Sony MDR7506 Detachable Cable Mod

Background

The Sony MDR7506 headphones. They’re the quintessential studio headphones.

I absolutely adore my pair, however for the life of me, I cannot stand the coiled cable. It always gets tangled up on itself, and drives me bonkers.

Example of a coiled cable that is tangled — Example coiled cable pet peeve

Modification

Not wanting to pay $41, before shipping, I finally took matters into my own hands and modified my pair to have a detachable cable. Now, I can use any cable I want with my favorite headphones.

While adding a flush mount 3.5mm female port would have been nice, I felt getting that installed cleanly was going to be a challenge, so I went down an easier route of instead having a small dongle stick out instead.

Total cost: $22.32

$9.33: Female stereo jack to bare wire. There are lots of these available for cheap on eBay.
$12.99: 10 ft braided 3.5mm cable.

Female stereo jack product picture — This is what I got on eBay

The modification is very simple and only takes around 20 minutes.

Remove the earpad on the left side
Remove the 4 screws that hold the front plate on
Carefully remove the front plate

Front plate removed — This the back side of the front plate

Carefully desolder the wires going to the main cable. The wiring is as follows:
- Copper: Ground
- Red: Right
- Green: Left

Diagram explaining the colors of the wires inside the headphones for the audio jack — Wire colors

After cutting to length, feed in the wires for the new jack. Make sure to add a loop around the posts inside the ear cup.
Solder the wires on to the old solder pads. Make sure to match the colors up correctly. The service manual has a good diagram.