Bad headphones cable

[StephenGiles]

One of the channels on my Sennheiser P 100 headphones works intermittently, and it seems to be caused by a cable break near the moulded mini jack. Having bought them airside at London's Gatwick Airport, exchange is not an option so it's going to be a very tricky solder job - either to a short length of cable with moulded plug, or just a new plug.

Of course the larger Sennheiser headphones do have replaceable cables

[Scruffie]

All my earphones eventually break at the moulded jack point... I sometimes wonder if they'd be better off not putting it there at all, every time i've tried to save earphones though i've just ended up cutting the wire shorter and shorter as more breaks occured from removing the wire or the wire just wouldn't rejoin and then giving up.

Headphones I haven't had to try fixing the wire (other than when it came off the speaker itself, which was a relatively easy fix) being thicker wire it's probably a bit easier but at the cost of a new cable...

[StephenGiles]

They seem to use a material that you cannot solder - too much messing about, so I have ordered new headphones through Amazon.

[Scruffie]

Is it that green & red almost nylon type wire?

[Rob Strand]

All mine break there too.  I particularly found Sennheisers were weak around that area - you would think they would know better.


FYI:   A lot of head phone cables use many strand of enameled copper wire.  For each channel, there are two coated wires which run inside the same sheath.  If you ever try to solder this stuff you have to remove the enamel from the tip of each strand of conductor.  Also don't get the strands mixed up otherwise it will cause a short.

[Nasse]

Still have Sennheiser Mini-Star headphones which had huge cost/performance ratio but mine failed, the reinforced cable broke at the other end, at the headphones, but it works for a while when you move the cable, the cable is very long 3 meters perhaps. I tried to open the capsules but could not find how to do it, might be worth the trouble to use force  but got AKG K-44 but they are closed type instead