4-conductor headphone cable

[maverickronin]

+1 for reterminating an HD650 cable for use with other dual entry headphones.

I've replaced the cables on my HD800 and Aeon 2 Closed with HD650 cables reterminated on the headphone end. Much more supple and less microphonic.

The litz wire may be a bit a of a pain if you're new to it. You need to separate the strands out by color, burn off the enamel by holding it in a hot solder blob for a minute or two, and then triple check there's no continuity from signal to ground from a single misplaced strand.

The star quad mic cable is easier to work with, though it's stiffer so it's not as ergonomic by the time it's a finished cable. I've used star quad for headphone extension cables though. I just used the signal wires and left the shield floating at both ends. I'm not really sure if there's a "right" way to do it though.

 

[Music1969]

+1 for reterminating an HD650 cable for use with other dual entry headphones.

I've replaced the cables on my HD800 and Aeon 2 Closed with HD650 cables reterminated on the headphone end. Much more supple and less microphonic.

Just to have another datapoint, can you confirm the left and right ground/return are each fully insulated from each other the full length of the cable, all the way from 6.3mm jack insulated all the way to the ends?

 

[solderdude]

Yes they ARE separated. It cannot be otherwise because the HD650 cable basically is a cable with 2 separate cables containing 2 wires each.
Those cables are joined together up to the split but remain 2 separated 2-wire cables.
Nowhere are they joined except in the TRS connector. The way that this cable is made makes it impossible the - wires are connected anywhere else than in the TRS plug.

 

[maverickronin]

Just to have another datapoint, can you confirm the left and right ground/return are each fully insulated from each other the full length of the cable, all the way from 6.3mm jack insulated all the way to the ends?

Yep. Like @solderdude said, there are two independent grounds which are only joined at the 1/4 TRS plug. Once you cut that off there's no continuity between the left and right grounds and you can replace it with a 4 pin XLR, pentacon, or whatever.

I have one reterminated as a 4 pin XLR and it never blew up any amp I plugged it into.

 

[Music1969]

Thanks all.

Search is over - HD650 cable it is.

 

[Berwhale]

Thanks all.

Search is over - HD650 cable it is.

Useful website for you... Balanced Cables (robrobinette.com)

An original Sennhieser 3m HD650 cable arrived from Amazon today and was promptly cut in half. I'm making a shorter balanced cable for my HD660S (the stock one is 3m), i'd puchased the 4.4mm plugs a couple of months ago and this thread reminded me to buy the cable

 

[Berwhale]

So i've made up the 1.5m 4.4mm balanced cable for my HD660s. As I expected, the soldering was pretty tricky on something this size, but with a little practice I got it done with no bad joints (electrically at least, visually they look terrible).

What I learned...

I think the coating on the conductors in the Sennheiser cable is a polymer. I was able to wipe it off with the tip of a hot soldering iron, I didn't need to scrape or sand it off.

I think either the descriptions of conductors in the Sennheiser cable or the diagram for the 4.4mm plug is incorrect on Balanced Cables (robrobinette.com). The website states that "The stock cable's green wire is Left+" and the picture of the 4.4mm pentacon connector shows Left+ as the tip.

The first time I soldered the connections as TRRRS = Green, Copper, Red, Copper, not connected, I ended up with L & R reversed. So I resoldered as TRRRS = Red, Copper, Green, Copper, not connected. Everything looked and sounded great, so I shrank the heat shrink and fitted the barrel.

Later on, I thought i'd measure the resistance on each conductor on the new cable just to check everything was OK. I then discovered that I have hot and cold reversed when compared to the stock HD660s balanced cable. Can you tell that I don't do this for a living?

Does it matter that + and - are reversed on the cable? The Sennheiser earcup connectors are desiged to only go in one way (one pin larger than the other), which makes me wonders if this is an issue.

*** Update *** Well I failed the Absolute Polarity Blind Listening Test (audiocheck.net) , so I guess not.