Headphone jack plugs get a lot of rough treatment and are easily knackered. Although more expensive pairs of cans often have replaceable lead assemblies, cheaper ones don’t – plus all modern leads seem to be those awful tinsel ones with strands of nylon inside each connector and by the screen, which needs to be cut away and the insulation of the tinsel wire burned off with a candle or lighter (but not so much to burn the wire). For a ham fisted chap in his 40s this really is a fiddly and tedious job, but I managed it, even remembering to put the cover and strain relief bits on the cable before soldering and this gold plated plug was about £2.50 (€3) for a pack of two.

Admittedly I did buy it partly for the “bling” factor but it looked more robust than the plastic ones and better than the Neutrik ones (which look suspiciously like the same generic China stuff anyway) – and with tinsel cable unless you have pet animals gnawing at cables or your housemates/children/partner are doing this) its usually the plug end which gives way rather than the middle of the cable, so hopefully the construction of this one might protect it better.

Which is why I went to the trouble of photographing it.. (that was a lot quicker than soldering the bloody thing..)