[zum]

My pair of MDR-SA3000 has started to lose channels depending on how I hold the cord,
so I suspect that the cord has a connection problem near the cord-headphone connection. The drivers seem fine when the cord is in the right position though, and I'd like to try to fix the cord.

My repair equipment is limited to a crappy soldering iron and a cheap multimeter, and I'm not a very experienced DIYer. But if it's an easy operation I just might be brave enough to do it myself. The question is - is it? I'm a bit wary of opening the phones in fear of breaking anything. Do the MDR-SA3000 break easily? And how tricky is the repair procedure?

I'd be happy to hear your experiences trying to fix or replace the cord for these (or similar) phones.

 

[faileas]

if it was on the plug side its easy - the headphone side is trickier - On the positive side, those headphones are single ended and you don't need to futz with working out how to do a Y joints - you'd need to open it up, work out which lead is which (multimeter to the connection and plug helps), then desolder the old cable (or fix up the joints) and solder a new one - canare starquad works quite well for this, and isn't too expensive - and solder on a plug. If you can solder at all, you should be able to do it quite easily.
 

 

[faileas]

if it was on the plug side its easy - the headphone side is trickier - On the positive side, those headphones are single ended and you don't need to futz with working out how to do a Y joints - you'd need to open it up, work out which lead is which (multimeter to the connection and plug helps), then desolder the old cable (or fix up the joints) and solder a new one - canare starquad works quite well for this, and isn't too expensive - and solder on a plug. If you can solder at all, you should be able to do it quite easily.
 

 

[joe_cool]

Sorry but I hope my experience is helpful. I had a nice set of SA-5000 but later I got a case of intermittent signal and the problem was traced to the "Y" of the original cable.

 

[zum]

Thanks for the info, although I'm afraid it appears to be on the headphone side. But maybe I'll just take the plunge and try to open it. If I only hade some spare time...

By the way, I managed to find the service manual for MDR-SA1000, MDR-SA3000 and MDR-SA5000 available as a free download at the following address. I hope it is useful for anyone who finds this thread. (It appears that this article is now the first google result for "repairing mdr-sa3000")

http://safemanuals.com/annexe_SERVICE%20MANUAL_SONY_MDR-SA3000-_E.htm

Among other things, the service manual tells me that the drivers in MDR-SA3000 (Part number 1-542-603-11 - DRIVER (050F030)) are identical to those in MDR-SA5000. Nice! I didn't know that.

 

[HiGHFLYiN9]

The recabling isn't to hard from what I recall, there's a little bit of drilling involved though. Do be careful with the the SA3000 headphones though, they are pretty fragile plastic.