[Wallboy]

I need to recable my K701's that I have been using for 5+ years as the stock cable has been slowly twisting over time, cracking the insulation all over and revealing the inner wires. For the last 6 months I've gotten away with just putting electrical tape over the cracks, but the cable has kept cracking somewhere else along it since then, and as of today the actual wires on the inside have become so twisted they have tore and I no longer have audio out my left channel.
 
I have in the past had to open up the left ear cup to resolder a loose connection, so I know how to get at the wires and know the internal wiring of the K701's. I plan on keeping it single termination into the left cup only as the white plastic piece took forever to get off and I almost broke it getting it off, so I don't feel like opening the right side up. I don't have an balanced amp either so single sided termination will work for me. I seen a lot of people using Magomi star quad cables and Neutrik 1/4" TRS connectors, so I see no need to deviate from what people seem to have found worked for them. Trying to keep it pretty cheap as well since I never planned to recable them anyways. Should I get the Magomi 2534 or 2893 cable? Also what I don't understand from all the other K701 recable threads I've seen is what people are using for strain relief for the cable going into the headphones. I've seen people using heatshrink, but I don't understand how that acts as strain relief?
 
Thanks for any help you guys can give.

 

[eightbitpotion]

I'm not really going to comment on the two cables that you're on the fence over as I don't have experience with either one, cables are personal preference, and I've only made cables from scratch.  With that said, I will say that I always use heat-shrink strain relief as it allows me to "fine tune" the relief.  I wouldn't do a single shrink, but rather I stack shrink in a golden ratio towards the cup (so it becomes stiffer the closer to the cup).  I end up with three to four heat shrinks that work perfectly.  I tried to use manufactured relieves before, but I found that they may not work with some cable weights, length (weight again I suppose), and require some work to make sure they don't look like crap.  Also, the way YOU stress a cable may not be the same way the manufacturer assumes you're going to stress it.  Another perk is that you can make it seemless looking if the heat shrink matches your over-all theme.
 
As a side note, I recabled my K701s about 20 times with various cable geometries and materials to get that oh so perfect synergy that I was looking for.  One thing that I highly suggest is that you also replace the two small cables that run to the right cup and the two cables inside of the right cup with the same material of your main cable, and of the same gauge; if you don't swap the small cables, then the imaging will be ever-so-slightly off.  Also, since you seem to be really stressing the geometry with a twist, I would throw some light techflex on it too to help out a bit (that's what I would do, but you may not want/need that).  Anyway, make sure you throw some pictures up of your work!  Cable porn <3

 

[Wallboy]

Meh I doubt I'd hear a difference if I changed the right cup as well. I'd most likely would have cabled both sides for possible future use with a balanced amp, but the stupid white plastic piece is so ridiculously hard to get off that I'm not going through that again. The tabs on the left piece are pretty mangled already trying to get it off. Don't know why they make it so difficult to get in to. The two screws should have been good enough to hold the piece in place.
 
So for the heatshrink, do you keep the thicker side inside the cup if you layer it? Also I've seen some people using small zipties as well. Might throw one of those in there to.

 

[eightbitpotion]

  Meh I doubt I'd hear a difference if I changed the right cup as well. I'd most likely would have cabled both sides for possible future use with a balanced amp, but the stupid white plastic piece is so ridiculously hard to get off that I'm not going through that again. The tabs on the left piece are pretty mangled already trying to get it off. Don't know why they make it so difficult to get in to. The two screws should have been good enough to hold the piece in place.
 
So for the heatshrink, do you keep the thicker side inside the cup if you layer it? Also I've seen some people using small zipties as well. Might throw one of those in there to.

I finished mine off with a balanced cable in a "Y"....I regretted it.  Good luck on that project.  As for the heatshrink, I put the thickest side towards the earcup.  I would use a small ziptie inside the earcup to keep the cable secure... I had to recable twice because it yanked out, and ended up resolving that with a hacked up cheap pen tip (bored out, and shaved away), point down to wedge in the whole, and heatshrunk over it to make it seamless.  I bet the zipties would be a much easier solution though.