[Benny-x]

Hey guys and gals, 
 
I've been looking into getting my headphones recabled, but I've got a few pairs of them and I found that I was looking at some real serious numbers just for some new cables that WILL look great, but MAY or MAY NOT do anything... That lead me to the DIY route, and well, I think I feel pretty comfortable here :-D 
 
So here's the low, I want to do a pretty massive recable on 3 pairs of headphones I currently own and also prepare myself for the ones that will come in the future. I only have a single ended amp right now, but I will definitely be buying a balanced one in the near future because my source is balanced. So I want to make a system of cables that can be taken on and off depending on whether I'm plugging the 'phones into a 1/8'' portable rig, 1/4'' home rig, a dual 3pin-XLR home right, and single 4pin-XLR home rig.
 
To do this I will rewire all of my headphones from the inside out and have a 6'' tail from the right and left sides terminated in a male mini 3pin or 4pin XLR. From there I'll make various cables that have female mini XLRs on the headphone end and are terminated in 1/8'', 1/4'', dual 3pin-XLR, and single 4pin-XLR on the amp end. This way I can switch out the whole cable depending on what amp I'm using.
 
I'll make these cables:
 
[size=small] 1. 10' dual mini-XLR to 1/4''[/size]
[size=small] 2. 10' dual mini-XLR to dual 3pin-XLR[/size]
[size=small] 3. 10' dual mini-XLR to 4pin-XLR[/size]
[size=small] 4. 5' dual mini-XLR to 1/8''[/size]
[size=small]  [/size]
[size=small] So now I have a few questions, the ones that are holding me up. [/size]
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[size=small] 1. Is there any purpose in the ground wire of a headphone? By that I mean, when you have 4pin-XLR, from the drivers there is R+&R- on the right side, L+&L- on the left side, but there's no GRD wire. When you have 1/4'', from the driver there's R&GRD on the right side, L&GRD on the left side, and after the cable comes together there is R,L,&GRD. You might say "GRD to shield", but not all headphone cables have shields, do they? So, what's the purpose of the GRD wire? Is there any real difference to headphones which are wired up with them and ones that aren't? [/size]
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[size=small] 2. When going from 4pin-XLR with R+&R- on the right side, L+&L- on the left side, and connecting to 1/4'' plug, what do you do with the wires? By this I mean you have R+&R-and L+&L- from your headphones, but only "R", "L", and GRD in the plug. So do you, for example, connect R+ to R and R- to GRD, and L+ to L and L- to GRD on the terminated plug/amp side of the cable? If so, is there a downside here where you'll get some feedback or something? [/size]
[size=small]  [/size]
[size=small] 3. When you're going from 4pin-XLR on the headphones with R+&R- on the right side, L+&L- on the left side, and connecting to dual 3pin-XLRs, do you just leave the 3pin's GRD empty? So inside the amp's FEMALES there's R+,R-,&GRD for the right 3pin-XLR and L+,L-,&GRD for the left 3pin-XLR, but in the headphone cable's MALE 3pins the GRD actually goes nowhere?[/size]
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[size=small] 4. The reason I'm wondering is because I need to know if I should wire the headphones themselves with dual mini 3pin-XLR tails or dual mini 4pin-XLR tails? These headphones are gonna be wired balanced, but does it improve or hurt anything to have balance with or without a ground(GRD)? Even if the answer is just a straight "yes" or "no", please think about it in respect to me wiring 3 sets of headphones that will have modular attachment cables based on one of these two pin layouts. [/size]
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[size=small] 5. What happens when you take a set of headphones which are R+&R-and L+&L balanced and run them from an unbalanced amp? Do they work just as usual, only receiving power from one direction, for example R+&L+, and the other wires, R-&L-, just kinda hang out hooked up to their respective drivers like a ground wire usually does? Or is there some downside to this?[/size]
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[size=small] 6. And finally, but very similar to the previous question, what happens when you take a set of headphones which are R+,R-,&GRD and L+,L-,&GRD balanced and run them from an unbalanced amp? Do they work just as usual, only receiving power from one direction, for example R+&L+, and the ground wires linking to the amp, and the other wires, R-&L-, just kinda hang out doing nothing? Or is there some downside to this?[/size]
[size=small]  [/size]
[size=small] And boom, that's the end of my GIANT post. I've looked around for a while, but I haven't found much information in these ares. Sorry for making it so long and please ask me to clarify anything that doesn't seem to make any sense. I could whip up a drawing, which would explain MUCH BETTER than words, if any of it's unclear.[/size]
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[size=small] Thanks a lot for reading through all that and for reaching out to a novice DIY'er in the making :-D[/size]
[size=small]  [/size]
[size=small] Ben[/size]

 

[Mr.Sneis]

When balancing headphones I believe for the most part it's just hot and cold without ground.  Making XLR to XLR cable I believe it's common to use the shield as ground but in some cases only one side of the shield is connected (which is a whole 'nother can of worms).

 

[Benny-x]

Haha, I had read a little about this whole shield to ground on one end of the cable and to nothing on the other. I didn't quite understand it, seeings as I asked all those other questions, so i thought I'd leave it for later if it came up. But thanks for letting me know that. Now that means I've got to shield my cables in some kind of mylar, right? But most headphone cables are like wire, teflon, cotton, then maybe cotton/nylon/or something, aren't they? I understand where, but I thought for home use in a "normal" environment, the copper/tin/whatever shielding wasn't needed. 
 
On most high-end, after market cables, is there shielding? Say from Moon Audio, APS, or DHC?

 

[bhjazz]

Sounds like a fun project, but I think you're taking on a lot all at once.  Check out the balanced article at headphone.com here:
 
http://www.headphone.com/learning-center/art-i-balanced-vs-unbalanced.php
 
And if it were me, I'd just take on one piece of this at a time.  You've got a lot of building ahead, why not just work on one pair at a time with one design at a time?  If you don't have any balanced amp to work with you'll likely soon be bored as you wont be able to test any of them.  

 

[Mr.Sneis]

Quote:

Haha, I had read a little about this whole shield to ground on one end of the cable and to nothing on the other. I didn't quite understand it, seeings as I asked all those other questions, so i thought I'd leave it for later if it came up. But thanks for letting me know that. Now that means I've got to shield my cables in some kind of mylar, right? But most headphone cables are like wire, teflon, cotton, then maybe cotton/nylon/or something, aren't they? I understand where, but I thought for home use in a "normal" environment, the copper/tin/whatever shielding wasn't needed. 
 
On most high-end, after market cables, is there shielding? Say from Moon Audio, APS, or DHC?

I had to re-read what you wrote a few times to understand heh.  No you really shouldn't need to add extra shielding to your cables in that manner, lots of cable makers wrap their stuff in nylon or techflex sleeving or shrinkwrap mostly for looks or strain relief.  Not sure where you got mylar from.

 

[Benny-x]

When I said mylar I meant one of these http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/504685805/Superior_copper_conductor_aluminium_mylar_coaxial.html , I know that's not a headphone cable, but when you say shield that's the one you're talking about, right? Like on the Mogami 2893 quad mic cables, they have shields that most people remove to get to the 4 wires, but that's the same shield that you're talking about connecting the ground wire to, right? Or I've completely missed the boat on what shield means and I've been misunderstanding it the whole time...
 
Another another cable that has one of these shields is the Spore by DHC, but this one is a hybrid mylar that's made of some kind of woven fabric and metal. I thought that was a neat idea, but yeah, it's what I meant by mylar. 
 
However, yes, I was more in line with what you mentioned about how most cables don't have these mylar shields and just have cotton, techflex, or paracord outer shells. Some have none at all. So that is where I really wondered what "shield" meant. Sorry for my misunderstanding and horrible explanations, I'm really at the outer limits of my understanding here and when I don't know the terminology and you do, that's bad because I'll confuse you too by using the wrong words...
 
Thanks :-D

 

[RexAeterna]

the whole point of balancing a headphone is to eliminate that ''common'' ground wire. you don't need it. why? the negatives/cold/return wires act as a separate ground as well. on a 1/4'' TRS jack reason why the negatives are soldered together on balanced headphones already(K601 or older studio headphones) is so that both negatives act as a double ground. there is no need to add any extra ground wiring to them. the negatives will already act as a ground. my advice is go the 4-pin xlr route as well cause i don't get the whole dual 3-pin xlr with headphones. yea might make sense for balanced power amps and audio interfaces in a way but 4-pin xlr can do that as well with a 4pin to dual 3-pin xlr adapter. 4-pin xlr can be done single-ended,dual 3-pin xlr can't(well it can but it'll be kinda dumb if you ask me).

great thing bout making headphones balanced as well you can drive them off anything from power amps,interfaces,preamps,single-ended,balanced sources,ect. you should think about making some 4-pin xlr to bare wire as well if you want and have some speaker amps laying around if you need the extra power or just for the heck of it.

 

[RexAeterna]

When balancing headphones I believe for the most part it's just hot and cold without ground.  Making XLR to XLR cable I believe it's common to use the shield as ground but in some cases only one side of the shield is connected (which is a whole 'nother can of worms).

with 3-pin xlr you just solder the negative to the 3rd pin(ground). negative wire will act as a ground as well.

 

[Mr.Sneis]

Quote:

with 3-pin xlr you just solder the negative to the 3rd pin(ground). negative wire will act as a ground as well.

 
Maybe on a grado with 8 conductors but your typical quad/headphone cable has 4 conductors and the shield!

 

[RexAeterna]

 
Maybe on a grado with 8 conductors but your typical quad/headphone cable has 4 conductors and the shield!

what? i don't get it. why would you need a shield for a 4 conductor? the negatives will already be acting as a ground. only 4-conductor wires i see is 2 for positive and 2 for negative/ground or you can use it whatever way you want since copper is just copper. the color coding just makes things easier to work with and for people.

i like to use just bare speaker wire for working with headphones. even though it's already insulated you can add whatever over the insulation to make it more pretty looking like bootlaces,thicker rubber insulation,techflex,cotton,basically whatever you want. i just use bare silver/copper 18 awg wiring for headphones and braid it best i can to make it half decent looking and to add strength to the cabling. all my headphones are terminated with a 4-pin xlr(except my fostex but that will be soon in the near future when i feel up to it and stop being lazy. i been procrastinating a lot lately).

 

[Benny-x]

I seem to be able to follow what you're both saying and I'm taking it all in as it goes back and forth. I'll let you guys pan it out a little and see if I can figure out which is the better one to go with, if I can understand that...
 
As for the "eliminating common ground" in Balanced, RexAterna, why would you then go ahead and combine the cold and ground? Like if separate grounds are important, then why would you then lump cold and ground together? Are you saying that having R- and L- alone will do the exact same job as have R-&GRD and L-&GRD ? Wouldn't a total separate [size=small]R+,R-,&GRD for the right and [/size][size=small]L+,L-,&GRD for the left be best? Why depart from a completely separate layout, grouping two things back together, if the whole move was made in the beginning to give things their own space? [/size]
 
Also, about the outer covering, yeah, I'll probably put some cotton or shoe laces around it to give it a nice look and hopefully a little extra durability. But I caught your drift in that some kind of "mylar" shield isn't necessary to add around the outside of the cable. In that case though, I get a little lost in regards to what Mr. Sneis said about connecting the ground to shield when moving from 3pin-XLR to 4pin-XLR. Where's the shield coming from?

 

[Benny-x]

Quote:

Sounds like a fun project, but I think you're taking on a lot all at once.  Check out the balanced article at headphone.com here:
 
http://www.headphone.com/learning-center/art-i-balanced-vs-unbalanced.php
 
And if it were me, I'd just take on one piece of this at a time.  You've got a lot of building ahead, why not just work on one pair at a time with one design at a time?  If you don't have any balanced amp to work with you'll likely soon be bored as you wont be able to test any of them.  

Thanks for posting that link. I had come across it before, but that was many moons ago, so I'll get back into reading it now. I've really covered a lot of ground in my own understand of all this audio stuff, so I should be able to comprehend a bit better what's going on in that thread now
 
You're right that I am definitely taking on a lot at once, but this is really where my head is at right now. I've been wondering about these questions for a while and trying to find out about them by reading what's on here, but I couldn't find any concrete answers. Haha, I know this is audio, so concrete might not be the best word to use, but what I mean is that I haven't found really any information comparing 3pin-XLR to 4pin-XLR. Especially in regards to grounding. I actually figured that might take some time to pan out, so I asked these questions a bit ahead of time so that I have enough information when I really get planning. I'm big into planning, makes lists, and mapping out steps. It's really part of the fun for me, so in my own head I'm at limit of where I can go next without this information.
 
You're also right about taking it step by step. When I can start to get a solid answer from here, both what I can learn and how I put it together myself, I'll make up an easier cable to test it out. I'm definitely going to start with something much simpler when I start moving ahead with this plan. I'd like to give a shot at different braiding types, so I think a stop to the hardware store is in order to get my feet wet. 
 
And I'll hopefully pick up that balanced amp sometime this summer, which is really only a few months off. So I want to be ready for when it arrives. Hopefully my understanding of balanced by that time is better and I can start some good trial and error. That amp I'm going to get has both dual 3pin-XLRs and 4pin-XLR, so I'll be able to see if there's any differences then too. Basically I want to build a foundation before I get into testing, and not the other way around. Just seems to be how my head works, I enjoy the planning, reading, researching, and understanding phase a lot. Then when I get my hands dirty I'll know what kind of dirt is on them :-D  With any luck anyway, haha~
 
This really is a fun project for me, I'm definitely gonna post up a play-by-play when I get to it. 
 
 
Thanks a lot so far, everyone! My understanding is really coming a long and I can't wait to pick one of these pin-counts. I'm pretty interested in the various wiring styles, so I'm really enjoying the back and forth about it!! And it'll be great to start putting pen to paper about what parts I want to order once I can decide on which pin-count to go with. From what it sounds like, 3pin-XLR is an old way and 4pin-XLR is a newer, lighter version that achieves what the original did at half the size (aka, 1 plug). But here I've got to have 2 plugs anyway, one coming off each earcup/driver, so I wonder which is better?

 

[Mr.Sneis]

Some will just say reterminate your headphones to 4-pin xlr and make a set of adapters for 2x3pin or 1/4" TRS and be done with it.  It's less cumbersome and will have you covered for most any situation.

 

[nikongod]

What you want is 4pin XLR on the ends of the headphone cables. 
You need 1*4pin XLR on each cable - no more no less. 
I'd recommend full-size XLR plugs, but if space is REALLY an issue go for the minis. Id personally leave 1/8" plugs on the cable before I went with mini's but thats a personal call. 
 
After that build one of each of these:
4pin-XLR male 4pin-XLR female 10ft long
same plugs, 5ft long
I just saved you 20ft of cable and a few plugs. Figure out how many dollars this is and paypal it to me. Or buy yourself some new music. Your call.  
 
After that, build one of each of these:
Each 12" long
4pin female to 1/4" TRS
4pin female to 2X3pin XLR
4pin female to 1/8" TRS if necessary. 
We might be back to breaking even on plugs. Im not so good with the math. I still saved you a bunch of cable
 
Regarding ground - you are thinking about this WAY backwards. Headphones (and speakers) are naturally balanced they dont care about ground at all - only the difference in voltage across their ends.  They become single ended when we hook them up to single ended amps. Think about it some more from that perspective. This has no bearing on why anything sounds different only on how to hook it up.  
 
When we run SE we use a common ground point. Does it cause crosstalk or other problems? In theory yes, in practice no. In order to get crosstalk from the shared ground at a headphone plug you have to screw things up so bad that its almost deliberate - there are other places in the amp where its nice to use separate grounds, but even then the effect is usually quite small. Most people are not good enough to do it wrong. Use 4 wires for as much length as possible. Connect L- and R- to the ground of the TRS plug, and L+ & R+ to their connections. 
 
Hook up the 4-pin XLR like its done on the K1000. If you are using a shield connect it to the shell of the connector. 
 
When you use 2x3pin XLR the lord kills a baby kitten, but since its not your fault people still use this archaic setup on their amps and headphones you should be prepared to do it as well as possible when you get suckered into a situation that requires it. Connect the headphone drivers to the in and out of phase pins (pins 2 &3) Ignore ground (pin 1). If you are using a shield there is some debate over how to wire this as there are no real standards for headphones here. Id hook it up to the shell since most chassis-mount XLR's ground to the chassis by default and not everyone grounds pin-1 IN the amp. Whatever you do DO NOT connect pin-1 and the shell. 
 
Whether or not to shield is kind of a touchy subject and somewhat conditional on the rest of the setup. There are advantages to either decision here.

 

[Mr.Sneis]

NG has spoken