[automiketic]

Well after I said I wasn't going to I went and bought a pair of Audio Technica ATH-AD700's. They seem to be the most recommend headphones for gaming on the net. I did extensive research and ended on these. Now they have not actually arrived yet (due in Monday) but I have done enough research to know how and what I am going to do. Since these are for gaming I wanted a mic. Now a lot of people recommend using the Zalman clip on mic, but I not only dislike the looks idea of the clip on mic, but hear it has very poor quality as well as a habit of picking up everything else going on in the rooms. Since I game with my headphones and speakers (weird I know) this just wont work for me. I have seen a few people Velcro a mic to the side of the headset but I felt that looked a little to gaudy/ghetto. Then I found a few people that actually added a mic port and detachable mic right to the headset. Now we are talking. I apologize in advance for the crappy pics. Lost my microSD to SD adapter so I can't use my camera and am stuck using my Ally, not to mention my poor photography skills. All ideas for this mod came from here.

Materials:
AD700 Headphones (obviously)
10' stereo 3.5mm interconnect.
3.5mm stereo phone jack
Detachable boom mic of your choice. (I got mine from this and sold the headphones w/o mic for $15)

Heres what we are starting with (yes I know that says 20' but it was cheaper than any of the 10' cables):

 
Un-packaged and ready for the slice and dice:

 
Wire trimmed of the excess 10':


Quick mockup before solder and install just to make sure all is working:

Yes! It works!

A few more materials and were off:


And what do we have hiding in here:


Unboxed:


Guts installed, wires ran:


Final mockup before paint (take note this was just temporary sleeving):


Quick close up of the mic and wires (mic is not fully inserted in this pic hence the small gap):

 

[automiketic]

After getting the headset back together I finally gave the headset a true test only to find that the left driver was bad. Since I had already drilled and what not warranty was void so I had to call Audio Technica. They ended up sending me a new driver for a total of $8.20(US Dollars) shipped to my door. It arrived 2 days after I called. I can't express how pleased I was with their service and courtesy. Since I had to wait for the driver to arrive I decided to have these painted. Sorry for not having more pics of the deconstruction and reconstruction process but all of it was pretty straight forward. Since I had to do some resoldering to replace the bad driver I also replaced the cabling going from the left side to the right driver with a little bit bigger wire. I had the headphones painted in a bodyshop by my roomate who is a auto body technician.

Sleeving and leads:

Closeup of the mic and headphone plugs(I wanted them to be different to make them easily distinguishable):

Wires and plugs:

Closeup of wires and mic (as you can see the mic sits flush):

Mic detached:

Cup closeup:

Finally, a couple of glamor shots of the full package:

 

[earerror]

I always wanted to see a black and silver version of the AD700's. 
 
Good job!

 

[matthewh133]

Well done, looks great. Really need to do the mic mod to mine, but I KNOW I will break them.

 

[automiketic]

Quote:

Well done, looks great. Really need to do the mic mod to mine, but I KNOW I will break them.

Dont be afraid just take your time and make sure you have a decent tiny philips head screwdriver. Did I mention this was my first headphone mod and that a I'm a total soldering noob?

 

[genclaymore]

This make me wonder why Audio Techinca havent started to make AD700s with mics from every one modding mics onto their AD700s. If they do people would break there neck trying to get them.

 

[automiketic]

whats the fun in that though, then we wouldn't have anything to mod except the god awful color scheme.

 

[genclaymore]

Mainly for those who wouldnt mod a mic on them in the first place. So instead of using a clip on mic. they could use the one on the headphones if AD was to do something like that.

 

[ssavage]

Very cute

 

[ourfpshero]

very nice job there. where did the sleeving kit come from?

 

[LearnedHand]

Looks nice.

 

[winma]

I like how it looks.
How many time you spent on it? 

 

[tibble89]

the left driver was bad - I think the left side in a lot is bad, mine aren't modded and it seems to be different from right side. Wonder if they'd ship me one to UK
 
Nice work, though.

 

[soundaddicted]

Another Dark knight mod, well done man! 

 

[chicolom]

Quote:

This make me wonder why Audio Techinca havent started to make AD700s with mics from every one modding mics onto their AD700s. If they do people would break there neck trying to get them.

This.
 
Beyer and Sennheiser both take their headphones that people commonly use for gaming and add mics and sell them as gaming headsets.  I don't know why Audio technica don't do the same.
 
A redesigned "gaming" AD700 with a new paint scheme and boom mic out of the box would probably get a lot of sales for Audio Technica.