How To Fix Broken Headphones – Learn To Repair Your Gear!

The most common first-world problem is having headphones with a loose connection. We’ve all been there.

Are you tired of having to twist your headphone wire to a certain position just to hear sound? In this article I will tell you how I repair my headphones back to working order. This is the best way to fix headphones in my opinion because if you do it right, the fix will last long.

So What’s The Plan?

To fix the headphones we are going to need to learn how to solder. Soldering bonds the wires together strongly. You don’t NEED to solder it, but if you want the fix to last, it is recommended.

So how much will this cost? I included all the links down below. To get all the materials, this would cost about $30. You can probably get the materials cheaper if you look hard enough on Amazon.

The links I added are tested and proven to work for this fix. Some of the items I added come with extra materials. This is handy to help you with future fixes.

If you have headphones that are worth less than $20, you might be better off just getting a new pair instead of going through with this. I recommend this fix for headphones that cost $30+.

What You Need:

• Soldering Iron
• 2.5mm headphone wire
• Solder Lead
• electrical tape
• (optional) shrink wrap tubing
• (optional) Wire Strippers

All of this stuff is pretty mandatory besides the shrink wrap and strippers.

The shrink wrap is meant to make your fix look much cleaner. If you really are in a dire need to save a few bucks, you could do a ghetto-fix by wrapping the exposed wires with tape.

If you don’t have wire strippers, you could just use scissors. Wire strippers just make the job super easy. It saves you a ton of time. Plus when you are using scissors it is easy to cut your wire accidentally instead of strip it.

Warning:

I am not responsible if you break your headphones somehow. Take your time when doing this. Don’t be careless.
Some headphones or earphones, such as the apple earbuds, use VERY thin wire. This type of wire requires you to use very thin solder and fine sandpaper to remove the wax coating and to solder these wires.

How To Fix Broken Headphones

Step 1: Turn it on!

Turn on your soldering iron. Let it heat up for about 2-5 minutes before soldering.

Step 2: Cut your new audio cable

Cut your wire. You should keep about 6 inches of wire left.

Step 3: On your headphones, cut off the old jack

Cut off the old jack on your headphones. Try to cut it off less than 1 inch above the jack.

Step 4: Strip the ends of the two wires

Strip the end of the speaker wire and the headphone wire. You should see 3 wires exposed. Make sure to strip those wires as well. One wire is for the right audio channel, one is for the left audio channel, and the last one is ground.

Step 5: Tin

– Before you twist the wires together, you should tin them. Tinning is when you put solder over a single wire. This will the wires bond easier later.

Step 6: Get your shrink rap ready (optional)

If you are using shrink wrap, now is the time to put it on the wire. Don’t heat it up yet! Slide it somewhat up the wire so it is out of your way.

Step 7: Twist wires

Twist together the speaker wire to the corresponding wires on your headphones. In this case red is the right channel, white is the left channel, and the bare wire is ground.

Step 8: Test out headphones

You might want to plug in your headphones to a computer and run a left/right speaker test to make sure everything is connected properly. After knowing that everything is working correctly, you are ready to move onto the next step.

Step 9: Solder time!

Solder the wires together. Since we tinned each of the wires earlier we can just apply heat and the wires will solder together. Hopefully your soldering job is better than mine. For this example I was using thick soldering wire when I should’ve been using much thinner wire.

Step 10: Electrical tape

Put tape around the exposed parts of each wire. Electrical tape works great for this.

Step 11:

Put move the shrink wrap over the wires. You can use a lighter or heat gun to make the shrink wrap shrink. Make sure to keep your heat source moving around the shrink wrap because you don’t want to burn it.

Congratulations! You just learned how to fix broken headphones!

If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comment section below. I respond very fast!

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