# How-to ATH-AD900x Detachable Cable Mod (ATH-ADXXXx) (and what NOT to do)



## cityle

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-*
  
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 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  ) 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. ^^


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## dstea

Would this work with an AD2000?


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## cityle

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.


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## bobbiac

Has any1 tried this with miniXLR? Would love to see if the AD1000x or AD2000x would benefit from modding in such jacks.


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## Panda Jiong

bobbiac said:


> 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.


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## Dwarkas

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!


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## Feilong4

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.


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## cityle

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.


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## Feilong4

cityle said:


> 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.







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






Sorry for the huge pictures. No idea how to resize on Head-Fi.


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## demevalos

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. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




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.


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## cityle

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.


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## demevalos

ohhhhh wow your drawing makes a lot more sense, thanks I'll update when it's finished! (or hit another wall lol)


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## demevalos

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


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## demevalos

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
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	










Thanks for the amazing guide!


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## Pings

Do you think it would be possible to fit a Mini XLR? I might have a need for more than 3 connections.


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## cityle

The socket would be too large, unless you find one with a diameter of 8mm (which would be surprising) which is the max width for a socket to be installed. So as an other comment pointed it out, you can always do a "piggy-tail" mod to use the headphones with a mini-xlr.


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## Pings

cityle said:


> The socket would be too large, unless you find one with a diameter of 8mm (which would be surprising) which is the max width for a socket to be installed. So as an other comment pointed it out, you can always do a "piggy-tail" mod to use the headphones with a mini-xlr.



Are you talking about the existing hole? I was thinking it would not fit. But, If I made the hole larger would be too large inside the cup?


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## cityle

Pings said:


> Are you talking about the existing hole? I was thinking it would not fit. But, If I made the hole larger would be too large inside the cup?


No about the max width you can create, because anything larger would go through the entire width of the plastic ring.


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## beatfried

Thank you for your instructions! 

I did the mod yesterday and have some problems now which I can't really associate with anything. 

After the mod I made some Stereotests with the following findings: 

- Sound on Central -> Sound on Central
- Sound on Left -> Sound same as for Central
- Sound on Right -> Lower Volume sound but just on the right

Can maybe someone pinpoint my problem?


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## skwoodwiva (May 3, 2018)

cityle said:


> 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.*
> 
> ...


Is that a regular 3.5 mm RCA? 
I find them unreliable .
I have seen mini gold coax screw-ons that is where I am headed.
Well I use  kimber TC4 too so I need rugged


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## BrodieH

beatfried said:


> Thank you for your instructions!
> 
> I did the mod yesterday and have some problems now which I can't really associate with anything.
> 
> ...


I had a similar issue when i did this mod to my HD500X. It was caused by the left and right channels being wired up backwards, but it can also be caused if there is a bridge of solder between the wires or if the wires are touching. Hope this helps.


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## darkaheart

thank you for the guide! i just finished the mod with the ad900x. it actually took me a few times to get the soldering done right and then dealing with the coated wires i extracted from the the original cable. it was a nightmare! especially when i tried inserting the connector into the chrome plastic cover, the cables would touch and ruined the balance between the drivers. anyways, i removed the soldered cables, cut a piece of some broken earbuds cable i had and used that wire from there...i ended up routing the cables around the chrome cover (broke a side of the chrome cover) and reinserting the connector into the chrome plastic cover was a lot more easier. 
it wasn't that much of a hassle beside learning to solder properly as i never soldered before. i also ended up shorting the length of the original cable and installing a 3.5mm male to the end i shorten. even though, the cable is still unmanageable, its straight garbage. i really wish audio technica comes up with revision of this headphones with a detachable cable, regular headband and perhaps smaller earcups. all i gotta say is thank you for the guide, and screw you audio technica for the cable, other than that the headphones are great.


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## lhorwinkle

The miniature phone plug is just about the worst connector in use today. It's bad enough that there's one on your headphones. I mitigate that with a solid-metal 1/8" to 1/4" adapter.

But to put yet another miniature phone plug on the phones as a detachable connector? Bollocks!


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## BrodieH (Sep 26, 2018)

lhorwinkle said:


> The miniature phone plug is just about the worst connector in use today. It's bad enough that there's one on your headphones. I mitigate that with a solid-metal 1/8" to 1/4" adapter.
> 
> But to put yet another miniature phone plug on the phones as a detachable connector? Bollocks!


What would you suggest then? i'm thinking a 1/4" piggy tail method mod would be the best thing, considering the small amount of space to work with.

EDIT: i do agree with you that the 1/8" connector is crap, especially given the fact the jacks used for this mod and a cable have failed on me multiple times...


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## SCoghill (Jan 8, 2019)

a


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## warhead0

My ad900x don't have much time left. It looks like I will be forced to do a replaceable cable mod on mine soon just to keep them alive.


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## bobbypete

a


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## Kenfloww

Thanks for this how-to. About 3 months ago My dog ran out of my computer room while tangled up in my headphone wire, causing it to pull my DAC off of my computer desk and bending the 3.5mm male audio jack. Since then I only had audio out of one channel even after bending it back. 

Last night my girlfriend and I had a nice quiet NYE modding my AD900X's. This was her first electronics project and now she is like "what can wee solder next"? haha.
Anyway, I now have full use of my favorite gaming headphones thanks to this great post. 

Cheers!
Kenflow


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## dirthurts

Hi all,
I know I'm digging up an old thread here, but wondering what would be the best connector/cable combination for this mod? I'm doing this with some ATH-AD500X due to the weird curly/excessively long cable. Anything that doesn't hold shape/lays flat would be nice but I really don't know of any cables to go with. Is the MULTICOMP MJ-074N the best connector at this point or has something better come along? 
Just trying to tap into some old knowledge and experience here. 
Also relevant to mention they have not improved the cable situation at all for those considering these headphones in the future.

Thanks in advance.


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## cityle (Jul 29, 2020)

Hi,
For the connector, I would maybe recommend an insulated 3.5mm jack connector like this one or this one. I've seen them lately and they might be better for the job than a run of the mill jack connector, but they might be harder to come by. To be tested.

However, an issue I've encountered with the mod was lateral forces which breaks the connector as jacks are longs and when the headphone is worn, they can be disturbed which exert pressure inside the connectors.

An idea that I got by watching this video (timestamp), because of the way he holds the drivers in the video, is to stick the connector in the silver piece so the drivers, silver piece and connector acts as a single piece. That way it might be easier that way to reassemble the headphones. And the connector will be recessed, which will limit to the use of an audio cable with a narrow jack, but might right reduce the stress on the connector that way. Would need to be tested.

Personally, because of the issue of lateral torque, I reverted back to a fix cable at some point. But lately I converted back my ATH-AD900x to detachable cable with MMCX as a way to go around the lateral torque issue (and because I wanted a cable for each driver for no reason). Here's the few pictures, not helpful I've taken of the operation.


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## HereticArchitect

I did the same mod with my ath-ad500x, with much effort. I hope I'd seen this post before.
I'm new and I'd like to share some mods. I already posted my introduction; how long do I have to wait till the let me post? Will they send me an email when I'm able to?
Thanks in advance. 
*BTW: Watch out for the 3,5mm. connector you plug after this mod, it has to be very compact in size, otherwise, since the cups are so large, the connector will touch you shoulder when you turn your head.*


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## dirthurts

HereticArchitect said:


> I did the same mod with my ath-ad500x, with much effort. I hope I'd seen this post before.
> I'm new and I'd like to share some mods. I already posted my introduction; how long do I have to wait till the let me post? Will they send me an email when I'm able to?
> Thanks in advance.
> *BTW: Watch out for the 3,5mm. connector you plug after this mod, it has to be very compact in size, otherwise, since the cups are so large, the connector will touch you shoulder when you turn your head.*


I think it can take a few days before you can post. It took two for me I think.
Good call on the 3.5mm connector. I hadn't considered the shoulder issue. Do you have a cable you recommend?
It's so hard to know how good a cable is without touching it.


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## dirthurts

cityle said:


> However, an issue I've encountered with the mod was lateral forces which breaks the connector as jacks are longs and when the headphone is worn, they can be disturbed which exert pressure inside the connectors.


So, your'e saying something inside the connector itself is breaking? 
I'm not sure I want to go as far as MMCX with  my first mod...but that does  look like  a solid option.


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## HereticArchitect

dirthurts said:


> I think it can take a few days before you can post. It took two for me I think.
> Good call on the 3.5mm connector. I hadn't considered the shoulder issue. Do you have a cable you recommend?
> It's so hard to know how good a cable is without touching it.


I can post now!
The distance from the cup to the part where the cable starts, and can bend, should be less than 40mm.


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## dirthurts

I went with a Philmore 70-534, seems to be about 20mm long and well insulated. I'll post when I put it in to let you know how it goes. It was 8 bucks, so should be decent I hope.


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## dirthurts

Finished my mod. Grabbed the soldering iron while reaching for a screwdriver... But otherwise came out great. 
Managed to pull the sheath off the cable internally and used that which sped and cleaned things up. Looks rather professional if I do say so myself.


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## blackdragon87

I have a 1000x coming. will pay someone if they can mod them to be removable with mini xlr connectors like audeze or to 3.5mm 

thanks


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## Aristos

Thanks for the guide, it was very helpful to avoid potential mistakes.
These headphones were in a pretty bad condition, with the cable damaged at several parts. So I got a new cable and decided to follow your tutorial. 
They are now like new. Thanks a lot!


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## icedtea_chao

Thanks for the guide. Modded it after all my parts arrived.

I used this audio female jack which fit in the existing hole so I didn't need to widen it.
Like you, I had to cut the chromium and file down the plastic ridge but that went pretty smoothly. I might have needed to make the plastic ridge deeper/wider though - after I screwed everything back together, I can still see a curved gap where the ridge is but the fit seems fine so I'm just leaving it for now.

I was able to reuse the existing wire from the old cable and simply solder it onto the female jack. After removing the electric tape and undoing the knot, I cut it down a bit and gently pulled on the rubber while down holding the wire and it just slipped out.

I didn't put any hot glue to fix the jack in place (might have got in the way of the chromium) so I'm a bit worried that twisting the audio cable would also cause the female socket to turn and twist the soldered wires. I screwed the bolt pretty tightly though so hopefully that won't be a problem.


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## exolocity

Been lurking here forever without an account, so made an account just to say thank you for this guide, it was super helpful!

I kind of salvaged the original wires inside but the audio quality wasn't good, so i took it all apart again and swapped out the wires for new 26awg wires and wow it made a big difference! Heres some pictures as I think the PCB inside my ATH-AD900x's is different to yours: https://imgur.com/a/Aw1Yq54


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## darkaheart (Feb 25, 2022)

its been almost 4 years since i modded my ad900x and let me tell you, theyre still going strong! until today  when i had to re-solder the wires to the audio jack lol. i guess i did a crappy job since it was my first time soldering, but theyre good now.

anyways here's the audio jack that i used, its a perfect fit! no need for cutting or shaving any plastic.
Lumberg #KLB 4 Amazon Link

one last thing, i used a "angled" 3.5mm cable because my shoulders/collar bone were bumping into the cable as i moved while using the headphones. just a tip if youre having that issue. unfortunately, i dont have a link to the cable.


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## Alvin G

Hello,

Inspired by the other posts in this thread and elsewhere, I decided to try modifying my own ATH-AD900x's.  I registered on head-fi.org just so that I could post this message.  

I wanted to use dual entry.  At first, I drilled a hole on the right-side frame, analogous to the existing hole on the left-side frame.  However, I wasn't satisfied with the job I had done, and so I ended up buying a replacement left-side shell from the Audio-Technica parts department and using it on the right side.  

Also, I wanted to use A2DC jacks since these are Audio-Technica headphones.  I found some A2DC jacks with cylindrical aluminum shells on AliExpress.  They look like they're designed to go on the end of cables, though I don't know what the intended use for these is as usually it's the plug rather than the jack that goes on the end of cables.  Then I had to figure out how to mount these.  Borrowing the idea that the author of post #31 in this thread had gotten from watching the video referenced in that post — specifically the idea of using the "chromed" plastic part to hold the jack — I spent many, many hours over many days thinking of different ways I might mount these jacks in this plastic part.  After a few failed ideas, I came up with the idea of cutting threads in the cylindrical shells of the jacks and using nuts with the appropriate threads to hold the shells in place.  I had to drill a hole in the U-shaped notch so that the cylindrical shell would fit through.  Here's what it looks like:  IMG_6794.jpg.  

I had to grind some of the plastic pieces that the chromed plastic pieces screw into so that the jacks and one of the nuts that holds them in place would fit.  Here's what one of these parts looks like after grinding some plastic away using a rotary tool:  IMG_6795.jpg.

Here's what it looks like when I put together the two pieces pictured previously: IMG_6796.jpg.  

Here's what it looks like when I reassemble the headphones:  IMG_6797.jpg.  I used some grommets from McMaster-Carr to reduce the inner-diameter of the entry holes so that the A2DC plugs wouldn't be loose in them.  

Finally, here's what it looks like with the A2DC plugs plugged in:  IMG_6798.jpg.  

I spent a tremendous amount of time on this project, mostly ruminating about how I might mount the A2DC jacks and investigating various random hardware parts that I thought I might be able to repurpose for this project.  Also, I spent a lot of money — easily worth more than the headphones cost new — on buying the various hardware parts (plus shipping, which often cost more than the parts) and also some tools that I didn't already have.  In the end, though, I'm happy with how this project turned out.  Beyond the enjoyment of using the headphones (now with a balanced cable, if I want), the "hack value" of the project was just as enjoyable.


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