing the solder on the cracked connections, and they’re good as new.
August 15th, 2007 at 8:27 am
In response to Jan, if the cable is broken half way, you’d have a couple options. First, you could replace the entire headphone cable starting at the ear pieces…but it would be a little hard on earbuds since they’re so small. It is much easier on my big headphones, and I’ve done it about three times in the past 12 years (Sony MDR-V600s). Another option is to splice in a male and female plug, cutting out the bad section of existing wire. Make sure the male goes on the headphone side, and the female on the music source side. This way you basically have a short cord for headphones, but could be made any length with any other extension cord when you get the male/female jacks on the right sides.
August 15th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
[...] HOW TO - Repairing faulty headphones - Link. [...]
August 17th, 2007 at 7:37 am
[...] How-To: Repairing Faulty Headphones: [via LifeHacker] [...]
August 22nd, 2007 at 5:12 am
[...] them all the time. They provide a ton of isolation, so they’re great on the bus and when flying.read more | digg [...]
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Wow…thanks. My bose headphones just started shorting out on me this week. I’ll be printing this and doing this this weekend.
October 1st, 2007 at 10:48 am
The Shure E2 and E2c headphones actually have 10 ohm resistors between the contacts of the connector and the wires leading from the encapsulated plug assembly to the transducers. This modification will reduce the impedance seen by the mp3 player, increase the levels at your eardrums, and change the frequency response. All these effects are subtle, to be sure (no pun intended). But the cost of adding the resistors is not negligible so Shure certainly thought about it before doing it. Your modification, then, sligthly degrades performance compared to a new E2c, though clearly improves it relative to where you started.
November 3rd, 2007 at 5:21 am
[...] read more | digg story [...]
November 15th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Thanks for the excellent blog article on repairing headphones! I bought my Shure E2C’s a while back from Hifi Headphones in the UK and they’ve just done exactly the same thing. Time to get the soldering iron out…
November 25th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Heres another thing to try if you are still having problems trying to find were the wires go you can stripthe covering off the old conector and look were the wires go
that may help
November 27th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Heya, I have these Ultrasone DJ1 headphones… (the ones without the replaceable cable >_< )… the tip (and now the ring) of the connector is completely gone… you think they’d help me do all of this at RadioShack… the whole repairing process? maybe for 20 bucks or so? I know for a fact now that my warranty’s void. Any suggestions on this would be amazing. I’m quite the audiophile and go very insane without my epic music surrounding my ears… Thanks.
And yeah, I know this isn’t a support forum but… I’m desperate at this point.
January 21st, 2008 at 6:35 pm
My Beyer dynamics have FOUR wires (one red, one white, and two blacks) What am I to do?
February 4th, 2008 at 9:21 am
My Sennheiser headphones are only 40 euro new but i refuse to let them die yet.
February 11th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
I already cut the old crappy headphone jack off of my shure headphones. Do u think i could still send them in to shure to get them repaired? thank you for the advice, now i can repair 4 other headphones that have bin just laying around half broken.
February 12th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
i proceeded in installing the new headphone connector to the same headphones as you and did all the steps but I’m getting terrible static even though the wires are all connected to the right places and soldered securely in place, any advice?
March 12th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Why would I send my headphones back and wait a week when I could solder them in 20 minutes? Jeez it isn’t rocket science on how to solder…way to useful to not know how to do.
March 16th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Thank you thank you thank you - I have two pair of Sennheiser EH150’s that are gonna meet a soldering iron tomorrow!
March 17th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
I have been wonderin how to do this for ages… i have been running through headphones like mad because 1 side is dead. this just saved any i havent pulled apart.
April 9th, 2008 at 6:41 am
Thanks for an awesome tutorial- I have a pair of Etymotic ER6i’s that just recently started to have issues with sound only coming out of one side. I was about ready to buy a new pair, but came across this and I should have them working again by tomorrow!
May 1st, 2008 at 1:38 pm
[...] • Introducing S² Audio • SoundEarphones.com Coupons on UE & Sleek Audio • New Line of Audiophile Headphone Cables for Grado • Stefan AudioArtEquinox user group performance tips • Members Suggestions for New Headphone Cables and…. headphone or mp3 problem? I just got my sennheiser px100 in the mail today however its deciding not to work well with my zune. it seems i constantly have to wiggle the stem to get full audio. when ever i plug it in my computer audio port the sound is good. its strange my icemat siberias have a similar problem with the zune just a lot less zune headphones work fine ipod headphones work fine i am thinking of returning the px100 back to amazon is that my best option or i do this fix i found online? chrismetcalf.net » How-To: Repairing Faulty Headphones [...]
May 3rd, 2008 at 1:37 am
[...] my ER-6i’s without causing any/extensive loss of sound quality by following the instructions here - chrismetcalf.net » How-To: Repairing Faulty Headphones What do you [...]
May 17th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
I have some Ultrasone iCans, I bought them for my daughter last xmas and now the left phone isn’t working. I don’t know if the problem is out at the jack or up at the connection to the can itself. Any suggestions on figuring this out?
thanks