The contacts on my earphones went screwy so I decided to cut the wire and try to reconnect them myself. I thought it would be pretty straightforward but I found 4 separate wires and a pin with no apparent contact points. Anyone have a clue what to put where? Google wasn't very helpful.

Hmmph. Neither are you guys.

You think we know more than Google?

I'm sure there's someone out there who was dumb enough like me to cut open his earphones thinking he can fix them...

I probably know the answer to your question, but I'm not sure exactly what you're asking. I usually refer to it as a jack, is that the pin you're referring to?

I rigged up my nice sony headphones to a mic off a headset for raids in WoW, but I don't remember there being that many wires when I cut open the headset

Each earphone is an electrical device so it goes without saying that each one would have two wires.

The very tip of the connector is used for left, the ring in the middle is used for right and the base of the connector is used for return. The points of connection should either be inside of the mini-stereo plug or it is a solder contact point on the back.

Either way I'm fairly confident that you're screwed.

Ground.

Just buy a new plug and solder it yourself.

Ground and return are not the same thing. In this case I most definitely did not mean ground.

Posting a picture might help.