direcow 0 Report post Posted February 18, 2009 (edited) Since I haven't actually found a full guide for recabling these I thought I'll just post this up to help out if necessary. It's not the most comprehensive, I just took photos as and when I felt like it. A colleague of mine, Neo32 (find him at Jaben), sat up one day with his portapros on his ears - that would be fine, except his cable was snagged onto his knee, and next thing he knew he had 2 torn cables and no sound. Since he knew I was raring to try out some DIY, he passed them to me to give it a shot. After some reading and a very helpful post by fallenangel on head-fi to get me started... Here's the right earpiece after detaching it from the holder. A nice pull gets it right out, no damage done. If you look at the joint it should be quite obvious to see how to pull it out. Don't go pulling the headband out instead. And here the L and R side by side... wireless headphones, anybody? And here are the bare wires... I didn't get a very good wire stripper, but I managed to make do later with some mcgyvering. The wires are coiled around some fibre... Coloured is signal, copper is ground. And pop! Up comes the wire attachment protector. I used a pair of tweezers to poke into the hole and push upwards. And here's the interior. Left is ground, right is signal. There's some residual solder there, that's where I attached my wires to. The rest of it's really boring... solder, fail, solder, fail, remove solder, desoldering coil not working very well, solder, hold into position etc. Long story short, I tinned the wires with solder first, then with my helping hand, some solder and the iron I managed to get the wires attached as shown below. Not very elegant, but I cleaned it up with some cutting with a scissors. As can be seen, Red (colour) went to the Right, which is the signal, the other went to the ground. And then on to the left side, and done! Test with the sansa clip, make sure I didn't mix up left with right... and then glue. Viola! (Neo only passed me one foam pad...) Not toooooooooooooooo bad for a first job I'll say. Need to work on soldering faster and quicker, but I think investing in the Goot soldering iron was a good idea. Too bad Neo didn't want to recable with some better cable, haha... Hopefully this lasts, not much space to work with so I didn't use stress relief except for lots of glue. Took me about 50min in total... Next up! Some docks... Edited February 18, 2009 by direcow Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Whenesday 0 Report post Posted February 19, 2009 Excellent! Now I know my Portas are easily recabled as well if I'm really bored with it! Nice steps and pictures! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jojo_b2 0 Report post Posted February 19, 2009 @Direcow Nice job recabling. Considering not really a Pro. I actually envy you as I really suck soldering. BigTime! Excellent! Now I know my Portas are easily recabled as well if I'm really bored with it! Nice steps and pictures! Haha! just a weird thought valgrind or even Crystal recabled Porta Pros. The cable alone XXXX times expensive lol! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
direcow 0 Report post Posted February 19, 2009 @Direcow Nice job recabling. Considering not really a Pro. I actually envy you as I really suck soldering. BigTime! Haha! just a weird thought valgrind or even Crystal recabled Porta Pros. The cable alone XXXX times expensive lol! Thanks ... Definitely room for improvement! It's all practise tho... Haha... already he's asking me to recable, so I told him mundorf silver/gold, should be about 40-75 bucks depending on what we use for ground and the plug. Crazy man! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kookie 0 Report post Posted February 20, 2009 heres some cabling and mods that i found on porta pro... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Morgan Wu 0 Report post Posted February 20, 2009 Lol, using mundorf is kinda overkill isnt it? But if you really intend to use mundorfs its better to pair it up with a copper one too. if not you will find the bass lacking. (thats what a ER4 fren told me) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
direcow 0 Report post Posted February 21, 2009 Lol, using mundorf is kinda overkill isnt it? But if you really intend to use mundorfs its better to pair it up with a copper one too. if not you will find the bass lacking. (thats what a ER4 fren told me) Actually I quite like the bass on the mundorf when compared to copper, but that was like 2 years ago when I first compared things... and ER4 is generally lacking in bass? Heh... But yeah, keeping options open for now. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
direcow 0 Report post Posted March 16, 2009 At owners request, recabled and reterminated... Portapro>wlwkb cable> pailiaccs 3.5mm plug. Lost quite a bit of sleep over what seemed like quite a simple thing. Those 3.5mm plugs are not easy to work with for a beginner. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nofing 0 Report post Posted March 16, 2009 Nice job. Does the sound change alot? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Stereo_Electronics 0 Report post Posted March 16, 2009 Can add that to the meet. I haven't heard to recabled portapro yet. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Morgan Wu 0 Report post Posted March 16, 2009 how long did you spend braiding the wires? what a great favor you have done! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
direcow 0 Report post Posted March 16, 2009 Nice job. Does the sound change alot? Hmz... not too sure, according to the user it's changed, and he's not sure if it's for the better cos it's been a long while since he used his portapros properly. Can add that to the meet. I haven't heard to recabled portapro yet. The owner said ok, so we're bringing it down how long did you spend braiding the wires? what a great favor you have done! Haha... the braid was pre-done since I salvaged a wkwlb cable which I had an extra... so the favour is just the lost sleep figuring out how to do it (and the failures in between). Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Stereo_Electronics 0 Report post Posted March 16, 2009 (edited) Haha... the braid was pre-done since I salvaged a wkwlb cable which I had an extra... so the favour is just the lost sleep figuring out how to do it (and the failures in between). Totally understand. Especially the failure part. Edited March 16, 2009 by Stereo_Electronics Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest jacj6049 Report post Posted March 16, 2009 oh?so how much is tat wkwlb cable?can i get it in sg? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
direcow 0 Report post Posted March 16, 2009 oh?so how much is tat wkwlb cable?can i get it in sg? http://null-audio.net/default.aspx it comes as pre-built cables, not sure if he'll sell it seperately. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
