Turn an Old Telephone Handset into DJ Headphones!

These cool old phones are easy to find and cheap to pick up, we got this Brown Beauty at the local Salvation Army for $7 which was a complete ripoff. Shame on you Salvation Army. If I was an evil rich, would I be shopping at you?

Anyway, these old brutes look good and sound good, but often don't really cut it as a home telephone unit choice. The connection is bad, the numbers are sticky... Time for retirement? NO! Time to show your DJ boyfriend you care about him by making him an extra cool DJ monitoring headset while he's away in New York City!

You'll need:

-An old telephone handset with cord attached
-A soldering iron and some solder
-A mono male phone plug (yes, they are really called phone plugs baby)
-A sharp utility blade

Step 1: Cut the Cord

First things first, chop off that cord as close as possible to the telephone base.
Now you have a cordless phone and a phoneless cord!

Comments

[nodoubtman]

What's the use of that?

thanks!

[AssistantToTheRegionalManager]

Anyone?

[AssistantToTheRegionalManager]

I just got three used phones from my boss, but the dont have cords attached. Can you do the same thing with the regular plug in cords? Also. I want to just make iPod headphones, is it pretty much the same idea? Just chop up the headphones and do you think that would work?

[mischka]

Good hint to keep those DJ-talker away, but for a whole set I wouldnt use a handset ;-). Nice Idea!

[onlinemastering]

It would look the part, but hey that is going to sound pretty quiet I think, no?

online mastering

[sophielily]

Hey guys can anyone help me out I have no idea where to get the male phono plug im googling galore need someone who can ship to australia even ebay is not coming up trumps for me. If anyone can give me a heads up would really appreciate!

[gmoon]

Search for "1/4 mono plug" (a 1/4 inch plug size), it's a very common part...

[ngomji]

do u happen to know if there is a way to bump up the volume for the phone?
the sound quality is great, but it's a little hard to hear

[bobert610]

Hey, is it possible to cut the phone in half then put plastic or something so that is coveres both ears?

[cjgraves]

it would be a lot more work. this is only hooking up the earpiece of the phone, so sound is only coming from one end... the one with the speaker in it. you could do this, but you would need another telephone so you have two speakers and it would be a little different in terms of soldering. but they wouldnt be that great of headphones, and you should really just spent the time working to earn money to buy a nice pair of monitoring headphones from like seinheisser or something.

[bobert610]

yea i already have a pair of bose mixing headphones and i had a bunch of crappy ones sitting around so....

[djr6789]

this is so cool!!!!!!

[lolcat360]

whats a itt

[The Red Button]

Get a spinny dial telephone and turn that into a turntable

[soundcloset]

Carrying a cell (mobile) phone around reconfigured inside the shell of an old handset would be cool! But mine can't "ring" like a real old phone; that would be the best! Otherwise, the cases are easy to get into, so any working mic head would work, and with some care and the tons of schematics on the web, any sort of electret head and powering circuit as well (you'd have to fit a battery, of course). OR the guts of an ugly but working phantom powered one. But I think the DJ wants the flat, lo-fi sound of the old mic, so does anyone have a schematic (randofo...?) for how you've done it -- I mean, powered up and used the carbon mic? Of course, if I find it, I'll post it here.

[team_nes_1986]

As for the ringer, look for a generic ringtone in your cell phone's settings. Maybe you can find a sound effect similar to that of a cheap landline phone.

[dg33]

I think You should put a stereo plug on that because the stereo out put from the dj equipment will have the right output shorted out :( But Gr8 Project

[transeunte]

Very Cool stuff!

Now take it to the next level and make the keys funcional turning them into a tringer-finger sampler!

...or at least making the keys work as cue/pause buttons. =D

[captainjohn]

oi! You could gut the phone and have it house a female unit! I should do that! If I put an instructable I'll be sure to send them to you for step one!!

[soundcloset]

Oh -- ha, ha. What a twit! I just "googled" the idea and got pointed right back to randofo's other post, with the handset and the checkerboard box dongle. I took the schematic, and may try it in a phone. Thanks! OR get back to work and do the dishes. One or the other.

[Yerboogieman]

its phono jack

[Tumbleweed]

Interesting idea... definitely a great use for technology that is otherwise, "going the way of rotary telephones." Why not use that extra pair of wires? Solder in a little pig tail with another 1/4" connector and have yourself a functioning DJ Mic as well. Then you can switch on the mic and say obscure stuff like "Hello? Get me the president!" Wurd, Tumbleweed

[randofo]

It's not that simple, but you could probably rig it up so that they're both on one stereo plug and being powered accordingly. The mic inside an old phone like that is actually a carbon mic and needs to be supplied with an electrical signal from the onset.

I messed around with the mic a bit:
http://www.instructables.com/id/EKN6NJEDAMETVPKWCV/

By the way, $7 for a phone like that is a little on the high end, but it's hard to get the phones for less than $5. Everyone selling them is always far too happy to point out that they still function. That's the problem with technology that never breaks.

[theatre_tech_guru]

couldn't you use the phantom power on a mixer board to power the mic???

[randofo]

No. It's not a condenser microphone. It's a carbon microphone. It needs a different power source.

[theatre_tech_guru]

what kind of power does it need

[randofo]

I've been giving it about 1.2v DC.

[Trust_in_Dust]

it's like we're old phone pals

[Trust_in_Dust]

that would work if your mic input could handle a bare bones electret mic signal and was really really close to your headphone jack! which makes me wonder if it really is an electret mic in there... could be a carbon mic.

[Tumbleweed]

Should work just fine so long as the input on the mixer is a Mic Level Input. Plugging this into a Line Level Input would obviously not work or cause very undesirable results. Whatever type of Mic element is inside the telephone it still works off the same principals of other microphones. Your voice vibrates a tiny transducer and that transducer generates an electrical signal which is perceived by your mixer as an audio signal. This signal is somewhere around -40 dB to -60dB which is why it needs to be a Mic Level Input. Mic Level Inputs have a pre-amplifier built into them to bring them up around the +4 dB Line Level Signals are. Tumbleweed

[Trust_in_Dust]

i think if i did go this route, i'd just leave the whole phone intact and put two output jacks in the back of the actual phone base. that way i could just use whatever preamp mic circuitry was already in there. i like the simplicity of the single male plug on the end of a single cable. i suppose you could also attach a stereo plug to the handset and rewire your mixer a little so the one jack could accommodate both a mic input and a mono monitor output... it would only work with the phone, but that would be pretty awesome!

[TechDante]

i think this is brilliant but a question? why not keep it on the phone stand and fit a Mic into it as well. two jobs for the price of one. you might even get away with using the existing mic. i do like this idea as i work in theatre and this could make a fun GOD mic and headphones for the sound desk

[erick.mendes]

Lemme say it, ultra cool. Better yet, paint it with greenish fluorescent die, seriously!

[conoronor]

Do you think that it would be pissible to wire one of these old hand sets to a cell phone? That way you get to be super cool when you get a call a whip out an old school hand set.

[Full Frontal Graphic]

and put a little steam boiler on it for steampunk style while you are at it

[Trust_in_Dust]

Yes, that's totally possible. As soon as I make one I'll post another Instructable.

[arman1]

NEED HELP WITH WIRING! I'm ready to go but I have a little problem, which is I don't have 2 white wires,black&red ones but instead 1 white, 1 red, 1 blue and 1 green so which ones do I have to remove and which ones iron together?! A

[Trust_in_Dust]

well, you'll probably have to do some testing with alligator clips and an audio signal like a radio you can plug into. just keep trying every combination of two wires until you have a clear audio signal coming through the phone.

[sscamaro69]

Let me start off by saying that they are NOT called phone plugs, they are actually Phono plugs.... Phono meaning mono if you have no clue Other than that good instructo

[Trust_in_Dust]

Do your research buddy, phono plugs are RCA plugs so named originally for their use with PHONOGRAPHS. Phone plugs are 1/4" plugs originally used in phone switchboards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_plug