anyone ever rewire headphones?

V

venm11

2[H]4U
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Oct 6, 2004
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Actually, I'm trying to replace a plug. I thought *somebody* would have done this on here.

The problem is that I can't isolate the ground wires in L/R wires. It looks like they're not sheathed exacty, they just wrap some fibers (fiberglass?) around one set of wires to isolate them within the rubberized L/R wire. So, it looks impossible to repair.

What I'd actually like to do is wire them to RCA plugs. These headphones have perfect sensitivity for line-level outputs.
 
If you can open the driver housing I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to wire the positive and negative parts of the driver to a RCA connector. But what will you use the 'phones with?
 
What you're trying to do isn't re-wiring, all you're trying to do is re-terminate them. I've done it a lot before and it's pretty simple. A lot of companies use wiring like what you've found for cables since it's cheaper and more flexible than standard Teflon or Kapton insulated wire. Just solder green to left, red to right, copper to ground. If these are Grado it's the opposite. Red to left, green to right, copper to ground. No clue why, it just is. Hope this helps. If not, post a picture and I'll show you what to do.

Out of curiosity what do you plan on hooking these up to? Like a pre-amp with no headphone out? If you have a really high quality pre-amp, it's ok (Not ideal but ok) to run it off variable output RCAs but often times the RCA outputs won't output enough current to drive them properly. You'll have enough power most likely to get high volume levels but the sound quality might be subpar.
 
Wow, I didn't expect to get any replies.

Skyline889 - correct, re-terminate, although actually my second project is to replace the wire on my old grados -- thanks for the wiring tip :). These headphones are old, cheap Koss's. I've had difficulty seperating the individual wires because the wrap comes undone, and any colors/coatings are very difficult to see, so it's just a mess of copper/aluminum. Even if I can separate them out, how can I be sure they are properly insulated, given this fiber winding? I'll try to post a pic if i can, though if I can't even see the difference between the ground wires I don't knwo if it will show up in a jpg.

skyline & 450: I tried these can some years ago with a bunch of adapters because I didn't have a headphone jack with my TV (and still don't). I found that they worked perfectly with the standard rca line level outputs (R/L) from any component. I really should just make a headphone <-> rca adapter, and replace the headphone jack on these, but I'm so much lazier than that.

kencheeto -- thanks for the link, i'll do some perusing
 
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