Massdrop edition Sennheiser HD650's drop in six days for $249.99.

ALL212

We're here for you...

mrbiron

Let me put some clothes on so you can hold me...

I soldered on the 1/4" plug....then saw the brass cap sitting on the countertop. FAQ!

Cut the wire right off and started over again. Put the brass cap on prior to soldering the plug. Check! Stepped back, smiles followed by anger...had the larger shrink wrap on the wrong side of the cap. Son of a...

Cut the plug away and started over again.

It was past 12...I was on beer #4...Dagnabbit!

mrbiron

I did zero beforehand planning. Biggest mistake ever. If you don't figure out your shrink wrap layering prior to start, add 1 hour to build...

Mistake #2...Dont drink while wire building.

I am nothing without my helping hands...nothing!

ALL212

Ok - only other than going past 2 beers I've done all of that!

Nice job in the end.

mrbiron

mrbiron

ALL212 wrote: »

Ok - only other than going past 2 beers I've done all of that!

Nice job in the end.

A little over confident on my abilities
Just pulled her out of the hanger hoping to climb to 39,000 feet and enjoy the fruits of my labor AND............silence.

First I saw that the heatshrink wasn't allowing the plugs to go all the way in. Easy fix. Reattach for round #2 AND..........silence.

I tried everything in the book like jumping up and down, swearing profusely, and finally I jiggled the plugs. Nothing! I know I sounded the wires out and isolated them as to not screw anything up so only guess is, I fried the 1/4 plug with all of my screw-ups. None too happy that I have to open her up again. *Sigh*

ALL212

Got a meter? If so let’s figure out what’s broke before cracking it open.

mrbiron

I do.

ALL212

Tip to all four can connections - only one should show short

Ring to all four can connections - only one should show short

On above - should be the small pins but as long as it’s both small or both big it shouldn’t matter... yet.

Base of the 1/4 plug to all four pins. Two should short and both should be the same size pin and not the ones that shorted to tip and ring.

Tip to ring - should be open
Base to tip, base to ring - should be open

Mm on ohms. Short will show numbers, open should be 0. Test by touching leads together

ALL212

And good morning to you!!

mrbiron

So, on the 1/4" plug, white wires get soldered to the channel tabs and the blue wires get soldered to the sleeve. Is this correct?

like this image...

sgtmick63

I've been a fan of AKG headphones since the early 70's. In Fact I still have my 240m's from the early 70's. I have the 701's, 702,s and the 712's. I did the massdrop for the senn HD6XX. After breakin and swaping out the original these are my go to phones. The AKG's are more comfortable but the Senn sound almost 3D to me. I listened to David Gilmour-Live at Pompeii and all I can say is Whow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ALL212

mrbiron wrote: »

So, on the 1/4" plug, white wires get soldered to the channel tabs and the blue wires get soldered to the sleeve. Is this correct?

like this image...

ya...like that. The sleeves all solder together at the 1/4" plug sleeve connection.

If you left that out - well, that would explain "the sound of silence" as your favorite song today.

mrbiron

Nah....i more or less soldered the ends of each pair together and connected straight to the 1/4 plug channel locations. Now i have to cut the plug head away for a 3rd time, solder only the whites to the designated areas and the blues will wrap the sleeve. My Bad...never done one of these before.

Is it even necessary to attached the copper shield to the sleeve or just cut it flush with the wire jacket? I ask because i'm going in for surgery again and might as well clean it up while in there.

ALL212

I take a bit of shield, whatever you can use - a couple of strands works - and solder it down to the sleeve with the other two sleeves at the 1/4" end. Usually about 1/4 of what is there or less.

It's not necessary to do so to get this to work either and adds a bit to the difficulty level.

agfrost

Here's my 'me too' addition to the thread. I got in on the original Senn HD6XX buy and have been enjoying them greatly. I had previously bought a balanced cable to use with my Pono player from Surf Cables, but wanted to build my own for my home amps (I'm all kinds of Schitty here with an Asgard and a Vali 2).

Thanks to Aaron for the inspiration and the detailed 'how-to' both in this thread and in this thread! I went with the same Mogami Neglex 2534 cable (from Markertek--free shipping!). Got the Furutech FT-2PS connectors from SonicCraft, and the splitter and jack are from a company called Eidolic (I bought from doublehelixcables.com). I also used a softer-than-standard-Techflex nylon sleeve for the cable between the jack and splitter--I wanted this for the look and feel, and was hoping this material would be resistant to the microphonics that can be so annoying. My Surf cable has a sleeve on the Y all the way up to the earcups, and it's not fun when I'm wearing a collared shirt or a jacket (techflex rubbing against a zipper--shudder!)

I had decided I wanted to use a splitter for the Y instead of cable pants or fancy use of heatshrink, and after finding the Eidolic splitter I decided to get the jack to match. I rolled the dice a little, perhaps, with the this jack--it's rhodium plated, which is good, but the base metal may be aluminum foil for all I know.

Anyway, the build went really well (and quite slowly). Just feeding the 10 feet of cable into the nylon sleeving must have taken 30+ minutes. Soldering to the jack was a bit challenging due to close quarters, but I managed to get it done with no errors. The Furutech connectors were a dream to work with--their body clamps around/screws closed over the connection pins. The pins themselves have a sort of 'cup' to place the wires into that reminds me of the cups that were in the Neutrik Speakon connectors I used in making my Dreadnought cables. Placed pre-tinned wires in there and easy to solder from there! I had a bright idea to use a short length of red/black heat shrink that ended up half in/half out of the Furutechs--the shrunken diameter was just right to place inside the brass strain relief clamp inside the connector. Squeezing this with a pliers will, I hope, give all the needed strain relief for that area. The half-inch of heat shrink that sticks out helps ID left and right on the Senns.

Anyway, a couple of pictures. Kinda proud of my efforts! As far as sonic rewards go, I'll need to do some listening. Haven't even heard an entire album through them yet, but I can tell I didn't screw 'em up!

Jay

msg

Nice, Jay. Curious, which tech flex is this that you mention?

Mark - laughing along with you, man. Been there with the forgets on heatshrink and such. Thanks for the laughs

PS. I enjoy the helping hands as well. One thing I like to do is fold up some blue shop towel, or little bit of rubber inner tube to use between the cable insulation and the helping hand clips to help prevent marring.

Another heatshrink mistake - after having similar frustrations one time, I finally got it all on there properly, staged, and ready to go. Did my solder connections, and went to go slide the first layer heat shrink over and it immediately shrunk too much to slide over the joint - my solder joints were too warm! #&*$^%!

agfrost

I got this. More fabric-y than some of the more plastic-y techflex I've seen/used.

msg

Ah, nice. The fabric-y feel explains why it took 30 minutes to install. I recently had trouble with some of that in a cable reterm. Slid it back a little bit, and then couldn't for the life if me get it back in place.
Furryletters - I've bought techflex from him before. Fantastic selection, great prices. Thanks!

ALL212

That's a sweet lookin' rig you got there! I need that splitter...I gotta have that splitter!!

mrbiron

Now i just have to find time to log some hours...

*edit
It also just dawned on me that i haven't even done the speedball kit yet. Everything is prebuilt and ready to go. Reason for doing so is i actually wanted to see what the difference would be versus slinging solder and walking away.

Also, i plan on reading up on tube rolling. It would appear that i am slowly becoming addicted to crack...
Can't wait to try a speedball!

agfrost

I predict that I score some Crack in the not-too-distant future.

SCompRacer

agfrost wrote: »

Here's my 'me too' addition to the thread.

Nice work Jay!

I got some 650's with custom Aaron Mogami's. Need a DAC with that Crack?

mrbiron

SCompRacer wrote: »

Need a DAC with that Crack?

Whoa whoa whoa....let him get a speedball first before you start pushing the hard stuff...

agfrost

SCompRacer wrote: »

Need a DAC with that Crack?

We can talk.

halo

agfrost wrote: »

SCompRacer wrote: »

Need a DAC with that Crack?

We can talk.

That's where you start getting ideas, ideas lead to plans, plans lead to purchases!