Audio technica ath r70x headphone replacement cable.

[fjs]

I recently bought the ath r70x headphone to try as an alternative to the sennheiser 600 series headphones. They are an excellent headphone but hate the cable so I thought that I would try a diy cable so ordered a couple of 2.5 trs twist lock plugs from china. They arrived quickly but then came the problem. Apparently the headphones are wired internally so that left and right input cables have no right of wrong I.e. doesn’t matter what side the cables are inputted it sorts itself out as to which is left or right channel. I googled and found a post that said wire as a normal headphone with both tips hot, ring not connected, sleeve earth and at the amplifier end have tip left, ring right and sleeve earth but then you have to mark input cable as left and right. Tried this, right channel worked, left channel dead. Anyone got any ideas how to wire and Australian supplier of twist lock plugs or replacement cable supplier. Headphones only cost little over $300 so don’t want to pay over $100 for a cable.

 

 

[Neo]

What specifically you didn’t like about the cable and what specifically in Chinese parts bin would be better suited? 

As for the alternatives ask @Bengineer but his prices are more than $100 and rightfully so. 

Neo

 

Edited January 4, 2023 by Neo

[fjs]

Thanks for your reply. The original cable is very long and quite stiff which is a bit of a nuisance when my amp is only 1 m from me. The 2.5 trs twist lock plugs I bought from china were very well priced and of good quality but the wait time was about 3 weeks which is pretty good but if I could buy local it would be just quicker. I will look at the cables you suggest but I do like making my own cables be it headphone cables, speaker cables or interconnects, just part of the hobby.

[Cope]

  On 04/01/2023 at 1:50 AM, fjs said:

I recently bought the ath r70x headphone to try as an alternative to the sennheiser 600 series headphones. They are an excellent headphone but hate the cable so I thought that I would try a diy cable so ordered a couple of 2.5 trs twist lock plugs from china. They arrived quickly but then came the problem. Apparently the headphones are wired internally so that left and right input cables have no right of wrong I.e. doesn’t matter what side the cables are inputted it sorts itself out as to which is left or right channel. I googled and found a post that said wire as a normal headphone with both tips hot, ring not connected, sleeve earth and at the amplifier end have tip left, ring right and sleeve earth but then you have to mark input cable as left and right. Tried this, right channel worked, left channel dead. Anyone got any ideas how to wire and Australian supplier of twist lock plugs or replacement cable supplier. Headphones only cost little over $300 so don’t want to pay over $100 for a cable.

 

 

Expand  

 

Best way to be certain about the wiring is to use a multimeter to check continuity on the original cable and see how that is wired. My guess would be that the post you found is incorrect and left hot should be wired to tip both sides, right hot should be wired ring both sides, and neutral to sleeve both sides. The jacks on the headphone will be wired such that the left will only connect tip and sleeve, and the right only ring and sleeve, such that they always receive the correct signal.

 

If you don't have a multimeter I can confirm with my pair tonight when I'm home from work.

[fjs]

Thanks Cope for the reply. I did test for continuity before I started. Headphones are dual entry. Tip on the amp connection shows hot with both the tip and ring of both headphone enters. Similarly the ring on the amp end shows hot with both tip and ring of both headphone enters. To wire as original requires lots of wires so a bit beyond my soldering capabilities so I wanted to make it simpler by designating a left and right cable.   This should allow me to wire as a normal headphone but doesn’t quite work. My guess would be tip of the amp end to the ring of the left cable and ring of the amp end to the tip of the right cable but I can’t think of a way to test this presumption.

[Cope]

I just tested continuity on my R70X stock cable. The signal passes from end to end without any change. Put another way, Tip = Tip, Ring = Ring, Sleeve = Sleeve for both sides. This means that the inside of the headphone jack is as I've described - the right side of the headphone ignores the tip, and the left side ignores the ring. You could make a cable that only carried one signal up each side like this:

 

Left Side: Tip hot, sleeve neutral

Right Side: Ring hot, sleeve neutral

 

If you did this, getting it backwards would mean only the neutral would be connected either side, and so you would get silence.

Edited January 6, 2023 by Cope