Bose QC15 make an adaptator from a damaged cable and use standard 3.5mm cables

The connector can be easily opened
by sliding a thin blade on the side

The Bose QC-15 are wonderful headphones, no doubt about it. One of the things that bothers me is the silly connector: if the switch is useful to some people, its shape renders the headset useless unless you have and use the Bose's original cable. A 3.5mm female socket on the headset would have made the it compatible with any 3.5mm male/male cable and this is something I did not want to accept: for this reason I decided to hack an old broken cable to recover the connector and add a standard a 3.5 female jack where the cable originally was.

Once open, you can see a small PCB on which the switch and male connector is attached:

Slide the PCB out of the casing. Be careful not to lose the plastic cap on the switch ;-)

Use a multimeter to figure which wire should be corrected to which pin of your 3.5mm socket.

Unsolder the wires and (if you feel the need) shorten the PCB a little, you can safely at a milimeter or two with cutting pliers.

Connect (solder) the female jack to the PCB (I used some very short wire)

Enlarge the hole for the cable to fit your 3.5mm female jackn... And put everything back in position.

You're done!

you can now use your Bose QC-15 with any standard 3.5mm cable.