Ever since I bought my Denon AH-D2000 I have loved the sound and ergonomics but hated the cable. It’s too long, too fat and the fabric coating is prone to get un-repairable bends. Totally dubbed showed a way to recable this headset without any soldering. He instead cut the wire and taped on a cable from a D7000 headset.

I wanted a slightly different and more versatile solution with a female jack so that I could use whatever cable I want. Huge thanks to my good friend Christian Skjetne without whom this project would have been a lot more troublesome. He is a professional with electronics, soldering and everything related.

Step 0 (you will need): (I) A solder iron, (II) A resistance meter, (III) some wire. I used a pair of wires taken from a CAT-5 network cable. Reddit approves of this. You are going to need about 2×40 cm pairs. (IV) Some heat-shrink tubing, (V) a female jack connector and (VI) a screwdriver.

Step 1: Remove the caps. Totally Dubbed also have a YouTube video on how to do this.

Step 2: Unscrew everything and remove the old cable using a solder iron.

Step 3: Note what connectors are signal and ground. I strongly advice you to use a resistance meter for this. Also remember to check what’s positive and negative inside the jack. This schematic shows the details for a male jack which is fairly identical. You have a tip, a ring and the at the back, ground.

Step 4: Next up, solder on the new wires. I forgot to take a picture of it, but remember to make a knot right before the wires go out through the hole so that you won’t rip the wires out next to the solder. An optional bonus hack here is to apply some hot glue on the knot to further enhance it.

Step 5: If you have done as described, you will have something similar as the picture above, only without the heat-shrink tubing. That’s the next step. Remember to leave a bit open at the end where the jack will go. we used two thicknesses of tubing: one very thin for only one pair of CAT-5 wire and one a bit thicker that we left un-heated at the bottom with which we made an extra durable connector entrance.

Step 6: This one’s easy. Heat the tubes using your method of choise. A lighter works but Christian insisted on using the solder iron, which worked perfect.

Step 7: Again, I forgot to take a picture of the soldering of the jack, but this guy on YouTube shows you how to do it. As I said before, the same goes for a female jack. Just remember to put the cap for the jack in place before you start soldering the wires. This is also the time to put on some extra tube if you want that. You can see the result in the following picture.

From here, I can use a short flat cable when I use my phone as an audio source in my pocket, or I can use a long spiral wire when I’m in my living room and want to lay on the couch with my headset plugged to the computer. Happy audio-hacking!