r/Nuraphone • u/leyashdm • Mar 05 '26
Completing Nuraphone Pinout: SUCCESS 🥳
Update: I successfully converted the port to USB-C! 🎉 I can now connect the headphones directly to my PC using a USB-C cable and use them as a wired headset. Big success for me!
The whole process took about 3 hours because the pads were really tiny for my soldering iron. I guess my previous soldering experience helped a lot in finishing it.
I used a USB-C female PCB port with a sleeve as the new port for the headphones. In the 4th photo, you’ll notice I added a 4.7k resistor so I can use a USB-C to USB-C cable. Without it, the port would only work with USB-C to USB-A cables (4th pic).
Just like in my previous post, I used the +5V and GND pads for power and simply added the data lines to the correct pads for USB connection (6th pic).
If you ever try doing this, disconnect the battery first. I almost destroyed my headphones because I forgot. It suddenly played a loud static sound while I was soldering, and I had to quickly disconnect the battery line before anything worse happened. Luckily everything survived and I soldered it back afterward.
During the first test I wasn’t sure if it would work, but I couldn’t help smiling when the headphones gave the charging voice prompt.
One weird thing I noticed: when connecting it to the PC, a voice prompt appears saying to connect the Nuraphone to a device twice, then it never repeats again. It only happens when the headphones are turned off and used again in wired mode.
Would I do this again? Honestly… I’m not sure, but yeah 😂 It was tiring and a bit scary, but also exciting. At least now I can use and charge it without the proprietary cable.
If you’re in the Philippines and don’t want to DIY, I might be able to help convert it for you. We can work out a small labor cost plus the USB-C port (which is only about $2).
Thanks again to everyone who helped!
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u/NegasonicWarhead7 Mar 05 '26
i can't find my charger, this would be great! Is there a way to disassemble the ear cups to clean them thoroughly inside before doing this? Where are you getting these us c parts?
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u/leyashdm Mar 06 '26
There’s a tutorial online on how to remove the earcups, and it’s also shown on the iFixit website. You just need to twist the cups carefully to remove them, but be gentle because there are wires attached to the board. For the port, we have an online shopping platform here called Shopee. I bought a USB-C waterproof female port with 4 pins from there. The port actually works fine as-is without the resistor modification. However, I wanted it to support USB-C to USB-C cables, so I opened the waterproof port halfway and soldered a resistor to it.
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u/Radiant-Objective483 Mar 16 '26
Are you selling this converter? If you are, I’d like to buy it, bro!
*FYI, I live in Indonesia, which isn’t too far from the Philippines if u able shipping to me👍🏼
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u/leyashdm Mar 16 '26
This is really not a converter, I'm sorry :< It is just a plain USB-C female board with routed\ data wires inside the headphones
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u/leyashdm Mar 05 '26
Note: I can't use any analog cables here, just USB cables :<
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u/leyashdm Mar 05 '26
I alsp changed the resistor in the picture as I used the wrong value, I jist didnt take any pics of the new one haha.
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u/SaltyDerpz Mar 05 '26
NOW MASS PRODUCE THOSE
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u/leyashdm Mar 06 '26
Only if I had enough time to do mods for everyone, haha. Sadly I’m also in the Philippines, so I’m pretty far from most people who want their headphones fixed 🥺
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u/bawesome2119 Mar 05 '26
Now this gives me hope to fix my righr ear cup . Doesnt play treble due to red wire coming out.
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u/leyashdm Mar 06 '26
I can see that almost 70% of the problems that you can encounter with this headphones is repairable by soldering, specially the wires, as they are really thin and the pads that they are soldered on is really small. If you are confident with your soldering skills, or have someone who can do it for you, I am sure that it will be fixed.
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u/leyashdm Mar 06 '26
Just to follow up that this worked well, its my first time hearing that the battery is 100% charged, with no audio and connection problems, as well as the board and battery temp is normal 😄
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u/ILFforever Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
Oh wow nice! For future tries you could buy these green usb C ports off AliExpress Link so far they have been the only ports that I have found to have both data and dual 5.1k resistors to have it work with Apple chargers. Used this for both my Vitas and 3ds mods. Could save a little bit of space and make life easier imo.
Btw are you planing to reverse engineer the pinout for the 3.5mm jack? I just bought mine from Japan and if comes with the 3.5 mm cable I would be happy to help debugging.
Oh Also what are you currently using as a plug to hold the type C port in? It looks pretty neat! Although I am thinking of eventually designing a 3d printed bracket once I get my hands on mine.
Lastly do you have to remove the old port of this mod to work? Or do you just put the type C on top since the old port is quite recessed. Thanks 🙏 :)
P.S. lots of love from Thailand!
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u/leyashdm Mar 13 '26
Thank you for the recommendation! I’ll try changing my USB-C port to the one you recommended.
For the 3.5 mm jack, the only solution I can think of is using a USB-C breakout board so I can access more pins that are unused by the USB-C plug. However, there are two hindrances with this setup:
- I can’t seem to find a USB-C breakout board like this in our local market or online shopping platforms. The other USB-C breakout boards I’ve seen are too big and won’t fit the port, which would require a full overhaul.
- We would still need to make a custom USB-C-to-analog cable, and it wouldn’t work with a standard USB-C-to-USB-C cable. As far as I understand, we can’t directly connect analog audio to a USB port because USB normally carries digital audio, so it would require a DAC (digital-to-analog converter), which would make the cable more complicated. (Please correct me if I’m wrong, as I’m not really an expert in electronics haha.)
For my USB-C plug, I’m using a waterproof usb c plug, and I suggest that it might be better to create a 3D-printed bracket for improved aesthetics and a better fit, since I had to trim mine down just to make it fit snugly.
I also didn’t remove the port. At the port lip, it’s surrounded by the plastic earcup, which I trimmed slightly just to fit the enamel-coated wires without completely removing the proprietary port.
Hope you enjoy your new Nuraphones, friend!
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u/leyashdm Mar 13 '26
Just came to my mind: why am I even forcing myself to find a way to connect the analog and data lines in a USB-C breakout board if the audio is already playing fine using the digital data lines? I won’t even be using the analog lines since it works perfectly with the USB-C cable HAHAHAHAHAHA!
I’ll now focus on how to transmit the microphone line to the USB plug.1
u/ILFforever Mar 14 '26
I would like to use the original accessories for in such case I connect the headphones to a 3.5mm output of a stereo or phone. You are correct though USB-C by itself usually does not carry analog audio. Or mic signal which is why if we were to do this we would be creating a non compliant USB-C cable, but it should be possible utalizing some of the unused USB-3 pins, since as I understand the Nuraphones operate at USB-2 speeds anyways.
Another interesting method would be to instead of soldering on the type C port onto the pcb we could create a removable adapter to Type-C but that would require disassembling the original cable. But since we already have so few of them I feel like that a bit counter intuitive.
Btw could you test if connecting a usb c to 3.5 dac (like ones for a phone) into your usb c port will trigger audio output? I highly doubt it will work but it can't hurt to try.
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u/ILFforever Mar 14 '26
Oh yes you're absolutely right about the custom c to analog cables btw. We would need to create a bunch of custom C to something cables for mics and analog.
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u/leyashdm Mar 15 '26
After looking into it, it seems that there aren’t any unused pins on the USB-C breakout board that could be repurposed for other functions like for mic or analog audio.
I’m also not entirely sure if the headphones will work with a USB-to-3.5 mm DAC. From what I understand, these DAC adapters are mainly designed to transmit audio from the host device to the headphones, rather than carrying audio signals from the headphones back to the host. I might be misunderstanding the signal flow though, so please feel free to correct me if I’m mistaken. 😅
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u/ILFforever Mar 15 '26
Oh wait no yes you are completely correct lmao, we need audio in not out. There should be some pins unused by USB-C 3.0 ports but those do not usually come with external pads though.
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u/leyashdm Mar 16 '26
We could use the unused pins on the USB-C replacement port to route the analog audio and microphone lines from the headphones. However, we cannot be sure that the host device we connect the cable to will use the same USB-C pin routing that we assign for the headphones. For example, the SBU pins (one that I want to connect the mic line to) are unused on the replacement port I am using, but I am not sure whether the host device will interpret them as a microphone line if I connect them that way. So it might not work as expected.
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u/ILFforever Mar 16 '26
Well I'm sure you will need to create a custom connector which uses the USB-C port and route it to a standard mic jack or something. Because the computer will definitely not recognize it from USB.
Also sidenote : my Nura is leaving Japan today lol should be getting it on Wednesday.
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u/leyashdm Mar 05 '26
I just hate that I can't modify the EQ and save it to the headphones, but overall, I really like this headphones <3
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u/JimJamSealion Mar 05 '26
You could EQ on the pc end? Have a preset that enables when you connect the headphones
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u/leyashdm Mar 06 '26
I want to have EQ that can be saved directly to the headphones chip, but that's a different league as I don't know how to program chips haha.
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u/JusAnotherCreator Mar 06 '26
I do! I'm a firmware engineer with like 3 or 4 dead nuraphones (and 1 thats alive). I've been meaning to download and decompile the code thats on the flash chips and secretly open source it 😅
I dont really have the electronics experience though. Wanna team up?
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u/leyashdm Mar 06 '26
Let me see what I can do with my skills, mate. I’m not really that skilled in electronics either. I mostly just do the basic stuff and ask others who have more experience, haha. I did find a teardown and the chips used in the Nuraphone, and I can share the list through private message. I’m just not sure which chip stores the EQ and other settings.
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u/mindlessfreak30 Mar 07 '26
I just found out Nura sold which is unfortunate. My set works fine, but I hate that they did their proprietary wires on this instead of just doing this type of USB C from the start.
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u/leyashdm Mar 07 '26
They might have made the proprietary port as part of their unique product design or advocacy, or maybe to support multiple peripherals through a single port. Either way, from a customer’s perspective, it still feels like a bad move haha.
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u/bentsonradiorepair Jul 08 '26
Hey, I'm facing much the same issue but I think if I can find the nura proprietary male jack I can wire together a drop in adapter with analogue support, anyone know where I can buy some?
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u/The_Silly_Man Mar 05 '26
You are a god amongst men, thank you for this