[DigitalAudioCoveter]

Hi All,

The 3.5mm jack on my AK70 MKII developed a fault (sound only comes out of one ear unless I put pressure on the plug). The fix on YouTube looks like a headache and I don’t currently have a soldering iron so I thought it was a good excuse to go headphone shopping

I searched for about an hour for full cans pre-cabled with a 2.5mm balanced plug. I could only find IEMs or headphones with a 4.4mm or some variant of an XLR cable.

Is there such a thing as an off-the-shelf pair of headphones (not IEMs) pre-cabled with a 2.5mm balanced plug? I’ve got a few other devices with a 2.5mm balanced jack so I thought they would be more readily available.

I also spotted a 3.5mm female to 2.5mm male adapter but that just feels wrong. I’m not too worried about the sound quality but I don’t want to blow up my amp or current headphones. Please Let me know if I’m being paranoid because that would be the cheapest option by far haha.

 

[silent-circuit]

None pre-cabled that I know of, but just about anything that'll take an aftermarket cable (I.E. most quality headphones) you can get as cheap or as expensive a cable as you like.

 

[DigitalAudioCoveter]

Thanks for the swift response! That was what I suspected.

I spent another couple of hours looking and found the Beyerdynamic PRO X series and a bunch of adapter/cable options for £230 ($300). Probably the top end of my current headphone budget, any more recommendations like this? Browsing the listings I'd also be open to some third-party modded headphones but that's completely new territory for me.

My current main headphones are a pair of Ultrasone HFI-780s. I like the precision and reasonable sound stage for a closed-back and I find I can EQ them to suit whatever I'm listening to or whatever mood I'm in really well.

Seems like such a waste for such a trivial problem with the AK. Most likely just a design flaw but really feels like planned obsolescence when the easiest option is to just buy a new Hi-Res player. I can see myself just sucking it up and borrowing a soldering iron for an afternoon.

 

[silent-circuit]

The other option would be something like a Topping G5, which should be a major improvement in power and sound quality vs your current player, and you could probably sell the AK (mentioning the fault of course) to offset the cost.

 

[Roseval]

You can find a couple of 2.5 mm examples here: http://www.diyaudioblog.com/2016/02/headphone-connectors-pins-pinouts-for.html
Won't recommend 2.5 as a selection criteria though. It is a bit rare and worse, doesn't say anything about sound quality.
Your best bet imho is a TRRS or TRRRS (Pentaconn) termination. Simply because of this your headphone can be used both "balanced" (2x 2 wires) and unbalanced using a simple adapter.

My favorite is Hart cable. They offer all king of Y-cables terminated with a mini xlr. They also offer what they call Interconnects. From mini XLR to almost any possible termination: https://hartaudiocables.com/collections/interconnects

Please Let me know if I’m being paranoid because that would be the cheapest option by far haha.

There is an obvious don't. If the amp has balanced out (L+/L- & R+/R-) and you connect it using a TRS, you connect e.g. L- to R- so 2 active outputs. The amp won't like this.

Balanced out in general means doubling the power. Don't use it with high sensitivity headphone or IEM.

 

[DigitalAudioCoveter]

The other option would be something like a Topping G5, which should be a major improvement in power and sound quality vs your current player, and you could probably sell the AK (mentioning the fault of course) to offset the cost.

That's not a bad shout. I do mostly just use the AK as a DAC. I do fill it with FLAC files but don't generally get to use it as a DAP anymore

The site maintenance guy at work loaned me a soldering iron so I took the back off the AK and one of the pads has actually lifted so my heart sank. Tried reflowing it but predictably no joy, still only coming out of the right ear. I didn't make it worse at least!

 

[DigitalAudioCoveter]

You can find a couple of 2.5 mm examples here: http://www.diyaudioblog.com/2016/02/headphone-connectors-pins-pinouts-for.html
Won't recommend 2.5 as a selection criteria though. It is a bit rare and worse, doesn't say anything about sound quality.
Your best bet imho is a TRRS or TRRRS (Pentaconn) termination. Simply because of this your headphone can be used both "balanced" (2x 2 wires) and unbalanced using a simple adapter.

My favorite is Hart cable. They offer all king of Y-cables terminated with a mini xlr. They also offer what they call Interconnects. From mini XLR to almost any possible termination: https://hartaudiocables.com/collections/interconnects



There is an obvious don't. If the amp has balanced out (L+/L- & R+/R-) and you connect it using a TRS, you connect e.g. L- to R- so 2 active outputs. The amp won't like this.

Balanced out in general means doubling the power. Don't use it with high sensitivity headphone or IEM.

Thanks for the links. Definitely think I should educate myself before I start ordering cables and headphones and frying it all