How To Rewire A Pair Of Headphones With A Broken Audio Jack

If you have a pair of Sennheiser, Bose, Beats, or other high end pair of headphones, here is a way to rewire them if they are broken. (Read the full article before attempting to repair your headphones)

This is a moderately easy method to repair your headphones when the 3.5 mm jack connector becomes bent so many times that it breaks the connection. This method involves soldering so if you have never soldered before practice on something else first.

fix broken headphones

Sometimes only one channel of audio will get through the damaged wire and sometimes no audio at all. With high end headphones you will usually have 4 wires rather than 3 like more common headphones will have.

To begin repairing your headphones: Find the damaged wire area and using a pair of wire cutters, cut the wire making sure you are cutting a little further back from the damaged area.
Next strip the wires back exposing them.
Usually the copper wires (strands) will be covered by a thin piece of plastic resin.
Burn the resin off with some solder and tin the wires.
This is so you can test the headphones with alligator clips to be sure you are connecting the wires correctly.
At this point you should have 4 copper wires exposed. This is because high end headphones will have 2 wires per channel equaling 4 wires.


How To Solder a 3.5mm, ⅛”, or Mini Headphone Connector

The wire colors may vary but will usually be:
Blue – RIGHT, GROUND
Red – RIGHT, SIGNAL
Black – LEFT, SIGNAL
White – LEFT, GROUND
Most of the time the two drivers are wired separately all the way to the plugin connector.


How TO Repair Headphones Broken At Audio Jack

You can purchase a new 3.5 mm plugin connector jack for the repair from Radioshack.
It is a good idea to take the headphones into the store and explain to them what you are doing so they can assist with finding you the exact jack for your headphones.
You can find repair kits online but mostly everyone has a Radioshack down the road from them.
Also get a couple sets of alligator clips to test the connections before you solder to make sure you have the wiring correct.

Once you have the new connector jack to fix your headphones, make sure you use the alligator clips for a test to be sure you solder the correct wires to the new jack. Once you know which wire goes where, it is time to solder.

Don’t use too much heat when soldering the wires to the connector jack because the wire shielding will melt. Using extra patience will help you do the job right. Remember to practice your soldering method on something else first. If you don’t have high end headphones, this procedure isn’t worth thee trouble, just buy a new pair. If your headphones are over $100 then this repair procedure is worth your time and effort.


How to Repair or Rewire Headphones

Need more help repairing your broken headphones? Leave a comment below explaining your issue and we can assist you further.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.