I found a nice speaker system that seems to work except the 3.5mm audio jack is damaged (it's missing the tip of the conductor for left channel audio). I gathered some broken audio cables with 3.5mm jacks to fix the speaker system's audio input.
My first step was cutting cables. My next step was reading about the problem. (I realize I have an out of sequence operating procedure.)
Even having read up on this type of fix, I'm still confused by the difference in conductors I see within each cable. Here's what I'm working with:
Note the top jack is missing its tip! My confusion comes from seeing only a red cable (presumable 'hot' or 'audio') and bare copper (presumably ground or, lacking more wires, neutral) on the replacement jack. The replacement jack is a similar size as the original and more importantly it has the same amount of partitions on its prong (see below diagram) so I'm surprised it doesn't have the same amount of wires as the original jack.
Image via this Q&A: Why are there not more incompatibilities in 3.5mm audio jacks?
My question is how I can replace the original jack? I planned to do it via wire splice to a different jack, but I understand I might have to take apart a working jack and solder the original cable to that. In the latter case, any explanation I should have in mind about why the working jack has fewer wires to begin with?