M50 channels wired wrong?
May 7, 2012 at 8:55 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 10

kooshball

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I had some wiring issues with a M50 and just got it back from the factory after they fixed it under the warranty.
 
now however, it seems like the channels are playing wrong. after watching a movie with it today on my laptop, i noticed the voice is much stronger on the right than left for all the videos i tried. it's also similar with some of the songs i played. with the generic ipod headphones the channels are balanced.
 
 
i tried playing with the balance setting in OSX, if i set the balance to all in the left channel, it would play only the left side. if i set it to all right channel, it plays both left and right (i expect it to be only right).
 
another test i did with some test audio files i found here
http://www.head-fi.org/t/484744/crosstalk-on-audio-technica-m50
 
in the zip, there is mono, left and right.
 
with my ipod headphones, mono plays both side, left is left, right is right. this is what i expect to happen
with the m50s, mono plays right, left is left, right is both. 

 
i did similar tests with my phone instead of laptop, and the results are the same.
 
does this seem like the factory people screwed up the wiring?
 
how easy is it to fix it myself?
 
thanks
 
May 7, 2012 at 10:26 PM Post #2 of 10
Yes, it seems that the factory screwed it up. With the crosstalk being one-sided, you may want to just send it back to them again (and demand payment for shipping) to fix if you're not confident rewiring yourself.
 
May 8, 2012 at 12:14 AM Post #3 of 10
Quote:
Yes, it seems that the factory screwed it up. With the crosstalk being one-sided, you may want to just send it back to them again (and demand payment for shipping) to fix if you're not confident rewiring yourself.

 
thanks.
 
how hard is it to open up the m50? i should be able to solder it if i can open it and put it back together.
 
May 8, 2012 at 4:06 AM Post #6 of 10
so i opened it up and took a quick look.
 
i think it's possible the ground and right side postive wires are swapped in the left side where the jack is located.
 
this is what i think it should look like
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/484744/crosstalk-on-audio-technica-m50#post_6601078
 
notice the 3 wires coming from the jack are green, red and black there.
 
this is what it actually looks like on my m50s
 
left side:
http://i.imgur.com/Y26Tg.jpg
 
compared to the other picture, the black and red wires are swapped.
 
does this seem like it would be the issue here?
 
p.s. the warranty repair work was for a wire replacement. so i think it's possible the repair guy just soldered it. Does anyone else have M50s to compare the wiring layout? this pair was bought earlier this year.
 
May 8, 2012 at 8:23 AM Post #7 of 10
If you feel confident in your soldering skills (and precision inside the headphone space), you could go ahead and see what switching the wires does. If it's fixed you save a few weeks of customer support problems.
 
May 8, 2012 at 5:07 PM Post #8 of 10
looks like my guess was correct. i just resoldered the red and black wires. didnt use any extra solder, just heated up the existing solder, took the wire out, and heat it up again to put the other one in. i used a pretty cheap 30w iron.
 
that fixed the issue! now, i get voice on both side equally. changing OS sound balance to left and right both works.
 
thanks for the help guys.
 
here is what it ended up looking like.
 
http://i.imgur.com/2ltqs.jpg.
 
May 8, 2012 at 7:47 PM Post #10 of 10
Good job! You're lucky that you can solder; some guys come back from customer service a second of third time with empty wallets and horror stories. It's much easier if you can do it yourself.
 

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