DIY headphone repair?

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ceiling_fan

ceiling_fan

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ceiling_fan
I have two pairs of headphones that broke in pretty much the exact same way, one my fault and one American Airlines' fault (I pulled it out of the jack in the armrest...) So I was wondering if I could fix these myself or if I have to pay some dude who can do it for me.

Here are two blurry pics, but they get the point across.



 
You could just cut the ends off of this and splice them in.

Outrageous price, though! :scared:
 
I've tried many times to try splicing headphone wires and have yet to be successful. I'm not too bad with most electronics, but small shielded wire is something that I know nothing about. You might be able to google the process to get an idea of what is required. I would think an electronics whiz could knock it out in under 10 minutes and fairly cheap.
 
Only used to the 12 gauge and thicker, eh Slick6? Pulled any 500 MCM yet? ;)

Back to the task at hand. You have a couple of options for splicing. The difficult part is, since they are headphones, you want the splices to be nice and small. The best options I can come up with are crimp bullet connectors (but the speaker wire is probably to small for this particular application), a different crimp connection (which is more likely to work as it's geared for 22-26 gauge wire) or just good old electrical tape. Twist the two ends together and wrap with tape to secure. Just make sure you aren't switching the polarity.
 
Not quite that big yet. Before I even started doing the electrical thing though, I used to mess around quite a bit with electronics, radio controlled things, etc. And up until now, I had never researched into splicing headphone wires, I had just tried it a few times with some extra junk I had laying around. I just now learned that simply twisting the wires together and soldering will more than likely not work. (Which I had tried.) There is usually an enamel or lacquer on the wire that must be melted off of the wire before soldering. Sound quality will probably be compromised as well. Google "soldering headphone jack" and look at a few topics. If you're handy with a soldering gun, go for it. If you mess up, your cord will just be an inch or two shorter.
 

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