[thegreat682]

Hello all!

I purchased a pair of Grado SR-225s in June 2nd-hand and have absolutely fallen in love with them. Unfortunately, however, something has happened to them and is causing the left ear piece to cut in at out. When the cable is slightly moved at the strain relief, the left channel cuts out. Right now, I believe my only solution is the cut off the old connector and replace it with a new one. My soldering skills are not that great but I do not believe soldering a new connector would be an issue. My problem is this... once the connector is removed, how am I going to know which wire is left, right, and ground without opening the ear pieces to test for continuity? I appreciate any input this community can offer as well as any alternate solutions that could be offered. Thanks!

 

[Juaquin]

The tip is left, ring is right, ground is the rest of the plug. I doubt you would need to replace the connector; simply resoldering the cable to the connector should do it. However, this may be a good opportunity to replace the cable and/or connector with a higher quality part.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Be absolutely sure that the fault is at the jack connector, if it is you're lucky as replacing the jack plug is pretty easy to do. The usual place for the cable develop an intermittent connection is in the earpiece itself.

Try flexing the cable at the strain relief whilst holding the cable where it enters the left earpiece to make sure.

 

[thegreat682]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Bob Try flexing the cable at the strain relief whilst holding the cable where it enters the left earpiece to make sure.

I have tried that and am positive the fault is in the connector.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Juaquin The tip is left, ring is right, ground is the rest of the plug

I know that much... but how will I know which wire Is left, right, and ground once the connector is removed and I begin to solder a new one?

 

[Punnisher]

It actually doesn't matter which side is which. You can just switch the cups either from the C hinges or by sliding the rods out. If you mess up it's pretty easy to fix it.

 

[thegreat682]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Punnisher /img/forum/go_quote.gif It actually doesn't matter which side is which. You can just switch the cups either from the C hinges or by sliding the rods out. If you mess up it's pretty easy to fix it.

Wow... I feel like and idiot for not even thinking about that! What about the ground wire though? Is it easily recognized and if not how would I determine which wire it is? I have never popped these open and do not know if the wire is colored or not

 

[Uncle Bob]

It should be fairly obvious I would imagine. I've not done this, so I'm guessing but the cable into the jack will either be two conductors with an overall screen, or two individually screened conductors. In either case, the ground wire is the screen.

If you cut off the old plug leaving a small length of cable attached, you will be able to strip back the insulation and do a simple continuity check to the contact points on the jack plug to check which is right, left and ground.

 

[Punnisher]

If I can remember correctly, the Ground conductors are blue, the Right is red and the Left is white.

Regardless, there will be two of the same color for ground. The other two are your channels.

 

[thegreat682]

Thanks a lot for the help! I'll be tearing into this as soon as I can make it across town to an electronics shop

 

[thegreat682]

I just replaced the plug with a Neutrik NP3X-B and this has fixed my problem. Thanks for the help! Also, the two blue wires are groud, red is left, and white is right. I wasn't expecting the wires to be color coded.