headphone repair - lower volume on left side

[soulboy]

Hi,

new to forum, total newb as far as electronics goes although I've always liked fixing and repairing things.

I've got some Sennheiser headphones. They work but the volume is lower on the left side. I've opened up the earpieces and they seen fine inside and are securely soldered. I can't find any definitive answer on Google or Youtube as to what is at fault. I've run my finger down the length of the cord, bending it to  try to test for signs of a break, cut in sound etc but there is none.

I recently bought a basic multimeter as I am interested in learning a bit more about how to fix and test things. The readings from the jack plug are when on the 200 resistance setting are:

tip to ring 37.2
tip to sleeve 34.8
ring to sleeve 3.3

I don't know how to decipher this.

As the left side headphone driver still works, but is at a lower volume, do these readings indicate that the driver is faulty or do they indicate that the cable is broken, maybe very near or inside the jack plug and that replacing it would fix the issue.

Appreciate any advice

Thanks

[bson]

Tip and ring are the two channels, L and R, and the sleeve is a common ground.  Remember in audio R stands for: Right, Ring, Red.  Did it use to work or did you just get them?  If the latter, then the wiring is probably non-standard and tip might be ground.  If you can I'd start by sounding them out to make sure it's the headphones and not the jack they're plugged into by having a signal generator produce a 10mV rms 1kHz tone and use that to probe the plug and literally sound out the wiring.