Looking for headphone cable for diy.

[alidan]

Long story short, I need to diy some cable due to specific needs, im looking for raw cable, not something with male or female ends, but I am not able to find anything on amazon due to everything headphone + cable just brings up stuff I would have to harvest from rather then just cable.

Im probably looking for the wrong thing or the wrong terms, any help here would be appreciated.

 

[GREQ]

What kind of cable do you need?
There are many different types, gauges, etc...

If you just need good, 'cheap', shielded cable, then your best options are Sommer Cable or Mogami.
And if you want a fabric sheath, you need to find a wide gauge of paracord and pull out and discard the inner cords.

If you want something that looks good like silver plated copper, things get very expensive very quickly and I don't know where to start with that overpriced junk.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Long story short, I need to diy some cable due to specific needs, im looking for raw cable, not something with male or female ends, but I am not able to find anything on amazon due to everything headphone + cable just brings up stuff I would have to harvest from rather then just cable.

Im probably looking for the wrong thing or the wrong terms, any help here would be appreciated.

Search eBay for "Starquad" and buy a cut from a spool. Check any pro audio stores in your areas. If they don't know what Starquad is ask for their four core mic cables. If they have Canare or Mogami then get those over Belden, otherwise, get Belden. I'd personally avoid Klotz - I used those in my car and the midrange sounded weird.

 

[alidan]

What kind of cable do you need?
There are many different types, gauges, etc...

If you just need good, 'cheap', shielded cable, then your best options are Sommer Cable or Mogami.
And if you want a fabric sheath, you need to find a wide gauge of paracord and pull out and discard the inner cords.

If you want something that looks good like silver plated copper, things get very expensive very quickly and I don't know where to start with that overpriced junk.

To give a bit more detail, I'm going to replace the normal way a sennheiser hd 598 hooks up
I think the official cable is a bit to expensive, and the replacement cables made for it are to fragile due to the way they are potted and how inflexible the wire is, it caused flexion damage which either has killed the audio entirely, or has made certain frequencies drop out, the current cable i'm using seems to drop out the lower 500hz at random.

what i'm looking for is something that's relatively easy to work with, I don't want a hard sheathed cable, due to how close the jack is to my neck it becomes a point where the cable is bent at angles fairly easily, and is why I think I had 4 replacement cables die on me. I'm not going to be able to explain this in a way that isn't weird so bear with me. I would like a cable that if I extend my fingers like I want to karate chop something, if I rest the cable on top it drapes over my fingers, I have several extension cables, and even guitar cables that are this malleable, the original sennheiser cable was also this way, but I also have a few cables that are very stiff and the sheath on them is either plastic mesh, or is a hard plastic sheath that feels kind of like.

now that you mention it though, paracord sheathing... I could buy some silicone wire, probably 50 or so foot spool, maybe a spool kit with colors to make it easier on me, and some paracord and completely make my own wire and not use something pre made... that would cost a bit more but something completely custom to my needs. that's in my considerations pile now.

just so you know what I was considering

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Aip...8.0&pvid=65a2bb2e-645a-4dcf-970c-4a9603ac4929

its 20 meters of cable, and I don't think I would use more than 3-4 maybe up to 6 and when damage happened at either end, I would just snip the ends and re solder, given it seems that ready made cables last me around 2-3 months before damage happens, I think I could go years with this and be fairly happy if I knew for a fact it would work, the seller told me it's likely not what i'm looking for, here I'll post exactly what I asked them

"Hello, I'm looking for wire to fix my headphones.
This wire looks like it fits my needs exactly.
However I can't tell what inside wires are.

are they sheathed at all?
are they enameled?
are they seperated by the outer tpe?

Because of the time it takes to get things shipped to me, I want to make sure im buying the right thing beforehand.

Thank you in advance for any reply."

with a bit more info any suggestions? i'm trying to consider all my options, and just for the sake of mentioning, yes I tried using 2.5mm to 3.5mm adaptors, but nearly all of them are garbage, I have dissassembled one of the ones that broke and there may be something I can do to make it better but its a shot in the dark honestly.

 

[GREQ]

You might have better results using a thicker cable and hard wiring it. I mean to say, remove the TRS socket and solder a better cable directly to the headphone.
Just a thought.

 

[alidan]

You might have better results using a thicker cable and hard wiring it. I mean to say, remove the TRS socket and solder a better cable directly to the headphone.
Just a thought.

I likely am going to go the hardwire route, however I have something interesting to try first. I got I think 7 or 8 different 2.5 to 3.5 adaptors that work, and one completely broke on me, I also have a headphone cable that the 2.5 jack died on me and nothing goes to the right headphone, but the break is inside the 2.5 housing where they potted it, so i'm going to cut that cable, solder it to the 2.5 to 3.5 extension, as I have non destructively taken one apart, and see where that gets me.

If this fails completely, i'm going to likely use either the outer shell of the 2.5 to 3.5 to create a non destructive force that keeps the headphones in, so nothing yanks on the soldering. im also likely going to keep the pcb and use the leads on that to solder too, as in all honesty having that screws into my headphones would give me a barrier between the pcb and the wires running through the headphone so in a worst case scenario I don't yank the inner wires at all potentially breaking them in a hard to repair area if not an un repairable area, because depending on where they break I may not be able to non destructively take the headphones appart.

knowing what i'm planning, are there any recommendations on wires? would using something like this
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01KQ2JNLI/ref=ask_ql_qh_dp_hza
and then paracord for the sheath be good? apparently each spool is 10 meters

Here is a rough diagram of what my options are.
use a 2.5 to 3.5 but solder it, this will likely fix almost every negative about the 2.5 to 3.5 if it works well.

option 2 is solder it to the pcb inside, put a blob of something on the paracord to prevent yanks, a female jack on the other end to further lighten the load, and because I would already have the wire and paracord, a homemade 3.5 that could be swapped to pre made 3.5's

or option 3, soldered in, blobed, and from there just paracord cable.
at a bit of a loss on either of those sites, with both what cable to get and how much said cable would cost me in the end, but if the paracord cable works, I could go 30 gauge to 24 gauge for the wires inside and have at least 5 cables worth of needing to rebuild there, for less then it would cost me to make one. looks for me are a FAR second to is the cable functioning, and when I say functioning, I mean is frequency ranges dropping out, not are these things shielded so you could go onto a live stage and nothing would interfere with it.

right now my cable is broken, but not completely broke so I can weigh choices, but once this cable goes I have to make a decision as I don't have other cables that work. I see option 1 as a non permanent but will get me by solution.

 

[GREQ]

I don't think electrical wire is appropriate for headphones use.
Mostly because it's not as flexible, but I think it also has a much higher resistance than audio wire (I think I read that somewhere)... hopefully someone else can explain this better with more experience with this than I.

I usually get very small zip-ties (cable ties) and wrap one very tightly over the the cable inside the headphone, this helps prevent yanks putting strain on the solder joints, just make sure there's enough excess internal wire to take up some of the slack over the first few weeks of use, and puts more load on the sheath than the internal wires. I think it works better than the 'cable knot' you usually find in cheap headphones.

 

[alidan]

I don't think electrical wire is appropriate for headphones use.
Mostly because it's not as flexible, but I think it also has a much higher resistance than audio wire (I think I read that somewhere)... hopefully someone else can explain this better with more experience with this than I.

I usually get very small zip-ties (cable ties) and wrap one very tightly over the the cable inside the headphone, this helps prevent yanks putting strain on the solder joints, just make sure there's enough excess internal wire to take up some of the slack over the first few weeks of use, and puts more load on the sheath than the internal wires. I think it works better than the 'cable knot' you usually find in cheap headphones.

for the wires, I got a set of 30 gauge wires a while ago due to my brothers akg constantly breaking due to flexion damage on the inside, so I said screw it took all his wires out and replaced them with 30 gauge silicone wire, which are far more flexible than any cable/wire I ever came across outside of my guitar wires, I have no idea how they made 5mm thick wire that flexible but damn is that nice. my current headphone wire is among the stiffest wires I ever came across outside of gaming usb nylon weave crap from logitech. one of my main concerns is if there is something im just not taking into account because other then that, spending 12-15$ on the cable, another 5-7$ on paracord, and 3-10$ on male and female ends for cables... admittedly a bit more then I would like to spend, but with the lengths of wires Id be getting I could make 5 10 foot cables at the least, I could conceivably be good for years even assuming the cables die fast, with reusable male and female parts when they do die.

as for the inside and securing, if I made my own cable I am thinking of threading a needle through the paracord in an X shape and through some heat shrink tubing, then heat shrinking it till it doesn't fit through the hole and wrapping that in thread too. to try and get it to be the end point, or possibly threading a few inches of wire through the side of the paracord and tying the thing off in a knot, trying to not knot the wires at all but instead just the sheith.

I could also hot snot it, would have to test how good hot glue adheres to paracord and also to silicone if I want to make a ball of that to not fit though.

was also thinking of knotting it with wire on the inside, that way hopefully everything gets pulled as one, both paracord and wire and it significantly reduces stress on everything. though if I have a female jack on it then the only stress it needs to hold up to is what it takes to unplug...

 

[GREQ]

Oh, well then I don't really see any significant reason not to use it.
As long as it sounds fine once it's done.
I've only heard cable make an audible difference in some very niche cases with vintage headphones with terrible old steel cables, so I think you're probably good to go.

All rational thoughts there... you could just buy some good looking aux cable, cut off one end, solder it in, save a few $$$, but you miss out on the experience of building your own cable, which is half the fun ^_^

 

[alidan]

Oh, well then I don't really see any significant reason not to use it.
As long as it sounds fine once it's done.
I've only heard cable make an audible difference in some very niche cases with vintage headphones with terrible old steel cables, so I think you're probably good to go.

All rational thoughts there... you could just buy some good looking aux cable, cut off one end, solder it in, save a few $$$, but you miss out on the experience of building your own cable, which is half the fun ^_^

I considered getting a pre made cable till you mentioned just make my own with paracord, but that was more an option of if I couldn't find some pre made cable like I can with ethernet. now that I know I can make my own cable entirely, I think that's the route i'm ultimately going to go, just with the question of if I do the female or single cord.