I have a Siemens A56i cell phone for which I would like to get a
headset. Unfortunately, the phone has a bizarre proprietary plug, not
the "universal" 2.5mm kind, and the only headsets available with the
plug are those miserable in the ear "earbud" kind, which in my
experience fall out constantly. SOOOOO, I plan to buy a cheap generic
earbud with the Siemens plug (available for around $6 online), cut the
plug off & either graft it onto a 2.5mm headset or make an adapter with
the cutoff seimens male plug and a 2.5mm female inline socket. I'm
assuming the 2.5mm plugs on these cell headsets are the same 3 conductor
type as used in general audio, no? A common for the mic/spkr then a hot
for each? Seems straightforward enough. Finally, can anyone suggest an
especially good headset? On all the one's I've had experience with,
either YOU can't hear THEM, or THEY can't hear YOU, or the damn thing's
uncomfortable as all get out, or ALL 3!!! Any specific make/model
suggestions appreciated.

Dan

I cannot believe that Seimens does not have a descent earpiece system for
their phones. I have seen this one, and it is very good.
http://reviews.cnet.com/Siemens_PTT_...-30547985.html
No wires, and it is neat to use. Check out if it will work with your model
of phone.


If you decide to do this modification:

You may find that some of these earpiece systems do not use standard copper
wire. They may use a specially metallic flexible wire. This type of wire
cannot be soldered. They use a special type of braising and crimp system to
join and attach their wires. All of these types of earphones are
non-serviceable.

When you do this adaptation (if applicable), as for the wiring, make sure
you do the proper soldering job, and with a good quality heat shrink wire
tubing. You don't want to make yourself a mess with black tape and crap like
that.

You would have to cut the wires from an original Siemens headset, and
measure the headphone unit with an ohm meter. From this you should be able
to determine the earpiece providing that there is no amplifier chip internal
to it. The microphone will most likely be an electrets type microphone.

You may run in to some problems in the way that the earphone may have an
internal amplifier that has to match to the Siemens phone. There may be some
impedance matching problems, and also problems in properly matching up the
microphone.

When working on this little project, you must take care to not short out
anything, or have any static electricity present. The earpiece port on your
phone is very sensitive to this.

I would guess you went around to a number of places that sell the optional
accessories for your type of phone. I am sure that there must be a large
variety of OEM options that you can have. This is a very large market.

As for myself, I have the Motorola earpiece that has an adjustable
ear-holder that is part of it. This is a type of strong plastic ear-loop
that goes over the top of my ear, and holds the earpiece to my ear. The
microphone is attached to the base of it, and extends out. For this to fall
off, it would almost have to take my ear with it. I also found the sound to
be of good quality, and the earpiece is very comfortable. I may have paid
about $45 US or so for it. It is one of the best I have seen so far. This
one was made for Motorola by a company called Telex. You can also get in
touch with them to find out what they have that can work your phone, if this
is possible for them to do.

I can see from the Siemens site, that they don't offer much in the way of
variety for headsets. But, their quality is supposed to be outstanding.

Siemens Earphone For Phones:
http://communications.siemens.com/cd...html# content

http://communications.siemens.com/cd...rNrNrN,00.html


An interesting question is why didn't you get a Motorola, or Sony, or some
other make of phone that has descent, or universal type compatibility to the
rest of the world for accessories?

With my Motorola phones, I can go almost anywhere and buy many types of
accessories and add-ons that I would want. We have 4 Motorola phones in our
family. We also have one AudioVox phone as well, and its earphones are
compatible to the Motorola's earpiece.


--

Jerry G.
=====

"Dan" wrote in message
...
I have a Siemens A56i cell phone for which I would like to get a
headset. Unfortunately, the phone has a bizarre proprietary plug, not
the "universal" 2.5mm kind, and the only headsets available with the
plug are those miserable in the ear "earbud" kind, which in my
experience fall out constantly. SOOOOO, I plan to buy a cheap generic
earbud with the Siemens plug (available for around $6 online), cut the
plug off & either graft it onto a 2.5mm headset or make an adapter with
the cutoff seimens male plug and a 2.5mm female inline socket. I'm
assuming the 2.5mm plugs on these cell headsets are the same 3 conductor
type as used in general audio, no? A common for the mic/spkr then a hot
for each? Seems straightforward enough. Finally, can anyone suggest an
especially good headset? On all the one's I've had experience with,
either YOU can't hear THEM, or THEY can't hear YOU, or the damn thing's
uncomfortable as all get out, or ALL 3!!! Any specific make/model
suggestions appreciated.

Dan

Jerry-Thanks for the reply. I do have the tools/skills to do a proper
job. I don't believe this model is bluetooth compatible. Long story,
but I didn't pick out the phones (my wife has one too), unfortunately.
I think it's the "bottom of the line". Do you happen to know the exact
model of your Motorola headset? My wife actually got a no-name Chinese
headset for her a56i on Ebay that had the right plug & the loop around
the ear, it actually performed fairy well but the GD wire & plug were so
flimsy it broke within a month. If I could get one that was more than
an earbud & did the job I'd pay 40 bucks for it, but nothing seems to be
available. Oh well, not the 1st time I had to do something myself to
get it done right...

Dan

Jerry G. wrote:
I cannot believe that Seimens does not have a descent earpiece system for
their phones. I have seen this one, and it is very good.
http://reviews.cnet.com/Siemens_PTT_...-30547985.html
No wires, and it is neat to use. Check out if it will work with your model
of phone.


If you decide to do this modification:

You may find that some of these earpiece systems do not use standard copper
wire. They may use a specially metallic flexible wire. This type of wire
cannot be soldered. They use a special type of braising and crimp system to
join and attach their wires. All of these types of earphones are
non-serviceable.

When you do this adaptation (if applicable), as for the wiring, make sure
you do the proper soldering job, and with a good quality heat shrink wire
tubing. You don't want to make yourself a mess with black tape and crap like
that.

You would have to cut the wires from an original Siemens headset, and
measure the headphone unit with an ohm meter. From this you should be able
to determine the earpiece providing that there is no amplifier chip internal
to it. The microphone will most likely be an electrets type microphone.

You may run in to some problems in the way that the earphone may have an
internal amplifier that has to match to the Siemens phone. There may be some
impedance matching problems, and also problems in properly matching up the
microphone.

When working on this little project, you must take care to not short out
anything, or have any static electricity present. The earpiece port on your
phone is very sensitive to this.

I would guess you went around to a number of places that sell the optional
accessories for your type of phone. I am sure that there must be a large
variety of OEM options that you can have. This is a very large market.

As for myself, I have the Motorola earpiece that has an adjustable
ear-holder that is part of it. This is a type of strong plastic ear-loop
that goes over the top of my ear, and holds the earpiece to my ear. The
microphone is attached to the base of it, and extends out. For this to fall
off, it would almost have to take my ear with it. I also found the sound to
be of good quality, and the earpiece is very comfortable. I may have paid
about $45 US or so for it. It is one of the best I have seen so far. This
one was made for Motorola by a company called Telex. You can also get in
touch with them to find out what they have that can work your phone, if this
is possible for them to do.

I can see from the Siemens site, that they don't offer much in the way of
variety for headsets. But, their quality is supposed to be outstanding.

Siemens Earphone For Phones:
http://communications.siemens.com/cd...html# content

http://communications.siemens.com/cd...rNrNrN,00.html


An interesting question is why didn't you get a Motorola, or Sony, or some
other make of phone that has descent, or universal type compatibility to the
rest of the world for accessories?

With my Motorola phones, I can go almost anywhere and buy many types of
accessories and add-ons that I would want. We have 4 Motorola phones in our
family. We also have one AudioVox phone as well, and its earphones are
compatible to the Motorola's earpiece.

Personally I think the best accessories come from the Handset
manufacturer themselves.
The ones you might find at your service provider's retail stores are
often chinese knockoffs

Jerry is pointing you in the right direction, right towards the
manufacturer's site..
Albeit they may appear a bit more expensive, if ya want it to last, at
least ya know if they are willing to put their name on the accessory,
it's been run through the ringer so to speak.

Tom-As I said it's not the price, it's the design. I can't stand the
"earbud" type, which is all Seimens offers for this bottom-feeder phone.
I did find someone on ebay who has an adapter for about $6. For the
money it's not worth screwing around patching. I'll probably get a
couple of those and a couple Plantronics headsets with 2.5mm plugs.
They make one with a full size mic boom (so the mic can be at least
somewhat omnidirectional and not pick up everything in the
room-hopefully) and a removable headband. Should also work with our
cordless phones.

Thanks for the replies.

Dan

majortom wrote:
Personally I think the best accessories come from the Handset
manufacturer themselves.
The ones you might find at your service provider's retail stores are
often chinese knockoffs

Jerry is pointing you in the right direction, right towards the
manufacturer's site..
Albeit they may appear a bit more expensive, if ya want it to last, at
least ya know if they are willing to put their name on the accessory,
it's been run through the ringer so to speak.