I see that there is an alternetive to the standard cable of these cans, and I've heard too that Stefan Audio Equinox cables are great, but does it really make sense knowing that these headphones have a one sided cord? one cup would be fed by the Equinox cable and the other one by the standard Sennheiser cable.....if there's any improvement you would be able to feel the improvement just in one side!!! Am I wrong? Otherwise you would have to change the cable that goes from one cup to the other one...... it would be like having one 4 feet of premium speaker quality and then you add a piece of crappy cable at the end.....

By the way I don't understand why there are complaints about the quality of the Senns cable..... these cans sound wonderful to me.......additionally do you really think that after so many research and development in the Sennheiser team they would risk their new model with a crappy cable....it just does not make sense to me.......specially when you pay 165 dollars for the headphones and the alternative cable is 119 dollars (shipping included)...would it be worht?

For me, the cable changes the way the music sounds dramatically. Good or bad is totally up to the listener. It is very noticable, and a great upgrade.

I have the Clou blues on my HD600, and right now i'm looking to sell and upgrade to the equinox.

Stan, I'm sure that in regular two sided headphones a good cable would make a difference.....but what I don't understand is how will I get any improvement in a ONE sided headphone like the Senn 590.........if still there still the regular cable going from one side to the other....

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Yes, we are all tone deaf and crazy... no wait not really.
Just try them for yourself and you will hear the big difference yourself.

KR, I'm not blaming anybody I just want an explanation of how this cable or any cable would improve the sound of one sided cord headphones if there is still a piece of regular cable going to the other cup....

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I have no idea about the 590, however I have the HD600 and heard it with all three replacement cables, they all sounded different and better from the stock. As far as the 590, try the replacement cable, if it makes a different, buy it and enjoy it, if not, then send it back and get your money back and enjoy the stocks! This is called auctioning. It doesn't matter how many opinions you read on this board and from whom they are from, in the end your very own ears will have the final say on how headphones, amps, and cables sound, and if they are worth the money.

I was skeptical at first as well.. Try it, you'll like it.

I don't know why you guys think that you will only hear the difference on one side.. The signal has to get from the source to the phones, and that's what the cable does. The cable between cups is extremely short, and won't make much difference. Any difference it does make, will be evident with the stock cable as well. i just got the 590s my self. I like them, but I also wonder baout better cables. I wouldn't mind making one. I don't want to thinka bout it yet though.

I think I understand what Mariowar is trying to say.

Try to think of single corded headphones as dualcorded headphones but that inside the headphone there is a Y adapter. So all you get in one cable. Now there is no real Y adapter, well maybe who knows. Even if there was, the wires in the headphones would be really short thus not losing much signal. The longer the wire is we know it's starts to lose the signal.

If you replace just the short part of the cable to a better grade, naturally there would be Less sound loss then the stock cable.

Also think of it as this. Image you bough the HD 600 or the HD 580s or any pair of good audiophile headphones. It came with a 8 ft or a 10 foot cable. You needed say 20-40 feet. Who cares really why you need that much, but just bare with me and pretend that you do.

You have a choice, buy an extention that is equal in quality as the stock cable or buy a much higher quality cable. If you buy the higher quality cable, wouldn't the sound quality be better then the stock cable. Even though it starts off as a stock cable?....Yes.

If you can find single cables that transfer stereo audio, wouldn't you be able to find high quality cables that do that same.

I'm sure if you look around you'll find cables for the HD 590. I own a pair myself, and personaly don't feel the need to spend any more money to get better sound out of these. RIght now i'm working on getting two things, a high quality dvd player and a good mp3 player.

Clear, thanks for the explanation. By the way don't you think it would be a nice way the test the improvement of an alternative cable in the Senns 580 and 600 switching the amp to mono and connecting one side to the stock cable and the other with the alternative cable? I know that you could lost soundstage Am I wrong?

Quite a few guys have replaced the left to right channel cables which ride inside the headband. The problem is one of flexibility, as the OEM cables are very flexible. Such cables usually share a common ground in the left earcup. As to the cable itself, you might be able to find a 3 conductor cable. But is there one with a shield, also, and it has low capacitance per foot? And do you really want 16 guauge wires? Most headphone cables are of the 22 or 24 guage variety. Although I could see someone ripping the insides of a cable, twisting it themselves, adding a shield jacket, and then putting a rubber or pvc jacket on top of that. But that would have to be some nice jeri-rig. Otherwise something like the Belden 5501FE has 31 pf/foot with an aluminium foil jacket. but i don't think the cables are twisted. The Belden 7401AS looks promising, but I think ypu'd want to use microphone cable. In which case the Belden 1800F looks promising (2 twisted conductor with braided shield) at 13 pf/ft and 100 ohm/M, 1813A, etc. but there's always the problem of the "lay" of the cable. Jan likes the Belden 8413, but it is "Tinned Cadmium Bronze" instead of copper. http://www.geocities.com/jonrisch/cables.htm is a good source of reading. at least after you have read everything you may not feel bad plunking down $100 for a cable. and of course, you may want to speak to the usual suspects, JMT, et. al. for their ideas on replacing headphone cables, etc.

Just built a new cable for my 590's. I decided to go with the cheaper, brute force approach, with 16ga. outdoor extension cord and Radio Shack gold plated plugs. I've worked in electronics assembly before and thought this would be no problem. It wasn't *too* bad, but it'd be easier if all the parts were designed for each other.

Some of the construction details, if you're interested...
The wires were too thick to go into the terminal post holes on the 3.5mm plug, so I had to cut strands off until they did. I figured having them soldered in the holes would give it more strength when pulling it out. They were also too large to fit into the back of the plug, the part that screws in, so I pitched that. Once soldered in, I wrapped the connections in heatshrink(HS), then put two layers of HS over the cord, connection & plug.

The 2.5mm was a little tougher. The terminals on this didn't allow any wrapping, I don't like it, but a spot solder will have to do. There wasn't much more than a couple square millimeters area to attach to, I ended up curling the wire around as much of the terminal as I could to get as large a footprint as possible.
Since the 16ga. was way too big for this connector, I used telephone wire to run from the terminals to the cord. I tried to keep them as short as possible to minimize loss. To keep the size down so it would fit in that small opening in the phones, I stagered the phone wire length, so I wouldn't need to use HS on the individual connections. One size of HS went on from the threads on the plug to a couple of inches past the insulation on the cord.

It's a little ghetto, but it does the job.



Sound
First impressions after an hour.
Punchier, things seem less distant. More like Grados in that respect, but without the brightness, better for rock than with stock cord. More detail, especially on closer insturments. Soundstage *seems* more defined, though, this will take more listening.
Or maybe it's all in my head.


The stock cord is much more flexible and lighter. This one gets noticed more.

doesn't the hd590 have the replaceable cable? did you just hack the ends off, 6" from the plug? man, if you're crzy enogh to do that, then why not try and find some Belden 1800F? It'll probably be under 50 cents a foot from your local Belden distributor. I just bought a 100 foot spool of Belden 83393 for $84.

and I would think that what you need is a three conductor braided cable. that way you could ground the shield and 1 wire at the 1/4" plug end, leave the braided unconnected at the cup end and then use 1 wire for ground and 1 wire each for the right and left channel.

the problem with ordering any cable is that you won't know how flexible it is and the microsonics(?) (tapping the cable in dead silence - does the sound transfer to the cup?) there's no way in which i would have used a micro plug with a good cable.

you mean this one?



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http://stefanaudioart.com/Equinox.htm