I have an Audiovox SMT5600
' target=_blank>Audiovox SMT5600 and I love it, but the headphones stink. It has ear buds which are too big for dainty little ears and would always fall out all the time especially when doing anything other than sitting very still. I didn’t want to use different headphones because then I wouldn’t have a microphone to answer calls when I was listening to music or podcasts, so I thought why not cut off those old buds and attach new ones and keep the rest of the headset.
I needed to get a pair of donor headphones form which I would cut off the ear buds. I strayed away from all brands that had in-line volume and other adjustments because I figured they would not match the wiring on the Audiovox headset to which I’d be attaching them. I went down to Fred Meyer and bought a pair of Nike Vapor Flight headphones which I liked because of the adjustable ear pieces and their small size. I wanted to wear these at the gym and sailing so I figured that adjustable ear piece would hold really well. I was a little squeamish that I was paying $25 dollars when there were some for $6 and I'd be cutting these up and wasn’t sure it would even work but why let a little fear get in the way.
When I got them home I cut off the old audiovox ear buds. and threw them away.
NOTE: One of the ear buds has a really short wire and connects to the volume\microphone thingy. DO NOT cut the volume thingy off. Cut off the ear bud above it as close to the earbud as possible so you have some wire to work with.
I then cut the ear buds from the Nike headset and threw away the cord. Next thing I had to do was strip down some wire so I could attach the Nike earbuds to the Audiovox headset. This is kind of hard because the wires are so small and they are not encased in anything, they are free wire wrapped around some kind of core which looks like really fine floss. They also appear to be isolated from each other in the cord. In order to keep them isolated I used a razor blade and carefully cut down the side of the wires on each side. I then used two pair of tweezers (get them from your girlfriend) and pulled apart the rubber wire casing and cut it off exposing about 3/8” of the two wires.
On each bud and cord from the headset you have a set of copper colored wires and a set of red/green or blue colored wires. I tried twisting the red to red and copper to copper and then testing the headset. That didn't work, so I searched the Internet for info on doing this and found a post stating you’d need to solder the wires twisting them wouldn’t work. I didn't really know how to do this so I looked on the web and Crutchfield had a little how to article which made it seem pretty simply.
I went into the garage and pulled out the soldering iron that I bought for something I can’t remember. I then heated up the wires and put a little solder on the connections. This actually took me about an hour as I actually have no clue what I’m doing and I had a hard time getting the solder to melt. Anyway, when it was all said and done I tested them and they worked!! I then taped up each wire using a little duct tape and then wrapped the connection back against the covered wire and taped it to the wire so it would bear the weight not the soldered wire. I should have bought some shrink wrap tubes which are used to cover these things, that would have made it look a lot nicer. I think my solder connections will fail at some point so I’ll do that when I have to redo them.
You can see a photo of the finished product in the gallery.