How to: Fix your damaged headphones

Whether you’re an audiophile or somebody who listens to music on the go, the chances that your headphones have stopped working, or are partially working are extremely high. We’ve put together a few steps on how to get those pair of expensive headphones up and running. 

Firstly, you’ll require a soldering iron, some solder wire and a pair of headphones which are old, cheap or simply unused due to their bad quality. The reason we would require another headphone or earphone is to make use of the wires and the connector in case your expensive and loved headphones have a bad wire or connector, which needs replacement. Needless to say, other tools like screwdrivers, wire strippers and a sharp blade or knife will definitely come handy. So once you’ve assimilated the materials required, get your favourite pair of headphones ready and start with finding the cause of the faulty connection.

Some headphones, like this one, might be difficult to open as the parts are fused together

Faults may be:

• Due to breaks, bends or stretches in the wire(s).
• Problems at the connector end due to constant use.
• At the entry point where the cable meets the headphone driver.

This headphone consists of a single wire that goes to both the channels and care should be taken while disassembling it

Fault Identification

Identify the area of the fault. If there’s a break in the wire, it’s best to replace the whole wire from your headphones with a new one or taken from another pair. In case there are problems at the connector end, the solution is to cut the wire, buy another connector (most electronic shops sell it for less than ten rupees) and solder the wires to the new connector. Thirdly, in most cases, sound is audible over only one side of the headphones as the soldering wears off with time or the wires have given way. Due to this, the functionality of the headphones is drastically reduced, but with a few simple methods mentioned below, you’ll get the sound back from both channels within no time.

Headphones like the one above have two wires coming out of both channels and hence repairing them is a little easier

For our workshop, we took our faulty ‘Koss Porta Pro’ headphones and upon diagnosis, realized that the fault lay at the point where the cable met the headphone driver. But here’s the important bit of information you need to keep in mind. You need to identify the smartest possible way of prying your headphones open. In most cases, the drivers are usually concealed in a frame which is either glued together, fused as one piece, have clamps or simply screwed together. Therefore, we would suggest that you carefully examine the headphones and the wiring before attempting to open them. In case you find the drivers are fused inside a case, you might need to cut open the frame. If needed, get some help from someone who knows a bit of electronics.

Old headphone wires can come in handy

On our Koss headphones, we found that it had a small plastic cap covering the audio driver’s connectors that needed to be flipped apart with a screwdriver. A few have the second channel routed through the head band and hence, there will be a bit more of opening up required to get to the soldering bit. For others, there are separate wires entering both the drivers on either side and the task will be a little easier. Some in-ear headphones do have a strong adhesive hold and trying to take it apart might just break the internals or the case itself. Hence it’s better to be careful while handling such earphones.