Done - 4-pin balanced Shure SRH840 modification - Page 2

So is there no commecially available plug that would fit the current socket? Even if the locking tabs were removed?

If I can manage it, I might get a replacement coiled cable and try taking apart the connector to see what kind of cable can be soldered in its place. It scares me less to sacrifice a $20 cable than my headphones if I funk something up when trying to replace the jack. Need to get my solder station first, though.

It is a bit of a chore stripping down OEM plugs but it certainly can be done.

You can get sub-mini plugs but the thing is those locking plastic shoulders. You would have to make sure you can get one that doesn't have much of a shoulder to it nor body.

Guess I'm pretty fearless working on headphones.

shure is a PITA...
se530- no replaceable cable!
srh840- replaceable cable but you can never find another one elsewhere!

At least it's a step in the right direction.

So I took a little peek into my left cup to see what scootermafia and warrior05 were talking about and have a couple questions. What purpose does the circuit board serve? Is it specific to the jack and just for connecting everything to it? Warrior05, can I assume that is what you were talking about when you said you had access to jacks with circuit boards on them already? Are jacks like that purchasable by scrubs like me at a reasonable cost, or is it something that is more the realm of the pro builders? Would it make much of a difference between using the board and hard wiring to whatever jack was used?

Scootermafia, when you rewired your cups with the OCC cable, did you solder to the little pcb on the driver or did you wire directly to the driver somehow? I have never taken a speaker apart so I'm trying to figure out what everything does.

I am fascinated with recabling these now. Seeing how scandalously thin the stock wires really are, I really want to see what thicker cables can do for the sound (plus it looks cooler ) I also like the idea of either a 1/8" inch jack or mini-XLR replacing the stock jack so that I can use different cables (different lengths, even different designs, I'm thinking candy cane stripes for Christmas).

Please teach me, sensei's.

I have PCB mounted 1/8" jacks from other mods I've done though I imagine you can source them. Just never looked myself. You could also use a jack that is meant to be mounted on a PCB and use strong hot glue to mount it inside. I have a couple of Switchcraft jacks and it seemed to dry fit pretty decently.

I don't remember if the PCBs had anything else other than traces on them. Shure might be using them because it makes connections easier.

Cool, thanks Warrior05. Once all my gear gets ordered and delivered (and I practice soldering) I am going to give it a shot. *Gulp*

There was another thread, possibly in Quinto's thread, where someone said that they had found 2.5mm plug that would fit them.

I'm interested in a recable down the road as I'm not much of a fan of the coiled cables, but I would have figured by now Moon Audio or someone would have made a cable that works!

Just wanted to say that, having never heard the 840's until recently at the past Houston Head-fi meet (a week ago) ... that these cans were one of the most impressive to my ear simply because of the performance vs. price point question.

I liked them better than my JVC DX1000's.

I'm def going to be picking up a pair. And not being a DIY guy ... I'm hoping somebody starts modding these on request (for $) in the future.

Great headphones.

The price is ridiculous when you compare them against other closed headphones.

I found a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter and plugged it into my Shure and Bithead. I got sound! I'm not sure it even sounds different, although it is a little tough to do a quick A/B. Main problem is the notches for the locking mechanism. They wouldn't allow anything thicker than the most slender 2.5mm plug to go in all the way. On my super cheap adapter, the jacket is a nice, super thin soft rubber which gives a little and actually makes a really snug connection. However, I don't know how much strain I am putting on the plastic locking tabs. If I utilized this method, I wouldn't want to break the tabs after switching cables just a couple times. It isn't ideal, but it is exciting to be able to do it. If a 2.5mm plug were outfitted with the cable and just some heatshrink or other super duper thin protector, it might work just fine (assuming the cable used is thin enough).

I am encouraged enough, however to keep trying for a nice solution.

Here are some pictures to show what I had and did. Now that I have shaved the sides of the 2.5mm jack down a little bit, it certainly can be put in and taken out quite easily. Just don't know if it is too easily now. I was able to hang the cable, the 6 foot extension plus a clip from it, so it seems secure enough. Now I have noticed a slight degradation in sound, but the adapter was free with something, is super thin, and the monoprice extension was a $1 probably. If a slim enough 2.5 mm jack can be found, some real cable can be used to possibly even improve the sound.

Perhaps when one of the pros has some time, they can experiment with the 2.5mm jack as a simpler solution.

BTW, since I haven't seen anyone else do this, yet, I hereby dub this first straight replacement cable for the SRH840 "Fraggler's Straight Ghetto Mod." Pictures below.

why do you have an exdended cable then?)

Because the short cable was a little too short. 6 foot extension was just what I had laying around.

Once my materials get here and I can find the right 2.5mm plug, I will be able to make maybe a 3 foot cable and a 6 foot cable.

I do find all these talk on a balanced portable amp very interesting, and I would love to try them out. The question I have is, who owns a balanced portable DAP?

Well, the little 2.5mm plug from my earlier post went under the Xacto today and became the... "Fraggler's Not-as-Ghetto Straight Cable Mod!"




I cut the casing of the plug away, desoldered the existing wires and used 3.5' of Mogami Mini Quad cable in its place. The thing was TINY and very hard for someone of my limited experience to solder. Managed to do it cleanly, though, and used some electrical tape and a couple layers of heatshrink to form the casing for the plug. I terminated the other end with a Rean 3.5mm plug for the project. I would have put some Techflex on it, but I was worried about microphonics (and I didn't have enough anyways ).

Here is a close up of the plug:


It isn't as secure as the stock locking plug (obviously), but it stays in there and I can even hang my Clip from it. Too much twisting can cause the signal to short out, so I am thinking of ways to create the locking wings to keep it in there more snuggly. I could also add another layer of heatshrink so that it is tighter going through the outer casing, which might stop any wiggle related sound issues, but will make it harder to switch out (not that I would be doing it often).

The cable sounds great to my ears. Don't know if the Mogami is any better than the stock cable, but it definitely doesn't sound worse! Plus no coil, slightly lighter, way cool blue color, and the perfect length for my Clip in a pants pocket or plugged into my Bithead on my desk.

By the way, I know this started off as a balanced mod thread, so I want to apologize to Scootermafia for kind of hijacking it. But I hope I have contributed some knowledge and will get forgiveness. For those interested, this is a way to get a straight cable for the SRH840's without opening up the headphones to do it. If I can figure out where I got my little adapter (I am not sure most of the 2.5mm plugs online will work without filing some metal down), I will order some more and make 2 more cables - one of out of Double Helix's Nucleotide, and one out of some silver braid from Home Grown Audio to see if I can change/improve the sound beyond what I am hearing now. Plus braided cable looks SOOOO much cooler than my Mogami.

Hope this sparks more people to play around with their Shures to see if there are better ways. I still like the idea of a mini XLR modded into the headphones so that cables can be locked in better. Beyond me right now, though. Next up will be to learn from Scootermafia how to redo the internal cables like he did.

PS I have queried Shure about getting some locked plugs, but have not heard back from them since my question was forwarded to engineering a week ago.