How to remove the locking ring of a Sennheiser ME2-II

About four years ago, I bought the Sennheiser ME2-II. Before ordering the lavalier microphone, I had watched a lot of reviews, but I hadn’t paid too much attention to the locking 3.5mm connector.

The reality is: Unless you own audio recorders or wireless transmission systems with a locking port, there is a good chance you cannot use the mic because the locking ring covers a few millimetres of the plug. As a result, some devices don’t pick up the microphone once you connect it.

Although I found adapters for sale, I would classify them into one of the following categories:

• Well built but very pricey. Most likely hand-made by a professional in low volume.
• Flimsy and cheap. This type of adapter looks like someone just chopped off one end of an adapter cable and botched a locking socket to it.

While I haven’t tried either of these options, this adapter by Pinknoise looks promising, in case you can swallow the price tag of 35€ + 29,99€ for shipping within the EU.

While searching online, I often read the suggestion that you could cut off the jack and solder a new plug to it. Since I wanted to keep the kink protection of the original connector, I opted for solution 3.

In my case, cutting off the locking ring was a perfect choice because I do not own any audio equipment with a locking 3.5mm port. And if anything went wrong, I could still try to solder a new connector to the mic.

First, I protected the plastic housing and the tip with some masking tape. Next up, I clamped the plug into a vice and started grinding off the locking ring with a file. I filed down the brass ring until the upper side of the connector was free and repeated this step for the opposite side.

Despite some minor scratches on Tip, Ring and Sleeve, I am happy with the result. If I could have another try, I would add more masking tape to protect the conducting parts.

From now on, I can finally use the microphone since it now works with any audio equipment or camera I own.