noob: Adding LED to outer casing of headphone shell

[ADDJ]

Hey there!

Yesterday I bought a soldering iron and repaired an old pair of
(sentimental!) headphones that have been sitting in my closet for
several years!

This was relatively simple! Wow!

I think it's time to try a new idea and drill a hole in the outer
shell of the plastic casing and insert an LED on ear ear! They're old
Sony MDR-v600's, with green and red wires for the sound, and one
ground wire for each speaker.

Would it be as simple as attaching the LED to the sound wires? If I
do this, will they just pulse when the sound activates them? I've
done alot of googling, to no avail - so any advice would be
appreciated!

Thanks alot!

-Rick the ADDJ

 

[Jonathan Kirwan]

Hey there!

Yesterday I bought a soldering iron and repaired an old pair of
(sentimental!) headphones that have been sitting in my closet for
several years!

This was relatively simple! Wow!

I think it's time to try a new idea and drill a hole in the outer
shell of the plastic casing and insert an LED on ear ear! They're old
Sony MDR-v600's, with green and red wires for the sound, and one
ground wire for each speaker.

Would it be as simple as attaching the LED to the sound wires? If I
do this, will they just pulse when the sound activates them? I've
done alot of googling, to no avail - so any advice would be
appreciated!

Thanks alot!

I don't recall the actual wattage involved in headphones/earphones,
but it isn't much and the voltages involved are probably tiny by
comparison with what an LED would need. In addition, the current
required by the LED would very significantly affect the sound, if the
voltages were high enough and there was enough power in the audio for
continuing to consider the idea. And then finally, I can't imagine
you'd get enough energy in any given flicker that you'd actually see
it. You could try it, of course. But I think you'd be disappointed
both in the sound as well as in the LED's appearance.

It would seem to me that you could add a power supply to all this. But
then they wouldn't be the headphones you know and love. They'd get
heavier for the weight of the battery and they'd look cumbersome with
the circuit and battery present. It might be possible to recable them
and add another pair of wires for a real power and ground supply you
could use with a circuit at the headphones. Or add a wire pair to
drive an LED, separately, and keep the supply AND circuit back at the
box with the jack, but then you couldn't use standard jacks, anymore.

Jon