Razer m250 Mods A while back, I bought a couple pairs of Razer m250s from Woot, having liked their m100 earbuds. The m100s are awesome- great sound quality and comfort, and superb sound isolation, for just $15 (gotta love Woot). Unfortunately, the sound isolation makes them rather unsafe for biking, or even walking. When they arrived, I was pleased to find that they were light and comfortable, and didn't make me deaf to the outside world. Sound quality was fine, too... but there was one MAJOR problem: (*cough* Er, please excuse the crappy camera and fugly dorm carpet. >_< ) Unlike the m100s, the m250s have an equal-length cord! EW! What the hell was Razer thinking?! Bleh. When you're running around and taking your 'phones on and off, having the asymmetrical, behind-the-neck cord is the only way to go. With symmetrical headphones, they're not even worth taking off, and if you catch the cord on something, you're screwed. At any rate, this is just worthless for walking/biking around. For a while, I taped up the left cord to shorten it: It worked, but it got annoying. When these headphones reappeared on Woot Sellout, I bought a backup pair and got to work. The usual disclaimer applies: Follow this guide at your own risk. I am NOT responsible if you break your headphones, injure yourself, or cause any other form of injury, death, or property damage. You will need: A small (1/16") hex key A small screwdriver A soldering iron Some solder (unless you're really good at soldering) wire snips or scissors Some sort of wire stripping tool (wire stripper, snips/scissors, or a razorblade) First, you need to disassemble one of the cups. Most asymmetrical headphones have the cord on the left, meaning you would want to shorten the left cord as pictured. Get the four hex screws on the outside, and the single tiny phillips screw on the inside (near where the earclip joins the cup). Here's what the cup looks like disassembled: Put the screws, cup cover, earclip, and bracket in a safe place. The next bit is lacking in pictures. My camera sucks, unfortunately, and that kind of detail just isn't attainable. Where the cord meets the cup, you'll see a rubber boot. carefully unseat it from the cup, and slide it down the wire, moving it to its new position to make a shorter cord. Play with it to get the length right- if the length is wrong, the cord will tug on one of your ears. When you get the position right, make a tight knot in the cord right past the rubber boot. this will prevent the cord from being ripped out if the cord gets yanked on. Snip the cord, leaving about 1" past your knot. Strip off the sheath, leaving about 1/4" of insulation past the knot. This part is tricky- the wire itself is VERY thin and the sheath is quite elastic. Be careful and take your time. You might fray the wires- don't panic. keep 'em separate and twist them back together. With the wire ready, unsolder one of the original wires and solder on the corresponding wire from your shortened cord. Don't worry about shorting the two beads that are close by on each side- they're already connected on the PCB, so no harm done. I would recommend unsoldering one wire and soldering in the new one, and THEN unsoldering the second wire and replacing it. This makes it damn near impossible to accidentally switch the wires. Here's my craptastic soldering job, finished: My headphones still worked after that, so if you've got any soldering skill at all (I don't, seriously) then you should be fine. Reassemble the cup (don't forget that tiny phillips screw!) and hope it works. You should now have some customized, wearable m250s: More modding fun! :P If you have both a black AND white pair, you can do some fun part-swapping to get a pair of black and silver headphones: The resulting black-and-white headphones are a bit ugly, but will do fine as spares. Of course, you can always mix and match parts to your taste. Hell, it probably wouldn't be that difficult to just paint the metal caps to the color of your choice. Have fun, and happy modding!