Is it worth hundreds of dollars for upgraded headphone cables? - Page 2

I'm 4 them!! and believe my ears.....................but those same ears have tricked me in "Blind Test" before.........I do believe you should DIY, as Uncle Erik suggested....  Also as scootermifia said this topic has two camps and in my opinion has been "Beat to DEATH"........I say it's your Money, your Gear and EARS, so do as you wish!!

armyowalgreens wrote:

I ask this because I've gotten two very distinct answers.

1. It's worth every penny.

2. It's a complete rip-off.

In the simple, I spent some $380.00 bucks on my headphone cables and I got's no complaints.  A hundred and twenty-five bucks of that was for physical appearance stuff, sheathing and splitter.  Dang but I do love the look of my custom headphone cables.

In a question such as this, there's only one thing that counts, your listening pleasure.  Me?  I'm a very happy camper.

A word to the wise, if you're new to the listening game, you may or may not pick up a difference as cables aren't a night and day difference because they dwell in the world of nuances.  My experience, the sound stage was wider.  Cords on a piano opened up.  The single strike of a string, had a longer decay.  The tap of a cymbal both opened up and had a longer decay.  But, over all, the improvement only works on about one percent of the overall listening experience.  The point, is one percent worth it to you?  It is to me.  And here's the rub, your mind may not be in tune with what you're listening to, so you won't take benefit of that one percent.  No, it's not a rip off but yes, you might not pickup on the difference.

A question to ponder before adding cables to the mix, the gear the cables are being connected to.  If the gear you have is low-fi, the gear isn't necessarily going be sensitive enough to pass forward the differences.  A couple of questions, what gear are you using for playback and are you running your songs through your computer and if so, what format are you ripping in?  You need to be ripping in WAV; 1.41 Mbps.

The difference between AKG-702s and AKG-702s with ALO cable is 140 dollars.

Oh, and a suggestion, Sennheiser HD650's  and a couple hundred hours of use to break them in or to loosen them up.

This question always gets a thousand different answers, but the only way to figure it out is to try them yourself. 

I have no problem spending $200 for a headphone cable (and I have), but then again I also have about $600 worth of tubes, so it's all relative.  In my experience, I've found expensive interconnects and cables to only provide a VERY small increase in sound quality.

Trust your ears, your wallet will follow.

Be careful, the ears can be a very expensive organ to make happy.

You bet your life it can cost a lot of money. A cable change is only one very small step in walking the path of getting more out of you music experience.  I wouldn't even begin to tell you my journey but what I listen to today is so far ahead of the days that I listened to stock cans and new unaltered cds and untweaked or non Belted components and cables. If you do not know how to tweak a cd or what the term Belting is, you are on the first mile of a 10 mile run. That is not a bad thing at all. It is just a place on the path of music bliss. Then when you are done with those improvements you can create a better listening space by adding Shumann Frequency Generators to quiet the background. Then when you buy a Cleaver Little Clock you will be blasted that there is still that mush more music sound improvement left in your equiptment. Then there is more. Stop and enjoy the sounds you got. The journey is endless. Some want to take the journey and look forward to the new awarenesses. For most being happy with what you got is enough joy for you and if it put a smile on you face and a rhythm in your step, enjoy. 

Does it make a difference? Some say yes some say no. Opinions vary.

Is it WORTH it? I'd say NO.

Below is a picture of a cable that cost me around $30 in parts plus my labor. This makes sense as it improves over the stock HD600 or HD650 cable. The improvement is so obvious that I wouldn't bother to pay $500 even if it's better as the expected progress would be a small step as it is always small regarding the cables but sometimes significant in terms of presentation change.

My DIY cable for the AKG K702, which made no difference whatsoever, but was fun and very satisfying to make (so I could kid myself that it sounds better, but it doesn't really!)

I agree with majkel.

Cables make too little of a difference most of the time.  Sometimes it is just the right change for the overall presentation.

Easiest thing: just make your own. =]

Fun, too.

I am of the opinion that expensive cables are fine, but not if they are priced way above the cost of parts and labor, and not when they are made and sold following the premise that cables can technically improve the sound. Minimal/no cable should be theoretically superior in pretty much all ways except vibration and emf/rfi isolation. I personally prefer ~$50-150 aftermarket headphone cables, $20-50 for DIY. For digital, IC, speaker, and power cables, there are a lot more reasonably priced and mass produced cables aimed at audiophiles, they can have excellent build quality but only 4N purity usually, and I would spend ~$15-50 for these cables.

There's certainly some cable companies that price things to take advantage of customers' ignorance, and the reason they can get away with it is because people would rather engage in pro/anti arguments and seldom try to scientifically/empirically find out how cables may actually affect sound, or find out the specifications of typical/cheaper cables (many of which are now 4N), or the actual cost and labor of exotic aftermarket cables. They would rather condemn or justify. If things continue this way, anticablers will never get real objective data (heh, as if they would know it if they saw it), and pro-cablers will never get reasonably priced exotic cables.

I've discovered through my own experience with moderately expensive aftermarket cables that you are slamming headlong into the virtual wall of truly diminishing returns.  I have heard differences with fancy cables, but do admit to the possibility that they aren't really there and would love to blind test myself to make a final conclusion.

I'd recommend trying them only if you can very easily afford them and if you've otherwise maxed out on your other gear in that you have no plans to upgrade for the foreseeable future.  Additionally, I personally am not at all comfortable recommending the purchasing of a cable that costs the same or near the same as any of your gear (dac, amp or cans).  Not when the benefit is so unclear.  

Most who are in the business of purchasing MontBlanc or Cross Pens, Rolex watches and so on don't exactly go running around, claiming that their fancy watches and pens give better time and offer more legible ink or writing experience than much cheaper options.  OTOH, there are some who actually feel that they get better time with those watches, and it's the same way with cables.  Some will claim superiority on technical grounds.  I did but have my serious doubts about it now.

I upgraded my stock AKG702 cable for a DHC one. I found that the lows came out a bit better with the DHC cable (shorter cable length 1m vs 3m? maybe). Regardless, I'm happy with the upgrade. Spent about 150~ for the cable.

if you like the sound of the particular cans that's the next logical upgrade ... as far the specifics of the cables, that is another matter entirely -- all cables are not created equally ... dark cans sometimes respond better to silver and bright cans to copper .... if you can swing it just go balanced, that makes the biggest cable diff by far

Quote:

Originally Posted by bergman2 

if you like the sound of the particular cans that's the next logical upgrade ... as far the specifics of the cables, that is another matter entirely -- all cables are not created equally ... dark cans sometimes respond better to silver and bright cans to copper .... if you can swing it just go balanced, that makes the biggest cable diff by far

Logical? Sorry, but I disagree with that as the logical approach would be check the validity of the cable makers claims and then walk away. All cables are not created equally, but all cables have the same effect on sound quality. To make claims about dark cans and silver you should really have examples or proof, or your claim is bogus.