[Possum]

Anyone know where to get the cable connectors that go into the drivers of the HD600/HD580/HD565/HD545/HD535's? I'm thinking of making my own Clou cable clone since I don't think it looks too hard. According to the Clou website, the conducting wire is silver-plated copper with teflon insulation (exactly the same wire I have, maybe a different guage). So I figure I can braid 3 wires (left, right, and ground) together to make a 3m cable, wrap tightly in foil for shielding, and pull it through an emptied out CAT5 ethernet cable tubing (or buy the empty tubing if it's available somewhere). Then on one end of the thick cable, attach a plug (1/4" or 1/8"), and on the other end, split the right, left and ground (attaching a second ground cable at the split) to the Sennheiser earpiece cable connectors. Just use heatshrink tubing where necessary to "seal" the cable and make it seem like 1 wire. From their description, this is all I see the Clou cables being.

I don't want to buy an extra cable just for the connectors, so anyone know of a source?

 

[Apheared]

In this historic event of the first ever cross link...

Originally written on HeadWize DIY, Apheared posted 06-15-2001 03:27 AM ET

Never seen them anywhere. Even Clou gets the tips directly from Sennheiser. Dunno if they'll help us 'lil guys out, but it might be worth an email.

 

[Possum]

Ah, in that case I'll just try to make the bottom portion of the cable, and if it seems decent enough, I'll spend the $13 for a new Sennheiser cable to butcher, unless someone has a broken cable they don't need anymore.

 

[gerG]

Please let me know what you find out. The stock units look like molded plugs, and I have never had much luck putting those things back together.

Good luck

 

[rickcr42]

So not that I own any senns but...................

Anyone ever look into changing the jack end in the cans ?

lotsa options out there,sure one would fit

Match the jack to a readily available plug and......

 

[Possum]

I would not be confident at all doing that

My best guess if I had to do it is to melt platic away with a soldering iron so I could fit a EDIT: 2.5mm (I forgot that this was the size the other Sennheisers used, 3.5mm would be pretty bulky in there) jack in there for each earpiece, so it'd be like a dual version of their bionetic single-cabled models.

 

[skippy]

i'm not sure but i think jan might have changed the jack.

have you tried measuring the gauge of the prongs of the sennheiser connector? then you could use a stiff wire of the same gauge and sharpen the tip. it probably won't lock in like the senn connector, but it might work...

 

[skippy]

looking at my 580's now. changing the jack looks like a pretty simple affair. i'd probably go with a submini 2.5mm jack (i used the same thing in my sr-60). i'd just be afraid to butcher a $200 set of cans. ... though adding a new jack would assure that i wouldn't have any intermittency in the future....

 

[jude]

Quote:

Originally posted by skippy looking at my 580's now. changing the jack looks like a pretty simple affair. i'd probably go with a submini 2.5mm jack (i used the same thing in my sr-60). i'd just be afraid to butcher a $200 set of cans. ... though adding a new jack would assure that i wouldn't have any intermittency in the future....

skippy,

Was that you who posted the pics on HeadWize way back with the modified Grados with those mini-mini-jacks? That was a pretty darned cool mod, whether it was you or not.

If you do something like this with your Senns, please do post pics. This I'd have to see. For DIY types, it'd be a fantastic way to experiment with a bunch of different custom cables, since those 2.5mm jacks are probably very easy to obtain.

 

[gerG]

Carbon fiber does not melt (although we have proven that it catches fire). It also does goofy things if you try drilling on it.

The pins (fangs) in the stock plugs are 2 different diameters. One could probably find the right diameter pins and do the solder/shrink wrap trick, but there would be no strain relief or retention feature. Potting them in would work, but then they would be non-removable. Not good.

The stock plugs are a work of art. They incorporate snap retention, alignment, and strain relief all in a small molded unit. They could be machined in a 2 piece configuration. Hmmm...

There seems to be a growing demand for these things. Sennheiser could probably sell quite a few upgrade cables if they would keep the price reasonable.

Possum, where did you see the replacement cables for $13?

 

[grrr223]

although you'd only get one shot at it, and you'd be SOL if it didn't work, not to mention being without your headphones until you completed the mod, but you could always just use the plugs that are on the Senn cables you currently have couldn't you?

 

[Possum]

Yah, I don't know how it would work on the HD600's, but the HD580's are plastic so melting should work - not that I want to try it anyway.



I was mistaken, $13 is for the single-sided earpiece cable in the newer models (back when I had an HD495). The regular cable are an astounding $16-20 or so

 

[skippy]

Quote:

Was that you who posted the pics on HeadWize way back with the modified Grados with those mini-mini-jacks? That was a pretty darned cool mod, whether it was you or not.

yep that was me.

Quote:

If you do something like this with your Senns, please do post pics. This I'd have to see.

i love my senns too much to try it. however, if i ever encounter intermittency because of the really silly connectors sennheiser uses (tiny little spings) i might consider changing the jack.

 

[Beagle]

After you destroy the plugs in a vain attempt at something better "sounding", you will wish you had just stuck with the fine sounding original Sennheiser cable. I've been there. Once you open up those plugs and pins, they are almost impossible to work with, i.e. solder a wire to the pins and make a sturdy new plug that will fit back into the phone socket. After attempting a mod with an older HD480 model and having to buy a new cord, I vowed never to attempt this again.

 

[Possum]

Opening the plugs and resealing them is a little beyond me anyway (I've always had trouble with glue in the past, things just didn't want to hold for me). My lazy plan was to cut the wire somewhere inside the strain relief and solder to that instead of taking the plugs apart.