New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Chopping a HD650 Cable

post #1 of 9
2/19/07 at 7:19pm
Thread Starter 
I've been looking for replacement cables for my HD650, to a more manageable length so that I can carry it outside with me. Unfortunately, the only canidate for this that I've found is a Cardas cable that runs around 180$ for a 4 foot cable. I'm definitely not looking to spend that much; the stock cable sounds fine to me. How would I go about shortening the cable (and hopefully terminating in a 1/8 connector)?
Reply
post #2 of 9
2/19/07 at 10:34pm
Buy a 1/8inch stereo plug and solder it on- The wire used in your cable is varnished wire. Strip it back and used a lighter to burn it off- It should turn dark- use fine grit sandpaper to clean the wire. Now you can flux and solder the wire to your new plug. link for part
Tip and copper colored is left, center is red and the right. Both green wires go the the back connection(ground).
Reply
post #3 of 9
2/19/07 at 11:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kg4icn View Post
Buy a 1/8inch stereo plug and solder it on- The wire used in your cable is varnished wire. Strip it back and used a lighter to burn it off- It should turn dark- use fine grit sandpaper to clean the wire. Now you can flux and solder the wire to your new plug. link for part
Tip and copper colored is left, center is red and the right. Both green wires go the the back connection(ground).
This is not how my HD-650 cable was ( just used the connectors to make a new cable last night). In my cable there was a copper colored wire in each channel, and a red in one channel and a green in the other. So, here's how it was:

- Copper colored wires are ground.

- Green and red are signal. Green is left channel, red is right channel.

Stereo phone plugs are standard (as described above): the tip is the left signal, the center is the right signal, and the bottom (closest to the wire/furthest from tip) is ground.

I found the post above confusing so I thought I'd give throw my explanation out there as well. As I said, I just did my cable last night, and testing for continuity I obtained the results above. I don't know why your cable was different than mine, but if there are multiple variations I suppose it's best to have an explanation of all of them around.
Reply
post #4 of 9
2/20/07 at 2:25pm
Thread Starter 
I have no experience in soldering... I feel like this is a bad place to start. Is there another way to accomplish my goal? Is there another seller that makes what I'm looking for?

Thanks again, appreciate the insights.
Reply
post #5 of 9
2/21/07 at 6:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shevlock View Post
I have no experience in soldering... I feel like this is a bad place to start. Is there another way to accomplish my goal? Is there another seller that makes what I'm looking for?

Thanks again, appreciate the insights.
There are very few custom cables available for the 650, and the ones that are are quite costly. In my opinion making your own is the only cost effective option, perhaps buy another replacment cable for the 650 and $bribe$ a friend to solder a new a plug for you?
edit: If he makes a few of them perhaps you could sell them on ebay! $$$
Reply
post #6 of 9
2/21/07 at 7:32am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shevlock View Post
I have no experience in soldering... I feel like this is a bad place to start. Is there another way to accomplish my goal? Is there another seller that makes what I'm looking for?

Thanks again, appreciate the insights.
Pay for someone (e.g. a DIY in Head-fi) to do the job for you.
Reply
post #7 of 9
2/22/07 at 4:47am
Yeah... If its your first time soldering, you might have trouble. The 3.5mm plug solder points are quite small and not fun at all to solder. I just finished my first job w/o a 3rd hand, and its probably one of the worst hack-up jobs I have ever seen... Electrical tape, solder, etc. everywhere. Considering I was able to build a CMOY...

For ground, just use the colored wire that is in both wire channels. Of course, checking with a multimeter is better but...
Reply
post #8 of 9
2/23/07 at 12:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DrizzitT View Post
Yeah... If its your first time soldering, you might have trouble. The 3.5mm plug solder points are quite small and not fun at all to solder. I just finished my first job w/o a 3rd hand, and its probably one of the worst hack-up jobs I have ever seen... Electrical tape, solder, etc. everywhere. Considering I was able to build a CMOY...

For ground, just use the colored wire that is in both wire channels. Of course, checking with a multimeter is better but...
Once again, in my cable, the colored wires were not ground. I checked multiple times.

Which pin (on the headphone connectors) did you find to be ground in your cable, the big pins or the small pins? Ground was big pins for me, which was also the copper colored wires.

Additionally, think about it: if you make a cable, with a different colored wire to each channel but also the same colored wire to each channel, you've got three colors. Ground from both channels goes to the same place, signal does not. Why would you make the cable so that you can't tell which channel signal is which, but you can tell between the two channels' grounds (based on color alone, not anything else)? It wouldn't make sense. It does make sense for both ground wires to be the same color, and the signal wires to be different colors. And, what do you know, that's how my cable is .

I suspect there are quite a few people who have reversed absolute phase in their cable (not that it makes much of a difference anyway).

EDIT: I think I misunderstood your post. Did you mean use whichever color goes to both channels (ie copper), not the colored wires (green and red)? I just read it again and that's what it seems like, so sorry about this long post. However, if this makes it more clear than it's not such a bad thing.
Reply
post #9 of 9
2/23/07 at 4:02pm
Not a good idea to start into DIY cables with a HD650 cable, the enamel coating on them is a it of a pain in the ass. Not as bad as Cardas, but not too far behind.

If you're in Canada, I'll reterminate the stock cable for you with a 1/4" or 3.5mm plug if you send me a new one for me to keep
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home