Head-Fi.org › Forums › Equipment Forums › Headphones (full-size) › The shorter the cable, the better the sound.
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

The shorter the cable, the better the sound. - Page 3

post #31 of 43
2/2/07 at 8:09am
GRADO's Extension Cable

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grado offers a 15 foot (450cm) extension cable terminated with a 1/4 inch (6.3mm) plug and a 1/4 inch (6.3mm) jack. This cable is constructed from the same high quality wire as their headphone cable. For longer lengths the cable may be piggybacked up to 3 cables. Grado guarantees no degradation of sonic quality with Grado headphones while using their extension cable.
Reply
post #32 of 43
2/2/07 at 8:09am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by JaZZ View Post
Yes -- there is a difference from different lenghts. I have two pairs of cables with different lengths -- 20 and 35 cm --, and the shorter versions sound a tad clearer.

It's still not clear what physical properties make the sonic difference in cables, but given the experienced and pretended colorations/alterations, the longer the cable, the more of it. And after all a shorter cable makes for drastically reduced capacitance. BTW, shielding -- commonly seen as a good thing -- increases capacitance as well. On the other hand, resistance plays virtually no role in interconnects, in view of the load impedances in the thousands of ohms.
.
Point taken. Only the matter of the interconnect moving in the mount? Or is this also neglible?


So this subject is very polarised. Seems there IS even more to it than just the measured data. Some say cable makes a difference, some say it doesn't. I'm looking for the perfect audio solution engineering wise, thus all the questions.

In an unamped or underamped source (Like the shuffle lets say) could the capacitance be too big? As in elefant trunk sized cable. Certainly resistance (high) would eat power.

Is there such a thing as a perfect cable for a certain application if its known the amp puts out so many mV and the headfones have 600 Ohms for example?
How much resistance does a normal 6 foot wire have (about) and how much power would that take out of lets say 0.5V. (Edit: something is missing here right? Ampere?) I just can't seem to relate the data in my head - A mV could be an inch or a cm for me right now, and the cable is a big stream or a thick tube that has fish that swim downstream, the fish passing a facial expression to the next fish 10 feet away ;-) Capacitance is the size, resistance the amount of seagrass in the way, and inductance is tubulance of rocks which makes the fish always look kinda stressed out.

Like me right now...

I've got it all figured out huh... I shoulda went to school for this it can't be so fawking hard?!
Reply
post #33 of 43
2/2/07 at 8:15am
A cable measuring one inch will sound louder than a cable with 10 ft. You would not be able to hear it, and if you could a gentle push on the volume knob would make you happy again.
The claim of beeing able to hear a 15cm difference between two cables can only be made in a dbt-free forum.

Right now, i'm running my speaker signal over a voltage divider made out of a 10k resistor in the signal route, and a 1k resistor between signal and mass; the hole thing switched between pre-out and power amp-in. Sounds fine, and lets me use a bigger range on my volume knob.

If a 50cm cable had a resistance of, let's say 0,1Ohm, and 100cm had 0,2Ohm, just imagine how 10000Ohm would sound if only half of the babbling about cables and sound degration was true.
Reply
post #34 of 43
2/2/07 at 8:38am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vul Kuolun View Post
The claim of beeing able to hear a 15cm difference between two cables can only be made in a dbt-free forum.
Well, if the cable had one farad of capacitance per inch or something you probably could.
Reply
post #35 of 43
2/2/07 at 9:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ev13wt View Post
Only the matter of the interconnect moving in the mount? Or is this also neglible?
A bad plug contact can absolutely have an adverse effect on the music signal. It can produce dozens of ohms of resistance. The problem isn't so much the reduced signal strength (which may still be negligible), but the abrupt impedance jump within the signal path, which may cause signal reflections within the transmission line.

Quote:
In an unamped or underamped source (like the shuffle let's say) could the capacitance be too big? As in elefant trunk sized cable. Certainly resistance (high) would eat power.
Output and cable resistance will be low enough to be passably negligible in most cases, even with low-impedance earphones (let's say: total serial resistance below 4 ohms and load impedance 12 ohms, which causes a level drop-off of less than 1 dB). Headphone outputs should not have any parallel capacitance (as in cables), in turn many headphone-amp designs have serial capacitors in the signal path. These should be as large as possible to prevent a high-pass filter effect in the audible range (read: a bass roll-off) with low load impedances -- unfortunately in reality cost and size factors too often lead exactly to this worst-case scenario. iPod & Co. are exemplary for this.

Quote:
Is there such a thing as a perfect cable for a certain application if it's known the amp puts out so many mV and the headphones have 600 Ohms for example? How much resistance does a normal 6 foot wire have (about) and how much power would that take out of lets say 0.5V?
In my experience cables all sound different, although the differences are small and negligible to many people. Under this premise THE perfect cable doesn't exist -- it's all about system synergy (the more so as it's impossible to rate «neutrality» in cables). Like with interconnects, resistance has no meaning with headphone cables. Usual headphone cables have values between 0.4 and 1 ohm. Given 32 to 600 ohms load impedance, the current drop-off is negligible (or easily compensatable by turning the volume knob up by 0.5°, resp.).


Quote:
Originally Posted by Vul Kuolun View Post
The claim of beeing able to hear a 15cm difference between two cables can only be made in a dbt-free forum.
Yes, I'm glad not to be obliged to back up my experience with scientific data and theories.
.
Reply
post #36 of 43
2/2/07 at 9:04am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Emon View Post
Seriously. A 10 foot cable at 26 awg will introduce 0.4 ohms into the circuit. It's a non-issue.
Oh, missed it :-)

Ok.



SO what about signal line lenght?
Reply
post #37 of 43
2/2/07 at 9:13am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by JaZZ View Post
A bad plug contact can absolutely have an adverse effect on the music signal. It can produce dozens of ohms of resistance. The problem isn't so much the reduced signal strength (which may still be negligible), but the abrupt impedance jump within the signal path, which may cause signal reflections within the transmission line.

I understood that.

Output and cable resistance will be low enough to be passably negligible in most cases, even with low-impedance earphones (let's say: total serial resistance below 4 ohms and load impedance 12 ohms, which causes a level drop-off of less than 1 dB). Headphone outputs should not have any parallel capacitance (as in cables), in turn many headphone-amp designs have serial capacitors in the signal path. These should be as large as possible to prevent a high-pass filter effect in the audible range (read: a bass roll-off) with low load impedances -- unfortunately in reality cost and size factors too often lead exactly to this worst-case scenario. iPod & Co. are exemplary for this.

So in the Ipod & Co. are to small for big caps. Is it more a space or more a power issue? Say it isn't: "The cheapest we could make it before it sounded like complete crap..."

In my experience cables all sound different, although the differences are small and negligible to many people. Under this premise THE perfect cable doesn't exist -- it's all about system synergy (the more so as it's impossible to rate «neutrality» in cables). Like with interconnects, resistance has no meaning with headphone cables. Usual headphone cables have values between 0.4 and 1 ohm. Given 32 to 600 ohms load impedance, the current drop-off is negligible (or easily compensatable by turning the volume knob up by 0.5°, resp.).
Ok, I'm off to study some wiki.
Reply
post #38 of 43
2/2/07 at 9:16am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ev13wt View Post
So in the Ipod & Co. are to small for big caps. Is it more a space or more a power issue? Say it isn't: "The cheapest we could make it before it sounded like complete crap..."
It's a cost and (possibly) space issue (or vice versa). It has nothing to do with power.
.
Reply
post #39 of 43
2/2/07 at 9:22am
I am known to be a cable sceptic...

...but my soldering experiments with selfbuilt one sided cables (and different cable lengths for each channel thus) always made one side louder than the other. The effect was really recocnizable and disturbing.
Reply
post #40 of 43
2/2/07 at 10:15am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by JaZZ View Post
It'a a cost and (possibly) space issue. It has nothing to do with power.
.
Ok I'm totally lost. Can you explain how this works? So there is a current DC on the headphone cable that has little ripples on it, or is it ac that switches phases to slow down the magnet and speed it up again. Volume/gain is the height of the signal and frequency the width before its alternated again?
This moves the driver back and forth at a certain frequency? And how can the cable have a impedance? Or does that mean its "capable" of certain highs and durations or something?
Do you have a link to "electricity for dummies?" Wiki is bringing the suck.



Quote:
Originally Posted by nickchen View Post
I am known to be a cable sceptic...

...but my soldering experiments with selfbuilt one sided cables (and different cable lengths for each channel thus) always made one side louder than the other. The effect was really recocnizable and disturbing.
You lie
Reply
post #41 of 43
2/2/07 at 10:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ev13wt View Post
And how can the cable have a impedance?
Easy, just send a sine wave down it.
Reply
post #42 of 43
2/2/07 at 11:54am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl View Post
Easy, just send a sine wave down it.
And then I measure the other end and see if its an exact replica?

I'm slowly getting there...
Reply
post #43 of 43
2/2/07 at 12:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ev13wt View Post
Ok I'm totally lost. Can you explain how this works? So there is a current DC on the headphone cable that has little ripples on it, or is it ac that switches phases to slow down the magnet and speed it up again. Volume/gain is the height of the signal and frequency the width before its alternated again? This moves the driver back and forth at a certain frequency?
Something like that. A music signal is alternating current. The capacitors in the iPod's output stage serve for preventing DC (AFAIK), which could destroy headphones' voice coils.

Quote:
And how can the cable have a impedance?
Since its electrical properties incorporate (DC) resistance, capacitance and inductance.
.
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Headphones (full-size)
Head-Fi.org › Forums › Equipment Forums › Headphones (full-size) › The shorter the cable, the better the sound.