How to Fix Grado Headphones That Are Cutting Out
You can fix your Grado headphones by finding the short in the wiring and repairing the broken connection. The wires start at the headphone jack and travel up to the "Y" where they split off to the left and right earpiece. If there is a break or crack in the wire at any point, the sound will cut out as the break opens the circuit. The most likely points of failure are just above the jack connection and at the "Y" joint.
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Things You'll Need
- Wire cutters
- Wire strippers
- Solder
- Soldering iron
- Electrical tape
- Heat-shrink tubing
- Heat gun
Instructions
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1
Locate the source of the cutout in the wire. Connect the headphones to an audio source and play an audio track. Bend the cord over your finger slowly working your way from the jack end of the cord all the way up. When you hear the sound start to cut out, move that section of the cord back and forth a few times to isolate the spot where the break has occurred.
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2
Unplug the headphones and take them off. Cut out the section of wire that's broken. If possible, cut at least one inch on either side of the break.
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3
Remove the last inch of the outer coating on either side of the cut. This will expose the inner wires. Grado headphones have a black and a red insulated wire along with a ground, or common wire. The black wire goes to the left earpiece and the red wire goes to the right earpiece. If you found the break above the "Y" split, you will only have one insulated wire and the ground wire.
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4
Strip the last half-inch of insulation from all the wires on both sides of the cut.
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5
Slide a 2-inch section of heat-shrink tubing over the wires on the long side of the cut.
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6
Align the metal of the red wire on one side with the metal of the red wire on the other side so the metal is parallel and the wires continue in a line. Twist the wires in opposite directions so that they are twisted together. Repeat for all the pairs of wires.
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7
Touch the soldering iron to the twist of metal between the red wires. When it's hot, touch the solder to the wires until a drop or two melts off. Remove the solder and the iron. Repeat for all the connections.
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8
Wrap each of the connection in a small piece of electrical tape so that no metal or wire is exposed.
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9
Slide the heat-shrink tubing over the joint and shrink it with the heat gun.
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Tips & Warnings
If your headphones are still under warranty from Grado, you should contact them before performing repairs yourself.
If the cutout is inside the earpiece, you can separate the earpiece halves by warming them with the heat gun and prying the glued halves apart gently. Resolder the wire to the transducer terminals.
If the cutout is too close to the jack, you can wire the three wires to a new tip, ring and sleeve jack. The ground wire gets soldered to the sleeve solder point, the red wire to the ring and the black wire to the tip.
Check several audio sources to see off the cutout is caused by the audio jack on one sources.
