Need help re-wiring a jack

[Dark Prince]

Hi there,

I have the Asus Vulcan ANC Headphones and after tripping over the cable and rippng out the existing jack i have to replace it myself because Asus does not keep the cable I need as replacement parts, joy...

Basically I've spliced the cable and there are 4 wires, a red for right, blue for left, green ground and then there is this green and copper cable intertwined with one another. Now I'm not to sure how to rewire the cables. Am I right in assuming that the red would be soldered on the right, blue would be soldered onto the left, and the green and the intertwined cable would be soldered together onto the ground? I read this on a forum:

Each + wire carries a certain amount of current... current which has to return back along the - or ground wire(s). If you use a single ground wire, it will be carrying double the current on the + wires. Granted, the currents involved in headphones are pretty small and a normal 24ga or up conductor can handle this easily, but in theory going double isn't going to hurt you. Plus it makes it much easier to convert to balanced (or bridged, whatever you want to call it) in the future.

So... can someone please help me??

Please and thank you in advance,

[Wesley]

The wiring on most headphones is the same as the wiring onto the front panel header on your motherboard. Pull those pins out and see how the left and right channels, the ground and the pickup wires are done. Then match that on your re-soldering; so long as it matches it should be fine as its an analogue connection.

Also, wireless headphones. Get yourself a pair.

[Dark Prince]

I know this much, but standard headphones that ive spliced in the past have a max of 3: left, right and ground. So im assuming these two ground cables must be soldered together onto ground so that double the current can be carried because when i did this in the past i did not solder that intertwined cable onto the jack and the left headphone was good and the right was incredibly soft. The cable goes in left side first. I can swop cables with others, but they dont fit properly and fall out.

[CrashHelmut]

I had a quick look at the Asus website. That headset has an option for a detachable microphone. Also, if you look at the jack, you'll see 4 contact "points". I'd say either the green or the green/copper wire is for mic in. Connect the red and blue as you would normally, then experiment with the green/copper (which would be my guess for ground). Leave the other one unattached, unless you have a 4 contact jack available.

[Dark Prince]

Yeah this is very odd ey, I resoldered the cable back to they way I had it and it works, but still i get more effects coming through left such as the snare, the vocals and the guitar solo's. Even if i plug it into the amp the guitar comes through the left. Really retarded that you have to get the whole headset replaced to get 1 cable replaced when theres nothing wrong with the headset. I've left the green and copper cable untouched to the jack, when i was experimenting earlier on soldering it to the ground, i only got sound through the right...

Ive put the volume down on my left headset on the computer, this isnt wat Ive wanted honestly. Im still open for help

EDIT : Alright managed to fix my cable it seems, was very odd tho. I placed the green and copper intertwined cable as my ground then fiddled with the left over green cable. When I did this and left the green cable unsoldered, the right side of the headset was very loud so i played with different positions with the green cable. That green cable ended up being attached to the right cable in order for it to be balanced, most odd indeed.

EDIT 2 : Turns out that the surround doesnt work properly, the left channel doesnt come through strong enough, goddammit

[Dark Prince]

Ok Ive managed to get hold of an old cable that is relatively easy to understand except for 2 things. Its a cable i cut off from an old pair of broken headphones and it too splits into a stereo jack and into a microphone jack. On the stereo on I have 3 cables: a copper, a red and a blue. On the microphone end I have 2 cables: a copper and a red one. On the end of the cable where it would go into the headset is 5 cables: a red one, a blue one, green, copper and like a dark blue and copper intertwined cable.

The Stereo:
This is ok: Judging from what i think the blue to left, red to right and the copper cable as the sleeve

The Mic:
Its a mono mic (worried about compatibility if my existing mic is a stereo) so 2 connections for sleeve and ring 1 respectively

The TRRS connection:
This is the mother of all cables, all of them join up here and I have 5 cables so from this diagram:


I should be alright... should be. About to go out to an electronics shop to get them to do the job and hopefully fix the existing cable and not resort to the old cable.

Am I right? And does anybody know what would happen if you use a mono mic cable with a stereo mic (assuming it is a stereo mic)? Would i just get a mono mic?

[CrashHelmut]

From the pictures it seems that the Vulcan Headphones has a 4 contact (TRRS) jack. This would indicate that it only supports 4 signals (speaker left, speaker right, mic and ground). For stereo mic you would need to support 5 signals (as you would have a mic left and mic right).

[Dark Prince]

yeah getting hold of a TRRS jack is near impossible. I was gonna take the spliced end of the ASUS cable and join on the existing cables to that of another cable from an old pair of headphones. If that doesn't work then I'll have to just get a jack to jack and live without a microphone (I don't really use mine anyways and if I should need it then ill resort to an old pair.

[Cranky]

zalman clip on microphone is like R30

[Dark Prince]

zalman clip on microphone is like R30

Brilliant! Thanks :)