How-to ATH-AD900x Detachable Cable Mod (ATH-ADXXXx) (and what NOT to do)
Feb 12, 2016 at 11:29 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 48

cityle

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I like doing these how-to when I mod something like an headphone, so here's another one!
 
Advice: If you plan to do this mod, read completely this guide in order to don't make the same mistakes as me. Doing a detachable cable mod an ATH-ADXXXx revealed to be more complicate than the usual detachable cable mod as you will see below.
 
Disclaimer: I'm not reponsible for any damage done to your unit. Do it at your own risk.
 
 
The audio jack I chose:

IMPORTANT POINTS TO NOTE:
- Wire the wires in the right way
 

 

On the audio jack: Gold: L+  Short silver: R+  Long silver: LR-
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
1. Remove the pad on the left side and remove the 4 screws


2. Remove the cup and the grill (and take notes on the way you remove the grill, because when you will be reassembling it will be usefull)


3. Remove the 3 screws holding in place the silver cover (and maybe clean a little bit the mess in your phones :wink: ) At the end the cover will be hold by clips. Just push them and the cover will come out.


 
4. Remove the rubber thingy of the cup. Don't force too much, just pull it to the side, wiggle and it will come out. (Also, you can already cut the cable by the outside, I didn't because I didn't know the wiring inside so I keep it in order to figure out the L+ and R+ if it was necessary. It reveals to be totally stupid afterward as with simple logic I've could have figure out the wiring without problem)

 
5. Cut the wire if you've not done it already.  (And you will discover why this cable is so stiff. Look at all this sheat for these 3 small wires inside!)


 
6. Test fit you're audio jack. Here you can see there is a little gap in the first picture between the plastic and the audio jack. You need to push the audio jack and hold it in place during you screw it in order to hold it in place. Also, when you will test fit with the driver plate, you will discover it doesn't fit. You will have to lime the driver plate where there is this round shape so it's all the way across this section of the plate. Take your time with the filing, you don't want to do any cosmetic damages outside the filing area if possible.




 
7. Now here is where I began a serie of mistakes. So be aware of what I did. At first I wanted to keep the original wires, but removing this huge sheat was difficult. My wire stripper didn't even cut it for the job (lame word joke), so I open the sheat with an exacto and damage the wires at the same time unfortunately, making them shorter in usable length.


 
8. I solder it. Test the audio out (always do that to be sure it works). Then when I test fit, the red cable reveal to be really on the short side (I resolder it many times also). At the end I had to use other wires. You will see later.




 
9. Also I hot glue the audio jack, thing I do usually to give more rigidity to the audio jack to be extra sure it doesn't move. DON'T DO THAT. Later you will find out that it get it in the way when you reassemble everything. (and I did it in two different ways)


 
10. When you will test fit, you will discover that the silver cover doesn't fit. You will need to fill to opening where was passing the previous cable. I ended up having a bigger hole than depicted on the second picture (in order to be able to reclose the cans with the wires and the audio jack)
 


 
11. I discovered that I needed to change the wire as the original ones were too short. Because when you reassemble the cans, you need to reinstall the silver cover first, but then let the driver plate hang out outside, install the grill (as depicted in the fourth picture), and then close the driver plate. This requires that you have some length of cable in order to hang out the driver plate outside. It's why that at step #2 of this guide, you need to carefully look at how you disassemble it in order to be able to reassemble it. In these pictures I used first the same purple cable as use for my two DIY cables, but first I cut them at 5cm of length, too long, and they were too stiff for this use case so I was not able to reclose the cans. At the end, I salvage the wires inside the AKG K553 cable which were small and flexible enough and it cut them at a length of 4cm this time in order to be able to reclose the cans. (but I didn't take any pictures of that unfortunately)(also the solder job for these last wires were way better done than depicted in the pictures here)




 
12. Finally, not without some hassles when reclosing, you will be able to reclose the cans and screw down the 4 screws. And voila your ATH-AD900x without this stiff cable. ^^
 




 
Mar 16, 2016 at 2:17 PM Post #3 of 48
Yes, it's the same layout. Just that with the left side, wire only the left and ground thing on the audio jack, and right and ground for the right side. That way, if you're using trs jacks for the jacks that will go in the cups, you will not need a left and a right cable as they will be interchangeable without problem.
 
Mar 14, 2017 at 10:37 PM Post #5 of 48
  Has any1 tried this with miniXLR? Would love to see if the AD1000x or AD2000x would benefit from modding in such jacks.

If you are refer to the chasis connector type (like the mod above), it's merely impossible as the chasis connector for mini xlr's are just too big even with grinding off the edges.
 
It's is possible though with "piggy-tail" mod. 
 
Jul 5, 2017 at 10:21 AM Post #6 of 48
Just bought myself a pair of AD700X!
Thank you for the tutorial :)

I was wondering if it would be possible to install a 2.5mm jack socket with a locking mechanism (like the M50X) instead of the 3.5mm.
If it is, do you know where I could find such a socket?

Thanks!
 
Jul 13, 2017 at 10:11 PM Post #7 of 48
How would one go about putting dual-entry 3.5mm sockets?

I'm new to modding and and was wondering what wire goes where for the audio jack/socket for a dual-entry system.
 
Jul 15, 2017 at 10:58 PM Post #8 of 48
The drivers have the same contact point on both side. So you would solder the LR- (Ground) and the L+ on the left side and the LR- (Ground) and the R+ on the right side. Only that. You then have no need to solder the wires that go at the other cup.
 
Jul 16, 2017 at 12:12 AM Post #9 of 48
The drivers have the same contact point on both side. So you would solder the LR- (Ground) and the L+ on the left side and the LR- (Ground) and the R+ on the right side. Only that. You then have no need to solder the wires that go at the other cup.

Thanks! Unfortunately, I went ahead and learned things the hard way. I just did single entry as I didn't want to drill into other earcup. I plopped some AD2000 drivers into the AD700 shell that I was working with. Just to had to add a bit of hot glue to prevent them from falling off, as the AD2000 driver baffle plate (or whatever it's called) is skinnier than on the AD700 driver.

Eventually, I found out that I had to run the ground to the right side, so I ran that wire across the frame. Fortunately, it was very easy to do so.

gYuQQFZ.jpg


I think it turned out quite good, and they sound just like how I remembered the AD2000's to be.

SH8JvV4.jpg


Sorry for the huge pictures. No idea how to resize on Head-Fi.
 
Sep 11, 2017 at 12:16 PM Post #10 of 48
Hey all,

I know I'm replying to a dead thread here, but I'm trying this out on a pair of ATH AD500x's, and I'm running into problems with the wiring. I would like to figure out which cable is left, right, and ground, without soldering them because if I get it wrong it just gets messy.
bUTPRTr.jpg


Here is what I am looking at. I have already attempted just wrapping the cables around the leads without soldering them, but when tested with a left/right channel test, it plays out of both the left and right channel, or not at all, regardless of how I have the wires configured on the leads. Does anyone have any insight on how to test this? It doesn't help me at all that none of the wires are color coated either.
 
Sep 11, 2017 at 3:35 PM Post #11 of 48
Everything on the PCB is right, so I think your issue is that you have mistakenly mix the LR- (ground) as the L+, or the R+. Test your wire with a potentiometer, when you have no resistance (0 ohms), it means it's the same wire.
Untitled.png
 
Sep 21, 2017 at 2:11 PM Post #13 of 48
Okay, so using the original wires was a no go. Everything worked great until the end where I had to put the grate thing in while reassembling, and I stretched it too much and broke the wires, so now I will need to replace the original wires with longer ones. Here is my question - did you take off the old solder from the driver and resolder it? Or did you just remove the old wires and solder in the new ones? I'm afraid to desolder the original connections because I don't want to break the drivers like others have done
 
Sep 22, 2017 at 9:58 AM Post #14 of 48
It is done! For future reference, I was able to remove most of the old solder with a solder sucker, and still knew easily where to put new solder on, and it went extremely smoothly. Here are the glam shots
Xh5jQkY.jpg
RkNlUIK.jpg
2Xxv21U.jpg


Thanks for the amazing guide!
 

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