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I have been getting a lot of inquires as to the price the sound of the JenaLabs 18G vs. the more affordable 20AWG Vampire wire. I sent Larry a 18g JL headphone cable that he compared to the Vampire wire and he pretty much had a good picture of the compare and contrast of that and if he would like to post that here it would be helpful. I have found the JL 18G Cryo wire to be tighter and have a refinement that the Vampire wire does not. The JL Cryo wire also exhibits that certain sparkle that I have difficulty in pinpointing. Moreover the 18G JL Cryo wire is mechanically superior, with less resonance and soft to the bend. That being said the Vampire stuff is still a remarkable cable and vastly superior to the stock cable.
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For everyone reading this - The ALO-780 that I tested has the 20G Vampire Wire, 6 foot, with 1/8" plug. I mentioned in my summary
that I would still love to hear the costlier 18G Jenna Labs cable. Actually, I HAVE heard the 18G Jenna Labs cable vs 20G Vampire Wire, just not on the HFI780 is all I was saying.
I agree with Ken that the 18G Jenna Labs wire is ultimately more transparent than the 20G Vampire wire, which is itself an upgrade in transparency to the stock cable. Ken refers to a "sparkle" that it has. This is NOT a treble boost, I hear it as the
crystal-clear reproduction of notes, that seem to
hang in the air as they decay naturally, with
no coloration or any added or subtracted tones. It's a level of transparency that lets
the headphones disappear, leaving only the instruments.
The Jenna Labs cable is definitely sturdier, and heavier, but the sound improvement to me would be worth the weight and cost if you really want to have something as close as possible to the Edition 9, for less than half the cost of the Edition 9. Since I already have Edition 9, I will likely opt for the 20G Vampire Wire - but the 18G Jenna Labs cable would be a no-brainer if I didn't have the Edition 9, or if I wanted to make my 780 the flagship of my home and portable headphone collection.
To get a closed can that sounds this good is a rare thing, and many of the closed cans that sound this good are either NO longer in production, will COST as much or more than the ALO-780, or IF they cost less they must be modded to match these and ultimately will cost more (D5000-markl modded-re-cabled for example, which few of us have ever heard yet).