# Full ATH-M50 Deconstruction



## Pingupenguins

Since I have never seen a well documented deconstruction of the ATH-M50's, a very popular headphone, I decided to do my own.
   
  I hope you enjoy.
   
   
  Tools:
  Phillips and flat head screwdriver
  Needle nose pliers
  Wire cutters
   
  Required parts for recable:
*Thin wall 28 AWG or smaller! *You will see why later.
   
  Note: This deconstruction took place after I had taken apart the left ear.
  This is deconstruction from the right ear and both ears are similar.
  Some pictures are missing so just bare with me.
   
  Steps:
   
  1.
  Remove the part where the pleather headband meets plastic. There are 2 screws inside the headband and you just peel them apart.
   
  Pull the ear down till it pops out and it should look like this.
   
  In my picture I already began to remove the pleather.
   

   
  2.
  Well remove the pleather and expose the layers of foam.
   
  The foam is adhered to the steel headband bar that provides the clamping force and will easily peel away. Try to keep the adhesive in one piece as it may begin to rip off the foam.
   


   
  3.
  The black plastic pieces will just slide off. Notice how the wire is routed and place your 28AWG or smaller wires accordingly.
   
  Reassemble foam
   
  Take your flat head screw driver wedge it under the pleather, pinch and pull till the pleather is back.
   

   
   
  4.
  Now to the ear piece. It should look something like this cut off.
   

   
   
  5.
  Remove the 2 screws above the earpiece to expose this.
   

   
   
  6.
  Remove the screw in the middle of the PCB and that should let the slide come off.
   
  Cut that off and place it aside.
   
  Take your flat head screwdriver and begin pushing a "c" shaped washer off the brass cylinder.
   
  Examine this picture VERY closely to see what I'm talking about.
   
  All of this is under spring tension so upon reassembly you will need to get a good grip, push the springs down, then move the "c" shaped washer back in place.
   

   
  This is what I ended up with.
   

   
  8.
  Remove the 2 screws at the joint of the ear to the slide.
   

   
   
   
  9.
  Just pull the black ring off the brass and expose a spring.
   
  Just keep pulling all the pieces apart till you get something like this.
   
  VERY IMPORTANT TO TAKE NOTE OF THE ORDER!!!!!!
  Upon reassembly, you could screw yourself, if you had to shove the thin wall 28 AWG through the brass cylinder like I did and forget one item.
  Game over.
   

   
   
  10.
  So go back to the slide you put aside.
   
  There is a spring holding the plastic to the metal bar. Push the spring towards the opening. Close your eyes because you can catch a spring in the eye.
   
  Take not of were the wire is routed. You will need to remember this.
   

   
   
  These are all the parts lined up.
   

   
   
  11.
  Now you can crack open the cup by removing the 4 screws.
   
  You need to remove the silver spring that retains the cups swivel
   
  2 Silver screws
   

   
   
  12.
  Remove all the lovely padding and push the nubs out to fully disassemble the ear piece.
   

   
   
  13.
  So at the headphone joint. There is a plastic cover. Simply pry it off breaking some tabs but it will be fine.
   

   
  Note:
  If your using thin wall 28 AWG like I did then you will need to take the flat head and bore out the holes so they fit.
   
  Like so.
   

   
   
  14.
  Use some plasticine to put the wire on the black plastic because its a pain to keep it in one place.
   

   
   
  Note: 
  This is where I expect the reader to use past knowledge.
   
  15.
  I didn't use the PCB but your welcome to do extra soldering.
   

   
   
  16.
  Feed the wire through the brass cylinder
   

   
  17.
   
  Heres how I fed the wire through the earpiece clip.
   


   
   
  18.
  Make sure you have the right order setup.
   

   
  19. 
  Put all the plastic back and slide the washer clip back. Use needle nose pliers to pop it back on.
   

   
  20.
  The rest is down hill. Just reassemble

   
  21.
   
  Heres my fully recabled ATH- M50's.
   
  I did have to solder the 28 AWG to the 26 AWG main cable. I put some glue over the direct joint to. 
   
  Obviously you can't fit 26 AWG through the tiny tiny brass cylinder. So I was forced to solder the 28 to the 26.
   
  Here we are.
   
   

   
   
  Sorry if I am missing info. But those were all the pictures I had.


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## splaz

Nice deconstruction guide.
   
  The c-shaped washer is a circlip.
   
  Craftly little things, they can have a habit of springing away, never to be seen again.


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## TestSubject

> Craftly little things, they can have a habit of springing away, never to be seen again.


 
   
  Yes they can be very annoying to put back aswell.


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## Pingupenguins

> Yes they can be very annoying to put back aswell.


 
  It wasn't too bad for me when I bought $2.50 needle nose pliers from Harbor Freight. Worth the $2.50 imo


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## shrimants

Could someone please show me what both drivers look like on the back side where those solder terminals are? And could you also label the connections as left right and ground? I am thinking of doing a balanced mod on the ATH-m50 and would like to know whats what before I begin. I think I can even leave that over-the-head wire in there as long as I clip it or move it away or something. It should only require disassembly of the actual cup isntead of the entire headband.


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## Yoga Flame

Quote: 





shrimants said:


> Could someone please show me what both drivers look like on the back side where those solder terminals are? And could you also label the connections as left right and ground? I am thinking of doing a balanced mod on the ATH-m50 and would like to know whats what before I begin. I think I can even leave that over-the-head wire in there as long as I clip it or move it away or something. It should only require disassembly of the actual cup isntead of the entire headband.


 
   
  If you're leaving the headband wire in place, then you only need to open the left cup assembly.

 From:
  http://www.head-fi.org/t/484744/crosstalk-on-audio-technica-m50#post_6601078


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## shrimants

So I take it that the other side has 2 wires, right + and Ground. I can probably leave those in place and use a 4 core cable on the left driver and still have it be balanced without needing to screw with the right ear.

Does the right ear have any of those copper traces?

Also, am I seeing 4 actual traces? The outer most semicircle with the gray burnt looking thing, is that 2 seperate contacts?

My original idea was to drill the bottom of the other headphone and have a cable coming from each cup. This would mean 2 wires per driver, which lets me do L+, L-, R+ and R-. I was going to leave that black cable in there but cut it and secure it so that the contacts are nowhere near anything.

It looks to me like Black and Gold wire combo is the ground, red is the right earpiece and green is the left earpiece, and the largest semicircle is actually 2 seperate contacts. Does this sound correct?

EDIT: another idea would be to break that copper connection for ground into 2 seperate connections and that way it would be a slightly easier mod, but I dunno how that all works because its hard to figure out texture from a picture and I dont really have a dependable fallback for headphones.


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## Yoga Flame

Quote: 





shrimants said:


> So I take it that the other side has 2 wires, right + and Ground. I can probably leave those in place and use a 4 core cable on the left driver and still have it be balanced without needing to screw with the right ear.


 
   
  Yes.

  
   
  Quote: 





> Does the right ear have any of those copper traces?





   
  I assume so. But I have not opened it up to confirm for myself.
   
   
   
  Quote: 





> Also, am I seeing 4 actual traces? The outer most semicircle with the gray burnt looking thing, is that 2 seperate contacts?





   
  One side of the gray thing is the *+* terminal, and the other is the *-* terminal. The rest is just for connecting the wires to the right cup.
   
   
   
  Quote: 





> My original idea was to drill the bottom of the other headphone and have a cable coming from each cup. This would mean 2 wires per driver, which lets me do L+, L-, R+ and R-. I was going to leave that black cable in there but cut it and secure it so that the contacts are nowhere near anything.





   
  Should be all right. Maybe put some tape/heatshrink around the end of the wire just to be safe.
   
   
   
  Quote: 





> It looks to me like Black and Gold wire combo is the ground, red is the right earpiece and green is the left earpiece, and the largest semicircle is actually 2 seperate contacts. Does this sound correct?





   
  Yes.
   
  From the left cup entry:
   A: red: right +
   B: green: left +
   C: black: common ground
   
  From the internal black wire that goes to the other cup:
   D: red tinted copper: right +
   E: clear copper: right ground
   
  So for a single entry balanced cable, you can connect the A and D wires directly together. Then connect the E wire with the extra ground wire from your new balanced cable. Actually, you can also refer to the thread that I got the pictures from. The OP there pretty much did exactly that, except he terminated it with a TRS at the end.
   
   
   
  One other thing to note is that all the stock wires are coated with enamel. So you'll need to burn or strip it off before resoldering.


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## Seidhepriest

All right, let's be fair. These headphones are the invention of a Japanese fellow who used to be royal torturer in his previous life during the shogunate. Just the springs - ow. They're worth a 7/10 minimum. Nice sound once modded though.
   
  Here they are, modded with Blu-tack and three different kinds of silver-plated twisted pair wiring:
   
  One note about the headband: you don't have to break it apart completely, just peel the thicker foam layer slightly to free the cable, which can then be freed from the foam's glue/grip, and pulled out.
   
  The plug is a Neutrik angled thing, NTP3RC (or was it 3 at the beginning of the code, somesuch model anyway). The jacket is Techflex 1/8" orange, and the original plug spring is included as a strain relief (the owner asked for the Neutrik angled plug and the spring specifically).
   
  And you can see the orange/white twisted pair in the right cup wire duct, it's AWG 30. AWG 26 inside the main cable, AWG 30 for cup -> headband, and dual AWG 32 TP for headband wiring (there's enough space there for two cables really, but AT went on the cheap with a single dual-wire cable). Original soldering miniboards were reused.


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## Frodo

Just wanted to say thanks for this post, I needed to replace a damaged cable in my M50's and it was very useful to see them stripped down before I started work. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



   
  Actually, it's been such a long time since I last used mine I had forgotten how good they sound, great pair of budget headphones. Thanks for saving them from the bin!!


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## selfdestruct

Wow. Definitely need to try this once I upgrade. Doesn't look too difficult. How do they sound?


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## v10gta

My M50s has the removable cable mod. It was really simple to do to me. And I used a lot of really nice parts. so it looks really flush. and like it came stock


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## CraigMammalton

Thanks to Pingupenguins for the excellent, comprehensive write up and pics. I just picked up a dirt cheap set of broken m50s so this guide will be super useful as I try to revive them.
   
  Random question: does audio technica sell the arm assembly that holds the cup?
   
  The set I bought is busted there and it looks a lot easier to replace it than try to repair the plastic.


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## CraigMammalton

To follow up for posterity, Audio Technica sent me a free replacement arm.
   
  I couldn't be more impressed with AT USA's service department. I emailed them in the morning, inquiring about purchasing a new arm, received a reply within an hour offering the part for free, and ultimately received the arm via USPS less than a week later. I installed it using Pingupenguin's write up and now have a perfect set of m50's at a total cost of under $20.
   
  Hell, the Shure 940 velour ear pads I bought for the m50s cost more ($25) than the headphones!


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## listen4joy

will this help for my problem?  
   
http://www.head-fi.org/t/677376/help-how-to-fix-audio-technica-ath-m-50


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## kylesheadphones

pingupenguins said:


> Since I have never seen a well documented deconstruction of the ATH-M50's, a very popular headphone, I decided to do my own.
> 
> I hope you enjoy.
> 
> ...




Dude in step 13. How do you pop off the cover on the headphone joint? I can't get it off without bending all the plastic.


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## Criss969

I just opened the earcups and noticed a circular damping material around the driver ventilation holes. Underneath that circular driver cover. I removed the material to see the difference and it seems to have increased the soundstage. Along with this, I feel it flattens out the bass response. Of course, this is all my interpretation and/or a placebo effect.


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## Music818

Really nice! Would also like to see the rear side of the driver......


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## Music818

criss969 said:


> I just opened the earcups and noticed a circular damping material around the driver ventilation holes. Underneath that circular driver cover. I removed the material to see the difference and it seems to have increased the soundstage. Along with this, I feel it flattens out the bass response. Of course, this is all my interpretation and/or a placebo effect.


 

 Any photo?


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## funkyourmother

Does anyone know if this is the part that basically keeps the one can pressed against your head?
 My set fell on the floor and this little piece of plastic broke, and now the one side won't stay pressed down on my head.
 Also, can I buy this anywhere?
 Thanks if anyone can help.


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## Criss969

music818 said:


> Any photo?


 
 Oh my gosh I'm sorry I never replied! I haven't been back here since I made that post.
  

  
 All I did was remove that cotton batting or whatever it is from inside the driver retaining clamp.


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## Music818

criss969 said:


> Oh my gosh I'm sorry I never replied! I haven't been back here since I made that post.
> 
> 
> 
> All I did was remove that cotton batting or whatever it is from inside the driver retaining clamp.


 
 Wow.....the driver is so special. Thanks!


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## SteelyFagen

funkyourmother said:


> Does anyone know if this is the part that basically keeps the one can pressed against your head?
> My set fell on the floor and this little piece of plastic broke, and now the one side won't stay pressed down on my head.
> Also, can I buy this anywhere?
> Thanks if anyone can help.


 
  
 I know this is an old thread, but since I have the same issue and came here for information, I thought I'd leave what I've found out as info for others coming here looking for the same info (wow, that sentence certainly was long enough)
  
 Answer as far as I have found is: no, it's not that part. If your problem is/was the same as mine, and I suspect so, one has to replace the whole arm (that plastic, Y-shaped part that holds the "can"), as that little piece of plastic is part of the arm. I'm working on ordering this arm right now, saw that someone else in this thread had managed to get one sent to him. Support here in Norway has already sent me some spare parts for free, which is great, but turned out that was the wrong parts (didn't know at that point that this piece was actually part of the arm) 
  
 Love those heaphones btw (I have the M50x), use them mostly for heavy metal of all kinds, but also for progressive rock/metal, my son use them for techno music and my daughter....well, Justin Bieber etc. And we're all pretty satisfied!


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## suncha300

Do you think the ear cup armature for m50 would fit the m40? I needed the ear-cup armature replacement for m40 but i couldn't find it anywhere, instead i found one for the m50 and was wondering if it would work for m40.


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