Headphone Cables Replacing the plug.

[Divemaster]

Just as a follow up to my recent post, but a different thing.

When you buy headphones (and I'm talking proper headphones) , not these things you stick in your ears..

Look at the cables. Are they a decent thickness?
Bear this in mind when you are buying.

Because at some stage down the line, if you need to replace the headphone plug, by re-soldering a new one on, you will find that thicker cables usually contain proper wires that are able to be soldered.

Whereas many, like the SONY ones that I've recently replaced have some kind of braided wire that is like feathery hair. So thin, and impossible to work with.
Separating the L R and common cables, whilst trying to keep them from touching each other is a job that I can only conclude was performed by mini robots.
An absolutely impossible job to do by hand..

[BogdanH]

hi Divemaster,
I agree with you. But that's not the only reason why I avoid braided cables on headphones: if we move our head while listening to music, we can literally hear in headphones how cable is rubbing against clothes that we're wearing.
Besides that, braided cables are usually dirt magnets and hard to clean.

Bogdan

[Amwilburn]

er, no Bogdan, I think he means the cable *inside* the rubber housing. If you look inside, instead of a single sold wire pair going to each ear, it's this weird feathery steel that's impossible to work with in terms of re-soldering

Divemaster: Yamaha now has wireless headphones (*not* bluetooth! Very different bandwidths, that's why there's no such thing as bluetooth headphones that work with instruments). YHWL500; pricey but the latency (<4ms) wasn't noticeable by me, no matter how quickly I played

Mark

[Divemaster]

Thanks Mark for pointing that out

Yeah, that's what I did mean.... The inner wiring. Thanks. I have good soldering technique, but that Sony stuff is just a complete nightmare to work.
Probably deliberate so you buy new headphones once the cable gets damaged.  (My dog owes me) but actually it's not good sense because it's put me off buying their brand again.. Means throwing out perfectly working headphones that can't be fixed....... C'mon Sony.... You not heard of recycling!

I'm not a lover of wireless equipment so, although I saw those Yamaha ones, I passed them by. I like to be hooked up to the keyboard. Just me I guess

Thanks

Keith.

[BogdanH]

Thank you for clarifying Mark 

Btw. I personally prefer wireless headphones. As for sound quality, well.. there are good and bad ones (as is the case with wired headphones) -but cable freedom is priceless for me.
I think more problematic is to find ones that are comfortable wearing for longer period of time. And there's no recipe but trying in store.
That YH-WL500 definitely look perfect.. but one really need a good excuse to justify the price. Running time of 9h is quite short, though... and they're quite heavy.

Bogdan

[Amwilburn]

I tried them, didn't find them heavy at all. Yes 9 hours is short, but the inclulded stand is a charging dock, so you just leave the headphone on that between uses... other than at work, I rarely play more than 5 hours in a ago, but yes, battery life could be longer.

And the price isn't cheap; the same price as a game console

Mark

[mikf]

I like the look of those Yamaha headphones, had never seen them before. They seem properly designed for the purpose.
I currently am on my 2nd or 3rd pair of Bose noise cancelling phones, not cheap either, and they are not working again. The charging is a pest, and I always forget, and the switch which allows them to be used without the battery is also awkward. I think my problem with them is mainly that they are unused for long periods, often months, as I have two homes and I leave a pair in each. I have a feeling that leaving them discharged for long periods hurts the batteries. And one time the batteries leaked, what a mess.
I think I might try these because leaving them on the stand should make battery charging pretty automatic.
Nine hours charge doesn't seem like a problem. Who wants to play continuously for nine hours?
Mike

[Amwilburn]

The charging is a pest, and I always forget, and the switch which allows them to be used without the battery is also awkward. I think my problem with them is mainly that they are unused for long periods, often months, as I have two homes and I leave a pair in each. I have a feeling that leaving them discharged for long periods hurts the batteries. And one time the batteries leaked, what a mess.
I think I might try these because leaving them on the stand should make battery charging pretty automatic.
Mike

Correct, I once left several aa rechargables uncharged for almost 2 years (I had switched to a wired controller, thinking i was saving money on batteries, but forgot that leaving them uncharged for a long time damages the batteries). Of the 8? 6 had to be recycled, and the last 2 don't charge to full anymore.

Basically once the wired controller gave up the ghost, it turned out I'd also wasted half a dozen AA batteries as well.

Mark

[BogdanH]

Just wish to mention, that there's a BIG difference between old NiMh rechargeable (AA & AAA) batteries and Li-Ion batteries which are nowadays used for almost all wireless devices.
NiMh batteries practically started to lose capacity as soon we stopped charging them (even when they we left unused in a drawer). Besides that, there was highly recommended that we never re-charge them if they're not empty (because of memory effect). You sure remember: when battery was new and fully charged, it lasted for many hours... but after few months (and many recharge cycles), fully charged battery only works for few hours (or only few minutes).
Li-Ion batteries have no such disadvantages. They have very long self-discharging time: even if not used for several months, they only loose maybe 10-20% of charge. And we can charge them anytime we wish: regardless if they're (half) empty or not. No wonder they started using them in electric cars 

Bogdan