[gswpete]

Quote:

Originally posted by Ross I am now giving some thought to soldering the plugs of my Cardas cables directly to those springs. Aside from the risk of damaging the thin wires, does anyone have a view on whether this should not be done for other reasons? Ross

Well...you might get to listen to the Equinox cable

j/k

 

[robert]

Quote:

Originally posted by gswpete Well...you might get to listen to the Equinox cable j/k

well, the Equinox folks expressly told me that the old style 580/600 wouldn't benefit from their cable because of the socket problem.

i gave up and bought grado sr-325.

so far, i've not seen the inside of the current 580/600 socket. the assumption is that senn did something to improve contact reliability. without seeing the socket, and comparing with the Squirt photos, it's not possible to decide whether senn did anything meaningful.

what i did discover, and lunched my 600s to boot, is that rotating the contact coils restores the contact to rock solid. doing so, however, is likely to severe the voice coil lead on the socket edge, if sufficient care is not taken. i didn't and it did.

 

[Claude]

Does anybody know if the HD650 has the same type of connection? I can't believe Sennheiser kept it with the HD600, after all those problems with the HD580.

With my HD580, I had the cable replaced two times (which did not help of course, since the problem is the connection design), then discovered a DIY repair article on the Headroom website. I had to repair it every two months or so, but slowly I stopped using my headphones.

 

[Edwood]

Thanks for the amazingly detailed pictorial guide. I just fixed the springs on my HD600. Cable cutting out is gone.

I just got the Zu Mobius Senn Cable. Very nice. They really improved the Connectors. They fit like a glove. I have the opening that has the "ribs/nubs" inside. The machined aluminum connectors look great and do not "wiggle" at all when in place, like the stock ones.

I sent my HD600's to Sennheiser to fix it before. They replaced the bottom bales with the "ribbed" opening. Looks like those bastards put two little dents in my right transducer. That clear covering. That would explain that slight distortion I was hearing in upper extensions in my right ear.

How much does it cost to replace the transducer?

-Ed

 

[Claude]

I cut the thin inner wires of my HD580 once during my frequent DIY repairs. It cost about half of the original price of the headphone ($130 here) to replace the transducer

 

[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally posted by Claude I cut the thin inner wires of my HD580 once during my frequent DIY repairs. It cost about half of the original price of the headphone ($130 here) to replace the transducer

Ouch, better off buying a used 580. The transducer and assembly are the same as the 600?

-Ed

 

[Claude]

Yes, you are right, but that was in the pre-internet mid-90's and it would have been difficult to find a used HD580.

Just to be sure there is no confusion, the $130 price was for a new HD580 (the mid-90's price in Europe at today's exchange rate) and the driver replacement cost about $60-70. It was only the bare driver that had to be inserted into the headphone, which I did myself.


Quote:

Originally posted by Claude Does anybody know if the HD650 has the same type of connection? I can't believe Sennheiser kept it with the HD600, after all those problems with the HD580.

I just found this thread which answers my question.

 

[dkswong]

Quote:

Originally posted by Dusty Chalk Squirt -- nice! Thanks! Anyone put any thought into bypassing the mechanism completely? Or possibly replacing the mechanism? Maybe with regular RCA jacks (opening up a whole new realm of possibilities)?

Couldn't agree more. Why don't they just use mini-plug terminals like that on the 590's? It solves the problem right away.

 

[Edwood]

Hey Mods, could we make this thread a sticky or put squirt's info in an FAQ sticky thread?

Everyone that has a 580/600/650 will encounter this problem.

-Ed

 

[robert]

Quote:

Originally posted by Edwood Looks like those bastards put two little dents in my right transducer. That clear covering. -Ed

before you do that, try the "tape thing": take some scotch tape, and lightly stick-and-pull on the dent. while trying to fix the coil problem, i dropped the driver and made a dent. the tape thing fixed it.

 

[Edwood]

gah! You're killin me!

Must.....not......sever.......tiny........wires... ........

-Ed

 

[Edwood]

Hooray! finally this thread is a sticky!

I downloaded and hosted these pics in case squirt's hosted pics go down. Mods, feel free to add these to the first post for an instant visual guide.

It's best to "pop" the drivers out downward onto a towel or something soft. Otherwise, the driver may pop up and back down onto a sharper surface like those little retention clips around the housing. If you do dent the driver, try the "tape" trick, it works like a charm.

Those are some hair thin wires. Be careful.

-Ed

 

[lejuking]

how a good sounds

 

[devwild]

SWEET! Wish I would have noticed this thread earlier. After like 5 years, I was able to repair my old HD525's. Now I can find someone who can make some real use out of them, instead of just crap-canning them

Not to mention I can show this thread to my friend so he can repair his 545's.

A word for the wise, if anyone else repairs a 525, perhaps the 545 and 565 too since they are almost identical, the wires are soldered to the end of the springs instead of attached to terminals like their bigger brothers. They are just as thin; coated, so it probably doesn't matter if they are crossed (mine were, I used tweezers to move them for the heck of it), but be very careful of that solder point cause that is usually an easy breakage point for wire so fine.

Thanks a bunch guys.
dev*

 

[cavedave]

Hey whats up guys.Those two little poles you can see when you take the screen off.I have treid diffrent cables and by far the best sound I have got out of my HD-650s is by taking a new Grado 325 cord and soldering on to the little posts by passing the plugs all together the sound is so clear it is hard to put into words with a little work it looks like they were made that way.I dont expect you to go and do this just thought I would share.To answer carlo earlier in this thread those poles are oppsite of each other as long as you know which is right and left to hook up the Grado cable on grado the blue is ground make sure they are on diffrent poles on the sennheiser.White is right
red is left on the grado.