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How do I tell which wire is which if I have a copper wire, red and green coded wire? Is the unshielded copper wire ground?

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headphones do not have ground, just left, right, and common. – Connor Wolf Nov 14 '10 at 7:05
3  
The common wire is the ground. It also acts as the shield for the other two wires to prevent picking up noise. – Jesse Nov 14 '10 at 7:25
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It may be common, but it's still not ground. Also, it has nothing to do with noise pickup. – Connor Wolf Nov 15 '10 at 1:15
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The low impedance of the headphones is what is responsible for their general noise-immunity. – Connor Wolf Nov 15 '10 at 1:15
@JesseAC2DE An 'unshielded copper wire' cannot 'act as a shield'. – EJP Nov 8 '12 at 2:21

2 Answers

up vote 17 down vote accepted

Red is for Right. Blue (or green) is for Left. Copper is for ground (I remember this with the mnemonic Red Right bLue Left Copper Common). All 3 are coated in a lacquer you need to burn or scrape off before you solder. With standard headphone plugs, with the plug facing away from you, the right pin is right, the center pin is ground, and the left pin is left.

  1. Common (or "ground")
  2. Right
  3. Left
  4. Insulating ring

1ground 2Right 3Left 4Insulating ring

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up vote 4 down vote

It's probably the case, check resistances between the wires with a DVM to make sure. Listening to the noise made will tell you which is connected to right or left.

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