I would like to get more serious about repairing headphones, as well as making my own extension cords ( as the ones you can buy tend to be pretty low quality, and I am tired of breaking).
The kind of cable I am looking for was the primary kind of cable used for headphones a while ago. [1] It is composed of four conductors. Sheathed in the insulation in pairs, with pairs of insulation bonded. You can split the insulation down the middle and and have two pairs of insulted wired ( each pair having two conductors )go to each speaker separately.
What is this cable called? ( A link to some such cable would be useful. )
[1] It seems that modern headphones mostly use three conductor cable. Or it seems that way to me. Possibly because I use behind the neck type headphones.
Best Answer
Wow, I thought that would be an easy search. Then it wasn't. Then I was really curious.
Looks like the cable you are referring to is called Dual-Pair Zip-Cord From wikipedia, zip cord:
Searching "double-pair" or "dual-pair" seems to bring up the cable you are referring to. Belden comes up a lot as the manufacturer.
Example catalog (ctrl-f "zip"):
http://www.belden.com/products/catalogs/mastercatalog/brilliance/upload/19Broadcast_Cables.pdf
An example of a store listing:
http://www.interstatewire.com/double-pair-cable-1802b-z4b1000.html
Though a lot of the examples I'm seeing are shielded, twisted pairs. I'm not sure where the cheap, old headphone cables are hiding. You may want to invest in a bunch of heat shrink and a good heat gun for your uneven lengths.