Headphone cable appreciation thread; show your love for headphone cables. - Page 3

I la-la-love my cable upgrades. Allow me a moment to tell you why.

I was previously using a stock iPod with the standard line out with the Koss KSC-75. I must say that things were not as great as I would like. My amp was a C-moy, but according to the threads I have been reding lately that is 100% adequate.

I upgraded the cable from the stock tinsel wire to one made of a 4*4 braid of 28ga pure (9 nines) silver with each strand individually insulated with a layer of castor bean oil in a teflon sheath. This was not an inexpensive cable requiring the construction of cuistom wires, and 1200 hours of construction effort on my part.

I am happy to say that the effort and cost was worth it! Everything is better! The highs are higher, the lows are lower and the mids are right there in the middle where they belong on ever song. I can not adequately express my joy with this wire. I took a moment to compare to someone who claims to have a real system (lolerskates, f'ing amateur) with HD800, a differntial (balanced!) tube amp, and a DAC that he says is adequate for studio use. what a joke his system is. Im sorry, but niothing is the same as my otherwise inexpensive system with the money where it matters - in the cables. when I listen to this poor sap's system the mids can go anywhere in the soundstage - forwards, back, up down.. wow, they belong in the middle. sorry he got played. the highs are generally behind the mids, and line up with the snare drum although vocal sybalance is locked with the voices again, im sorry but its wrong. On my system the highs are in your face where they belong. The bass, all I can say is mneh. its there, and we measured his system down to low single digit frequencies but its not the same as mine. with the song "smack my b11ch up" by prodigy the bass on my system totally masks everything else when it comes in. I mean come on, its meant to blow you away like it does.

:)

My headphone cable. It is more for the pro-audio market with Proel cable and neutrik/rean connectors and prices far lower than 'audiophile' cables. No sonic benefits, but it looks good and is far tougher than the standard cable. It resists coiling and is very flexible. There are benefits to aftermarket cable.

I like the Etymotic made mylar cables used on the Mc5... memory free and durable.

Quick question: when cable manure contacts anti-cable manure, are they annihilated, releasing gamma rays?

My Opinion of Aftermarket/Custom Cables... I'll try to be unbiased.

They Can:

1. Be more durable than stock

2. Look very nice

3. Be less prone to tangling

They Cannot:

1. Enhance the sound of attached eqpt.

2. Alter the frequency response of a headphone

3. Increase sound-stage.

I appreciate them for what they can do, and don't pretend that they make a difference in the sound qualities of my gear.

Man, I HATE cables pure and simple- like I hate drivers with stuck turn signals, hair in my soup....well you get the idea.

First answer: I used two overly expensive custom cables at CanJam... both where 2" long, one cost $200, and the other was $100. I have also made speaker cables from extension AC cables, and used vacuum sealed copper wire with gold plated contacts... I have not been paid or threatened to use or say anything about any of these, thus I would say I am being unbiased when I say what a cable can and cannot do.

Further more, I listed three things I can appreciate in a cable, and three things I cannot... 3 to 3 equals 1:1 = 50/50 = Fair = Unbiased; I am not overly positive or negative in this regard.

Thirdly, I have posted about cables I own and even like... my second comment (previous to this one) was to introduce some reason into an otherwise argumentative thread.

Lastly, If my reasoning with you seems to be a post of "anti-cable bias" then get the moderators to delete it... thereby censoring the content of this thread, which could easily be read into as bias on your part. I have felt frustration at trolled and derailed threads before too... It's part of the internet, but if it where me, I wouldn't get into a Catch 22 over whether someone is biased/trolling/hating or not... I would simply kick back and listen to the music.

WAV? Why not use FLAC?

Maybe there really is a difference with different cables but there are other things which I'm certain matter more, like using lossless instead of lossy for instance. It's very likely that the difference you are hearing is placebo, I generally trust my ears but I have been a victim of the placebo effect myself.

I'd love to try some really expensive cables one day just to see for myself, but they would have to be someone else's. . .

Every cable I have ever tried I can ascribe sonic attributes to.  Some are fantastic, some aren't.  But they all do have very real effects on a systems final sound. Cardas is my most recent friend.  It simply brings my system to a musical paradise.  Other fantastic cables I've used came from Kimber, CablePro, and ALO.

Quote:

Originally Posted by beeman458 

You anti-cable guys are a desperate lot.

 

 

This is a thread for headphone cable appreciation.  This isn't a thread for you to lay your anti-cable manure down and I made that point clear in the OP title.  I've asked the mod's to step in.

That is the most truth I've ever seen crammed into such a short sentence.