Sennheiser PC37X randomly goes bad after disconnecting the cable ?
Greetings, Yesterday I was using my headset like normal with my macbook, just listening to music and on a call with people like usual, and the headset was perfectly fine. The stock wire that came with the headset is extremely long and yesterday it annoyed me very much that it kept getting tangled with itself, so I decided to see if the cable is replaceable. I pulled out the cable from the headset and saw the adapter, and looked online for a replacement. Upon plugging it back in, the audio sounded extremely muffled and washed out. Im not sure what I did wrong to make it mess up like that as I've always taken good care of it, ive had it for about 2 years and its always just been chilling on my desk, but anywho I thought the cable just went bad and ordered a replacement. The replacement came, and the issue is still persistant, so I am not sure what the issue is I've tried multiple different headsets and the issue is not with the port, and I also tried it with my windows laptop and...
Apr 23, 2024
ok, enough of me entertaining myself... I imagine it does have at least an onboard ADC and computer in there, because of the Dolby processing and the fact that the front proudly displays “Digital Cinema Sound Processing,” twice. Also, the manual mentions digital input and 75 Ω inputs, which to me mean “Coax Input.” It’s like my Polk Audio subwoofer... it can take analog inputs, but the white “left channel” RCA is also a coax input.
I’m honestly NOT entirely convinced it has a DAC with a Coax or S/PDIF (Sony Phillips Digital InterFace, I believe) input. If it did have a coax input (and you have something with a Coax out to try with), then I guess this closet creature has nothing to lose by trying it out, an the white DVD RCA input would be my best guess. DACs are one thing that HAVE steadily been improving over the years (unless you count the tricky multibit DACs from Theta and the like, which were better than most DACs for a long time till they were ursurped by the Schiit Yggdrasil and multibit DACs from other companies like Audio GD), so even if your Sony Does have a DAC inside, getting a newer one would sound better.
By the way, for being one of the first to participate in the discussion/solution, I'm awarding both of you a free copy of my (now) favorite Snarky Puppy Youtube video featuring "Outlier"--bet you can't listen just once! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Qo1NFwMhBA&frags=wn
Something like this should work to get the digital signal from your iMac to whatever DAC you use. (based on @Evshrug 's comment you may need a mini toslink (optical) to full toslink cable instead of the mini spdif I linked)
https://www.amazon.com/Micca-Premium-SPDIF-Digital-Coaxial/dp/B00V436UQU (just the first hit, not necessarily saying this is the best value cable)
iMac connection reference: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204392
Some neato suggestions:
Bluewave GET: Little Bluetooth receiver with a decent DAC/amp (system on a chip) that should easily supply the 2V output that is best for most amps’ input. I’ve seen these go on sale here at Massdrop fairly frequently, has replaced the headphone jack dongle for my iPhone, and even does a decent job with my 300 Ω Sennheiser HD 650. Bluetooth 5 for high butrate transmission with an iPhone 8 generation, AAC for older iPhones, Apt-X HD for Android phones and iMac. A bit of background hiss with sensitive IEMs tho.
EarStudio ES100-24bit Portable High-Resolution Bluetooth Receiver: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B078H4YD2L/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_awdo_t1_AHGwBb92BBCC4 I haven’t tried this one, but read good things. Like the GET, this one would also serve as a portable DAC/amp.
If you wanna get fancy, check out the Shanling M0: it’s a DAP, so you could use it as a music source as well as a DAC, but it also has 2-way Bluetooth... so you could use it to feed Bluetooth speakers and headphones, OR you could stream audio from your smartphone to use it as a wireless DAC. It would solve your bedside dilemma, but honestly you’d probably take it out on the town too, haha. https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07CPS2TQB/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_awdo_t1_rMGwBb5FF4B74