Bottlehead Forum
Other Gear => Headphones => Topic started by: Maxwell_E on March 10, 2013, 01:59:00 PM
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I'll tell this story somewhere it'll be appreciated; all of my friends think I'm crazy. In early February I got a nice used pair of Sennheiser HD600's off ebay with my tax refund. They were barely used with one soft dent in the mesh on the right cup. What the owner didn't tell me was that he had run over the cable with his chair (many times) and therefore the shield is visible in a couple spots where he cut the jacket. After a week of blissful listening I ordered some Canare L-4E6S, a set of Cardas headphone plugs, and a Neutrik right-angle 1/4" plug. People weren't kidding when they said those Cardas plugs are heat sensitive. Even putting the heatshrink on made their strain relief tail really soft. Anyway, I'm super happy with the final product of three hours of very, very careful soldering and a million continuity checks. I haven't A/B'd the stock cable yet, but I don't think it'll be a huge difference. The biggest plus for this thing is how robust it is and the pride in building it myself.
http://imgur.com/a/FFT06
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Nice job on the recable (I hate those Sennheiser plugs; they're a bugger to work with). I'd also suggest popping off the grills and taking a look at the plug socket and maybe giving them a quick puff of air or deoxit. If the spring also look deformed (very likely), take a jeweller's flat screwdriver and carefully wiggle between the coils to even them out.
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I think that you will be really happy with the cable upgrade over time. I really like Senns, but the stock 600/650 cable can be improved upon. Not dissing Sennheiser here at all, I respect designing to a price point and I continue to feel that they have the most refined and balanced house sound. And I think a used pair of HD600s or 650s is maybe the best bang for the buck deal out there right now. That they trimmed costs by developing an easily replaced cable and associated connector rather than using lesser drivers shows you just how savvy and dedicated Sennheiser is.
Now if they could just get their reps to use some listenable source material. I tried to A/B HD700s vs. HD800s at AXPONA and the music source was such incredibly SHITTY tinny bright headache inducing compressed MP3 pap that I had to tear the cans off my head and put them back on the stylish little headphone racks. Straight across from this was a perfectly fine demo of HD800s by, I think?, Music Lovers, with a nice little tube headphone amp and a rep happy to play whatever he had on his server.
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Nice work! I built a couple in the past using pure silver and the other in OCCC. The differences were subtle at best. The nice part about the senns is the connector allowing for quick cable changes. I am still a fan of the stock cable on the 650's.
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I'll tell this story somewhere it'll be appreciated; all of my friends think I'm crazy. In early February I got a nice used pair of Sennheiser HD600's off ebay with my tax refund. They were barely used with one soft dent in the mesh on the right cup. What the owner didn't tell me was that he had run over the cable with his chair (many times) and therefore the shield is visible in a couple spots where he cut the jacket. After a week of blissful listening I ordered some Canare L-4E6S, a set of Cardas headphone plugs, and a Neutrik right-angle 1/4" plug. People weren't kidding when they said those Cardas plugs are heat sensitive. Even putting the heatshrink on made their strain relief tail really soft. Anyway, I'm super happy with the final product of three hours of very, very careful soldering and a million continuity checks. I haven't A/B'd the stock cable yet, but I don't think it'll be a huge difference. The biggest plus for this thing is how robust it is and the pride in building it myself.
http://imgur.com/a/FFT06
Any links for those parts? Thanks.
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How would one go about popping the screens off? I doubt the connectors are that bad off as these are only about three months old, seller got them at Christmas.
And the cable and Neutrik plug came from Markertek. The Canare cable comes in all kinds of crazy colors.
http://www.markertek.com/Cables/Bulk-Wire-Cable/Bulk-Audio-Cable/Canare-Corporation-Of-America/L-4E6S-BK.xhtml
http://www.markertek.com/Connectors-Adapters/Audio-Connectors/1-4in-Phone-Connectors/Neutrik-USA-Inc/NP3RX.xhtml
I could only find the Sennheiser connectors on PartsConnexion.
http://www.partsconnexion.com/CARDAS-71677.html
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Thanks again, just waiting on the Sennheiser connectors. Is that just shrink wrap you used at the connector ends?
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Yeah, two layers of 3:1 heat shrink. I did one layer of 1/8" or 3/16" (I can't remember exactly) over the twisted wires and up tail on the connector, then a piece of 1/4" that goes up the connector body. I had to stretch the opening at little bit with some pliers but it gave a snug fit and shrunk nicely. If I had been more confident that I wouldn't have to take it apart and fix something I would have used adhesive-lined for the smaller bit to help with strain relief.
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Copycat, thanks for the info. :)
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Needs more wood!
My "Ron Burgundy" cable that I built a year or so ago. Sadly going to a new home since I have sold my HD650s.
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BTW, Lunashops.com has Senn connectors for $10 shipped, though they come from China so take a while. I have compared them to the real Cardas ones and I have yet to see any real downside in build quality.
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BTW, Lunashops.com has Senn connectors for $10 shipped, though they come from China so take a while. I have compared them to the real Cardas ones and I have yet to see any real downside in build quality.
They come in gold as well as Rhodium, also. Somewhat easier to solder. The same Chinese connectors can also be found on eBay.
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Is the soldering pretty straightforward on this? I'm considering it for my HD-600s.
Also, which cable? The Canare mentioned here or the Mogami neglex mentioned in the other thread?
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The soldering is (mostly) pretty straightforward. The TRS end is no problem if you've done a Bottlehead kit. A "helping hand" makes aligning the wires and jack a lot easier.
The Sennheiser connectors are tricky as there isn't a lot of room to work and the shells can be marred from too much heat. I use a hot (700F) iron and 1/8" chisel tip and skip coffee for a few hours prior to working with them. You should definitely tin your ends to make it go faster. Also, the Senn connectors are open on one side for access to the pins. Cardas fills the opening with hot glue prior to putting heat shrink over the connector/wire joint. Head-Fi folk recommend epoxy. Either works fine. Also - be sure to clamp the Senn connectors by the pin only during soldering. If the body gets too warm and it is in a clamp it may deform. Clamping by the pin also acts as a heat sink to a small degree.
As for the cable, I've worked with the Canare and it is good. I have no experience with that particular Mogami, but they are very similar. I doubt that I could hear a difference between them. I braided 26AWG silver plated copper for mine.
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Cool. What lengths are you guys doing? I'm thinking 15' but maybe longer if it's not a problem sound-wise.
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I did 25 feet, and it all seems to sound just dandy! ;D
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Where can I get the Canare cable and the Neutrik jack? Markertek seems to no longer carry the former.
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You are probably better off using L-4E5C or L-4E5AT. Those two cables are the less bulky cousins to the L-4E6... types. Markertek probably still has those. You can check the descriptions at the Canare website.
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You are probably better off using L-4E5C or L-4E5AT. Those two cables are the less bulky cousins to the L-4E6... types. Markertek probably still has those. You can check the descriptions at the Canare website.
Same quality and sonic properties?
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OK, so I have the Canare cable and the Neutrik jack (the headphone connects are coming from Canada). But I have no clue what to solder where. Anyone?
There's a center hole, a tab underneath that and a second tab in the right angle section. What does where?
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My hunch is that I take the blue wire (or white) and solder them together with the shield to the second tab as a ground. Then I suspect one channel is the center hole. But what about the other channel? Does it go in the first tab or spread out over the "hood" area?
This doesn't help much, unfortunately: http://www.neutrik.com/zoolu-website/media/download/112/Assembly+Instruction+-+Professional+Phone+Plugs%2C+right+angle+-+PRX+Series
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OK, so I successfully did this and I'm pretty surprised at how different it sounds. It's got a wider soundstage, and more detail, and is more open on the upper end. More bass, too. I think it's a bit too strong on the high end, but I suspect once it's broken in it will warm up. All in all a nice little project with great results.
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Here's what I would do differently, and in fact I ordered another pair of connects to re-do the phones end:
The exposed blue and white cables that separate and go to the left and right are very sensitive, and when they touch I can hear it pretty clearly. They heat shrink prevents this, but I only put heat shrink near the split and at the end near the phones. Now that I've epoxied the connects there's no way to undo and slip new heat shrink over, so I'm going to redo this part with heat shrink covering the whole lengths of the left and right cables.
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I noticed there's a little bit of noise from rubbing the cable too, but it hasn't bothered me too much yet. I may get some kind of cloth wrap in the future.
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I`m more then happy with the way mine turned out. Its like liquid gold coming threw my HD600`s. ;D
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I just noticed something disconcerting: the sound was being cut out in part (only in part, not a channel, just some instruments!) based on how the cable was lying in front of me! I moved it about and the sound came back. WTF is that?
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Cold solder joint on one of the connectors...