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Headphone adapter - 6.3mm to 3.5mm short cable adapter (not hard adapter) with 4 conductors

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Music1969

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This lenght does nothing to the sound or crosstalk.

If you mean a few inches, then I agree with you, as per my reply above...

Or do you mean it doesn't matter for the full length of headphone cable? Like 1.8 meters (for example)?
 
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Zek

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The headset cable usually has 4 wires. Whether it will be connected in 3 wires on the cable connector or on the adapter has no effect.
 
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Music1969

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Whether it will be connected in 3 wires on the cable connector or on the adapter has no effect.

This was already discussed and agreed earlier in the thread...

As I mentioned, I am now moving on to re-terminating my headphone cable, for reasons already mentioned...
 

cshake

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Zek: Music1969 wants to re-terminate the cable with the correct size plug for the source that's most commonly used with those headphones. Eliminating the extra contact resistance and bulk of an adapter can't hurt anything. While it's not going to make an audible difference, it doesn't cost much and provides good soldering experience, so let them be happy. :) We should all encourage more DIY, especially for something this simple - it spreads understanding of how simple some things really are and prevents later purchases of $xxxx snake oil.

I made a new headphone cable for myself two weeks ago and ran 4 wires all the way to the TRS plug (because it was easier than putting in a Y), so it would be a bit hypocritical to try to say that you should never do that.
 
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Music1969

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While it's not going to make an audible difference

Yes and I’ve already acknowledged this myself and already explained why I still want to go ahead with re-terminating.
 

cshake

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Yes and I’ve already acknowledged this myself and already explained why I still want to go ahead with re-terminating.
Yep, I saw you already said that, I repeated it to make it clear to others that trying to harp on that and dissuade you from doing the mod based on that aspect doesn't make sense. I didn't understand what the goal was at the top of the thread, but after some clarification in both directions we got here and I'm behind you on it. Aesthetics and liking what you have matters in audio (any many other things), even if it's inside insulation and nobody else can see it, especially a cable that you're using regularly. With that cable I made myself and used as an example, I used red, blue, and two black wires in my cable, even though they won't be seen under the paracord sleeving (which is also black w/red stripe, black w/blue stripe, and two solid black) - I've got three other colors of that identical wire on hand and could have used any to make it easy to match terminals when soldering, or could have just tested conductivity before soldering with the multimeter and used all the same color wire, but it mattered to me that they were the right colors.

Now, making an adapter with three contacts on each end and four conductors in between is pushing that aesthetics/feeling good bar a little too much for me with the currents and voltages in question, but that's not what we're talking about anymore.
 
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Music1969

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With that cable I made myself

Which 4 conductor cable did you use?

I’m thinking of this also but struggling to find a low impedance 4 conductor cable. Something under 10 ohms. paging @solderdude

My Focal headphones impedance varies from 80 ohm to 300 ohm
 
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cshake

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Which 4 conductor cable did you use?
I used 24awg stranded hook up wire I had on hand from other electronics projects. I saw some recommendations to use various mic cables and all that for headphones, but I wanted to sleeve and braid each wire individually so it seemed like a waste to buy specially twisted and grouped cable when I was just going to take it apart, especially with perfectly adequate wire on hand.

I posted the cable recently on reddit with more details if you're interested: Sundara with Custom Cable
 
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Music1969

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I used 24awg stranded hook up wire I had on hand from other electronics projects. I saw some recommendations to use various mic cables and all that for headphones, but I wanted to sleeve and braid each wire individually so it seemed like a waste to buy specially twisted and grouped cable when I was just going to take it apart, especially with perfectly adequate wire on hand.

I posted the cable recently on reddit with more details if you're interested: Sundara with Custom Cable

I see you mentioned you measured impedance. What is it, if you don't mind me asking?
 

VMAT4

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Hi all

I'm looking for a short cable adapter (under 6 inches), 6.3mm (female) to 3.5mm (male), that has 4 conductor wiring inside (L and R grounds are separate and insulated).

I can't use a hard adapter because it's too stiff.

This Sennheiser adapter is 3 conductor, L & R share a common ground (Sennheiser told me):

https://en-de.sennheiser.com/accessories--adapter--jack-plug--gold

Does anyone know of a decent one?


Have you checked the jack that will receive the 3.5 mm male to make sure it has a left and right ground out? I'll bet it has a common ground. I'll bet the same is true of and 3.5 mm "plug".
 
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Music1969

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Have you checked the jack that will receive the 3.5 mm male to make sure it has a left and right ground out? I'll bet it has a common ground. I'll bet the same is true of and 3.5 mm "plug".

Hi. This was discussed in later posts.
 

cshake

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I see you mentioned you measured impedance. What is it, if you don't mind me asking?
For the headphones, the spec is 37 Ohm and my measurements of DC resistance are within reason of that. They're planar magnetics, so the impedance is basically flat with frequency, and cable or even amp output impedance doesn't really matter.

I did measure the cables though, and the one I made was less than I could measure reliably with the multimeter (<1 Ohm). The original cable was somewhere a bit higher but no more than 0.5-1 ohm higher. Contact resistance is an issue at those levels, and my multimeter (Amprobe 38XR-A) is at best accurate to about +/- 1 Ohm, so I wouldn't put much stock in those numbers as anything other than relative.
 

solderdude

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Which 4 conductor cable did you use?

I’m thinking of this also but struggling to find a low impedance 4 conductor cable. Something under 10 ohms. paging @solderdude

My Focal headphones impedance varies from 80 ohm to 300 ohm

Focal has locking 3.5mm TS connectors in the cup.
I assume you can also use regular 3.5mm TRS jacks though and braid something using supple wire but the plugs won't be locking any more.

Easiest way would be to reterminate assuming you can get the cable diameter in the 3.5mm plug.
 

solderdude

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The question is whether the locking part is proprietary.
In most cases it is just a notch or protruding part at a specific location on the plug.
 
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