Jon G.
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2007
- Posts
- 108
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- 12
K701 #29959...Purchased new from Headroom in November of 2008...approaching approximately three thousand (3000!) hours of use so far...up until this day everything was original. As you might imagine, despite regular cleaning, things got a little dirty and beat up. As it was, the stock cable was falling apart from the stress reliefs on both ends and was being held together with some rather tacky Scotch tape. One of the headband clips was broken. Both of the earpads were showing some discolouring, mild shedding, were excessively soft, and the backs were as thing as the fronts of new pads...
Earlier last week I'd had enough and decided to spruce it up a little bit. New pads, a thorough cleaning, and a recable. On Monday on the way were a soldering station, solder, and the following parts related to the recable:
11' white Mogami 2534 4-wire cable
Neutrik NP3C-B 1/4" TRS plug
Neutrik white BSP9 cover
New earpads
Unbalanced, but what I have to make do with for use with my current amp, the Little Dot MK. V. I also considered making a y-split to each earcup instead of single sided, but, I think the single cable look suits the K701 very well and I to me the extra pull to the left isn't particularly noticeable. I also didn't care to demolish my headphones to get into the right earcup. I thought about black cable, but I decided against it since the K701 has more of a white scheme going for it, and, although contrast is nice, it looks so much nicer as small bits here and there. Ultimately I'm glad I did, because it looks very sexy.
It took quite a while longer than I expected because this was my first recable, I was also learning how to solder well, and the cable only has two wire colours and I had to mess around with which on one end was soldered to the tip on the other. I also had a bit of a scare when I couldn't get the left drive working, but I found that the little thin copper wire that goes from the signal pots to the driver had snapped. Luckily it snapped in the middle and not where the driver is sealed and a single copper wire from some chopped cable and a bit of solder fixed that right up.
And here it is:
Real thick cable, this Mogami stuff. The cap won't screw down all the way because of it, but make no mistake, it's tight!
Despite that it's not so thick to work without a strain relief, and here you can see my hi-tech black vinyl solution.
And a couple beauty shots for the road...
Now, you might've noticed that the plastic guides for the headband are taped. That's because one of them broke sometime last year, and I decided to make purposely break the other for it became symmetrical. Only a little bit of vertical stretch is missing, but I don't need all of it, plus it doesn't look so bad yet. The only thing I wish I did was get some white cable flex to protect the cable so it doesn't get dirty and get gunky like the stock gray cable did. That'll have to be for next time.
Whether or not the marginally nicer sound I'm hearing is just me enjoying the fruits of my labour or not I can't say, but it was enjoyable to do and I can certainly say that it looks very nice and was totally worth the effort.
Anyway, thanks for looking and happy listening!
Earlier last week I'd had enough and decided to spruce it up a little bit. New pads, a thorough cleaning, and a recable. On Monday on the way were a soldering station, solder, and the following parts related to the recable:
11' white Mogami 2534 4-wire cable
Neutrik NP3C-B 1/4" TRS plug
Neutrik white BSP9 cover
New earpads
Unbalanced, but what I have to make do with for use with my current amp, the Little Dot MK. V. I also considered making a y-split to each earcup instead of single sided, but, I think the single cable look suits the K701 very well and I to me the extra pull to the left isn't particularly noticeable. I also didn't care to demolish my headphones to get into the right earcup. I thought about black cable, but I decided against it since the K701 has more of a white scheme going for it, and, although contrast is nice, it looks so much nicer as small bits here and there. Ultimately I'm glad I did, because it looks very sexy.
It took quite a while longer than I expected because this was my first recable, I was also learning how to solder well, and the cable only has two wire colours and I had to mess around with which on one end was soldered to the tip on the other. I also had a bit of a scare when I couldn't get the left drive working, but I found that the little thin copper wire that goes from the signal pots to the driver had snapped. Luckily it snapped in the middle and not where the driver is sealed and a single copper wire from some chopped cable and a bit of solder fixed that right up.
And here it is:
Real thick cable, this Mogami stuff. The cap won't screw down all the way because of it, but make no mistake, it's tight!
Despite that it's not so thick to work without a strain relief, and here you can see my hi-tech black vinyl solution.
And a couple beauty shots for the road...
Now, you might've noticed that the plastic guides for the headband are taped. That's because one of them broke sometime last year, and I decided to make purposely break the other for it became symmetrical. Only a little bit of vertical stretch is missing, but I don't need all of it, plus it doesn't look so bad yet. The only thing I wish I did was get some white cable flex to protect the cable so it doesn't get dirty and get gunky like the stock gray cable did. That'll have to be for next time.
Whether or not the marginally nicer sound I'm hearing is just me enjoying the fruits of my labour or not I can't say, but it was enjoyable to do and I can certainly say that it looks very nice and was totally worth the effort.
Anyway, thanks for looking and happy listening!
