[flordenuve]

I must change the old stock cable on my AKG K340 one of these days, and I was wondering what replacement cable to buy. I'm not a "real" audiophile, so spending more than $50 is out of the question. Should I go for a new stock cable (if there are any left) or what cable would you recommend?
Thank you.

 

[Zorander]

If you are good with soldering, you could try modding the phones yourself. Member KT88 has posted a guide on this.

Cheers!

 

[flordenuve]

What do you think of a HD650 cable? Would that be OK?
Also, I had a look at the modding thread, but I don't think the instructions on how to do the recabling were very clear. I would need to get it explained in detail if I was to do this myself.
cheers

 

[grandenigma1]

A HD650 cable should do just fine and is rather easy to work with. The K340s are also very easy to make dual entry as well.

 

[Zorander]

Quote:

Originally Posted by flordenuve /img/forum/go_quote.gif What do you think of a HD650 cable? Would that be OK? Also, I had a look at the modding thread, but I don't think the instructions on how to do the recabling were very clear. I would need to get it explained in detail if I was to do this myself. cheers

I would rather get a 4-core cable from the likes of Canare and Mogami. I personally dislike working with enameled wires (which the HD-650 cable uses). To be fair though, the HD-650 is fine enough and will be a more compact solution than the afore-mentioned 4-core cables.

The easiest way to install new cables is to re-wire new ones in the same config as stock. Using a multi-meter on the old cable, determine which wires (using the stereo plug as reference) are for left/right signal/ground on the phone. Solder in the new wires the same way.

Cheers!

 

[flordenuve]

I have now replaced the old cable with a HD650 cable. It wasn't too difficult. I was surprised, however, how thin the copper wires in the HD650 cable were. I'm not a very firm believer in the talk about how cables can improve sound (I changed them because the stock cable was too short), but still...the wires in the stock cable (which are copper color, btw) are a lot thicker, actually.
Another thing I was thinking about: when you "bypass the cross board", what you really do is bypassing the electret, right? That is, you resend the signal from the dynamic drivers to the electrets, and not the other way around, as in the original design. I don't know whether this is a good idea or not, but I guess it could be said to steal power from the electrets in favor of the dynamic drivers. It's weird that in all the discussions about this mod, I have never seen anybody reflect on this.

 

[RedLeader]

Bypassing is in no way a danger to your K340. Trust me though, replacing that lamp cord is a good idea, those old cables were terrible. Personally I used canare starquad, but pretty much anything would be better than stock.

 

[flordenuve]

I'm not saying that it's dangerous, but that it might steal some juice from the electrets. In the stock k340, the cables are soldered directly to the electret cross board, and then passed on to the dynamic drivers (cross board / electret -> dynamic drivers). Soldering the cable directly to the dynamic drivers and then passing the signal to the electrets (dynamic drivers -> cross board / electret) only inverts the situation, for better or worse.

 

[philodox]

Quote:

Originally Posted by grandenigma1 /img/forum/go_quote.gif A HD650 cable should do just fine and is rather easy to work with.

Seriously!? I tried soldering a sennheiser cable [cant remember if it was 580, 600 or 650] to a pair of headphones once and it is next to impossible to get solder to stick to whatever they use as wire.

 

[flordenuve]

I didn't find it very hard to solder the HD650 cable, and I'm no soldering wizard. The wire is made out of OFC copper, so the material is perfectly OK.

 

[philodox]

Hmmm... I found that it didn't take solder even after scraping and then attempting to burn off the enamel. Seemed like a lot of work just to get a dinky wire soldered on to my headphones so I ended up getting something better.