Top 22 Ways of Repairing your Headphone Yourself

The prevalence of headphones in the contemporary digital era is undeniable. There is a huge variety of headphones available in the market.

Some headphone comes with wires, some are wireless, and some wireless headphones are facilitated with artificial intelligence to assist users in many regards.

However, regardless of the kind, you can have any sort of issues with your headphones at any point. 

Causes of Headphone Problems

The causes of malfunctioning could be myriad, from simple damage to the jack to complex software issues. Day by day, as technology develops, the problems become more complex. Some problems appear from simple bugs, which could be resolved under easy measures, whereas some problems are irreparable.

Problems like damage to the cable of the headphone cannot be resolved without an expert’s help, whereas some software errors or bugs can be easily resolved with a simple update of firmware or drivers.

Sometimes we find some new-age wireless headphones hard to synchronize with our older devices, and often we confront various issues regarding that.

How to Fix Headphones That Are Not Working

Headphones are sophisticated and not designed to endure excessive stress. However, there might be a plethora of reasons behind a malfunctioning headphone. Depending on the problem, you have to choose a suitable solution to repair your headphones.

However, in the beginning, you have to work through a sequence of experiments to identify the origin of the malfunction.  

Below, we have enlisted 22 different ways of fixing your headphones. As per your headphone’s requirement, you can choose any of them to fix your earphones. Here we go

1. After plugging in, if your headphone is not working, then check the headphone thoroughly. If the headphone you use has a built-in battery, then first check whether that headphone has a power button or not. If your headphone has a power button, then without turning that on, it would not work with your device. However, in some models, finding the on/off button becomes very difficult because of their complex design.

2. Sometimes your headphone stops working without having any major issue. In that case, a simple restart of your headphones could work like a spell. We often take this classic measure with our computer headphones. By turning off thence on, we can resolve issues of a loose connection, which results in a performance malfunction. 

3. Do not forget to double-check your headphones’ battery charge. Some of the innovative headphones come with lots of amenities like LED lights, noise cancellation, and Bluetooth; thereby, these headphones contain built-in batteries to supply the required additional power to the headphone externally. After a long stretch of disuse, the headphone may run out of charge and need extensive recharging for further use. 

4. Depending upon the device, the requirement for power changes; thus, double-check the power requirement of your headphone first. Headphones come with a USB port and an additional power requirement, while working could malfunction because the USB of that device sometimes could not catch a sufficient amount of power due to many reasons; it has to catch music signals and power both simultaneously. However, if you plug in these types of headphones to any USB device, ensure the amount of power produced by your device is sufficient for your headphones to work seamlessly.

5. Check your device and its compatibility with USB ports. Almost every electronic gadget of modern days is compatible with USB headphones, although gaming consoles like Xbox One do not provide USB support for headphones. If your device does not provide any support for the USB headphone you already own, then there is nothing you can do without replacing the headphone with a Bluetooth or traditional 3.5mm jack-enabled headphone.

6. Do not forget to turn on the Bluetooth if you are using a wireless Bluetooth-enabled headphone. We often forget to turn on the device’s Bluetooth before pairing it with any device.

7. If you are unable to hear any sound after connecting your headphones to the device, then do not worry. Check the volume rockers and push the up rocker button to raise the sound; sometimes we turn down the volume or mute the sound accidentally.

8. If you possess a wireless headphone, for example, AirPods Pro, then turning on Bluetooth is not just enough to establish connectivity. Wireless headphone requires coupling to exchange audio signals. First, confirm that you have successfully established connectivity between both Bluetooth devices. However, sometimes you could face challenges in making connections between your headphones and your device; thus, you should go through the entire Air Pods Pro manual in detail to know the actual coupling process. 

9. If you are facing troubles regarding Bluetooth connectivity between your headphones and your device, then probably re-connectivity could fix it without much hassle. You just have to remove that headphone from your device completely and then connect it again. 

10. If your headphone is attached to many devices, then it is suggested to disconnect unused devices to avoid conflicts or technical confusion at the time of coupling. You can simply open the application provided with your headphones to unpair all the previously or lesser-used devices, or you can take direct measures through your operating system, like Windows and iOS.
11. To unpair any Bluetooth device on a Mac, go to System Preferences and then Bluetooth. Here you will have your Bluetooth device’s name like ABC then press Remove to un-pair.

• To unpair any Bluetooth device on Windows 10, initiate the ‘Action Centre’ first and then click on All settings. From there, you have to go to the Devices section and find the name of the headphone you want to remove. Then press Remove device and confirm your choice by pressing the Yes option.

• You should recheck your audio output even after successful connectivity with your device. Sometimes the device shares the audio with multiple outputs at a time, so be sure. You can simply go to the application’s active list of Bluetooth connectivity. However, this process differs a little as per the settings interface of different applications.  

12. Remove the 3.5 mm audio jack from your laptop and desktop if you are trying to establish wireless connectivity between your headphones and computer, because sometimes wired connectivity can suppress a wireless one. You can simply unplug your headphone jack from your device before making any wireless connectivity; however, if you wish to charge and listen to music at the same time, then you can use a USB port in this case.

13. One of the most common problems with wired headphones is damage to the cable. The headphone jacks are damage-prone and often are damaged through regular usage. The easiest way of identifying a damaged headphone cable is by bending the cable while playing audio with any music app. Bend the cable throughout, and if you want, then you can shake the wire a little while listening to any sound with it. If your headphone is malfunctioning due to damage that happened on the wires, then there is no comprehensive measure to repair this to any extent. 

14. If you have any specific application installed on your device to listen to sound or music and you are unable to listen to any song, then you must try your headphones with a different music playing applications. There are a plethora of other sound networks available on the app store, like YouTube Music, Soundcloud, Amazon Music, and so on. If the application itself is causing some glitch, then you can start with a simple restart, and then you can check out the settings section for further troubleshooting.

15. Double-check the port of the device before using it. Once you break the jack of your iPhone, laptop, computer, or any device, you have no choice left but to change the port; however, sometimes a cleaning also works. Otherwise, you can replace your headphones with a wireless pair.

16. If the headphone is not working properly with your regular device, you can check it on a different device just to check it out whether your headphone or the device is the actual reason behind the malfunctioning. 

17. Instead of doing the previous step, you can also try a different headphone with your device to ensure the root of the problem. However, after taking both measures, if your headphone is still malfunctioning, then the source of the problem might lie with the app you are using. You can also examine with another pair of your wireless headphones to check the application’s working condition.

18. You should also check for recent Firmware updates for the headphone you use. Firmware is essential to run your headphone seamlessly and bug-free. Whenever you need to update the firmware of the headphone, you just visit the official website of the headphone. However, you have to download the file and transfer it through a USB cable to your headphone to update and install it. 

19. The upgrade of the firmware version is sometimes not sufficient. You also have to update the operating system of your device to fix the bugs and enhance the compatibility of your device. 

20. Sometimes, headphones cause trouble because of the device’s processing glitch; thus, you can simply restart the device to restore connectivity between your headphones and audio device. 

21. Refresh your device’s Bluetooth list of clients. Sometimes the Bluetooth tries to establish connectivity with previously used and unavailable devices first, and the one you want to connect with cannot reach the device. Thereby, you can refresh the list of your device, or you can also turn off all the other connected Bluetooth devices from your system, so that it can find your headphone first.

22. Last but not least, update the sound and other drivers for better and errorless performance with your headphones.

Final Words

These were some common methods that you can adopt at home to repair both wired and wireless headphones. If you have some other trick, do not hesitate to share it in the comments section