Technics RP-DH1200 Cord and Socket Modification

The Technics RP-DH1200 replacement cord is available on Google but it is very expensive hence you should always look after your cable and not lose it. My pre-used headphones did not come with the cord and therefore I had to find a way to connect these headphones. Obviously, if your headphones are in mint condition, then you should keep it that way and not do any mods to it, however in my case, my headphones are a long way past mint condition.

As you can see, the problem is this locking mechanism which makes the recess hole too narrow to use ordinary jack plugs.

Looking at the inside PCB, I see it is a standard 3.5 mm jack socket, and therefore a jack plug would work, except the recess hole is too narrow. One option would be to look for a jack plug that has a sufficiently narrow body to enter the recess hole. Looking on eBay, I found one jack-to-jack extension wire where the jack-plug body appears narrow enough. However, since I have these headphones disassembled, another option would be to modify the recess hole so that any standard jack plug and wire could be used. I particularly like the latter option as it will not cost anything and I could use almost any cable I had.

I would presume the locking mechanism prevents the cord from being pulled out if someone trips over it, thereby protecting the electrical contacts within the socket from getting loose. It occurred to me that if I remove this part, then the recess hole will be wide enough to insert the jack plug that I had. I had a ready-made jack-to-jack cable that came with my PC speakers that I could use. It usually connects the audio output of the sound card to the monitor or powered speakers. If your PC has external speakers, then chances are you may already have this somewhere in your parts box. However without modifications to the headphones, the green body part of the jack plug will not go into the recess hole.

This locking mechanism is simply removed by undoing the two nuts and bolts that secures it to the PCB.

I then re-install the PCB without the plastic locking mechanism.

As you can see, with the locking part removed, I am now able to use the ordinary jack plug wire I had.

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