Studio Headphones left ear borked - repair or replace?

thecolourbox

When doing my cover challenge entries the other day I notice my headphones were a bit borked - the left ear cut out and I had to whack it one to hear through it again. It worked for a while but kept going again and there's only so many times you can whack yourself in the ear with big headphones on!

They are Sennheiser HD 579 headphones. They sound fine and are quite comfortable, I do get a bit of bleed through when recording vocals though as I think they aren't "closed". I assume they aren't really meant for studio scenarios but for hifi type use but for my purposes it has worked to hear my recordings as they'd sound in my preferred listening situation I guess.

I wonder what is wrong with them and can I, a very unpractical doofus, be able to fix them? 

Or do i need to replace them?

Winny_Pooh

Solder on a new cable, if you can't, bin.

Danny1969

Generally it's the bit of cable that travels through the headband that goes faulty .... so the side that doesn't have the cable hanging out it is cutting out ? 

Musicwolf

I've repaired my AKG K702's a few times (and other headphones in the past).  Usually a wire that has become detached at the solder joint due to repeated flexing.  I couldn't find a video re how to disassemble the 579's but I found this for the 598's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGCsY9BhBgs

thecolourbox

Thanks chaps, very useful info as always - appreciate it.

Interesting the left ear is the one where the external cable goes in, which seems odd and opposite to what one would expect I guess? As Danny says, i was thinking it was probably inside the headband or a connection at either end of that bit - probably at the speaker end considering whacking them worked to reconnect it.

I'll try and find a different plug in cable to try perhaps, isolate where the problem is, because if it does the same with a different cable then the problem should be inside the head bit, i think?

thecolourbox

It is my birthday in a couple of weeks, so some c. £50 replacements could be on the cards from the wife if it's not worth fixing (or i'm too stupid to fix it)

Stratavarious

Just replaced cables on my AKG studio cans..  intermittent faults likely cable or where cable connects.  

Looks like it’s standard replaceable mini jack connection on those Sennheisers.  Good luck.