About a week ago, Headfi member NotoriousBIG_PJ made an offer I couldn't refuse. Thanks to his generosity and some creative soldering on my part I now have the world's first Grado PS-1 Pro Senn 580/6x0 replacement cable. It looks more or less like the picture below, except that I've re-spliced it again to shorten the Senn cable bit to under 2 inches and make a better connection.
As I had to chop up my stock cable for the connectors, I can't do a comparison to the stock cable, thus comparisons were made with my Oehlbach replacement cable. I did take a brief listen to the stock cable before I cut it apart, and concluded that hacking it up was no big loss.
Early impressions, as I've only had it for 5 days. Like the Oehlbach cable, it brings you closer to the stage instead of having the middle to back of concert hall perspective of the stock cables. Not the front row feeling that a Grado 225 gives you, but it's maybe a row closer to the front than the Oehlbach. Unlike the Oehlbach, the PS-1 Pro cable gives me listening fatigue fast when using solidstate amps, tubes are a must to make it listenable for me, and even then I have to wait a good half hour for everything to warm up or risk having my ears hurt. Until then, it sounds dead & kinda harsh, and is no fun at all.
Other than that it's quite similar to the Oehlbach cable, as mentioned above it bring you a little bit further up and it also seems to be a tad more detailed. The highs seem a bit more extended but it's hard to be sure at this point. I do get a sense at times that my Senn 580s aren't quite "disappearing" as well as they did before, sounds seems to come more from the drivers instead of being located in space in my head, but then I swap back to the Oehlbachs to try & confirm it and it comes up inconclusive. It's something that I'll have to figure out over the long term.
My feeling so far is that these things are not forgiving, they might be on the bright side or maybe it's some treble harshness, I don't know yet. I'll have to write an update later on when I get more listening done.
As I had to chop up my stock cable for the connectors, I can't do a comparison to the stock cable, thus comparisons were made with my Oehlbach replacement cable. I did take a brief listen to the stock cable before I cut it apart, and concluded that hacking it up was no big loss.
Early impressions, as I've only had it for 5 days. Like the Oehlbach cable, it brings you closer to the stage instead of having the middle to back of concert hall perspective of the stock cables. Not the front row feeling that a Grado 225 gives you, but it's maybe a row closer to the front than the Oehlbach. Unlike the Oehlbach, the PS-1 Pro cable gives me listening fatigue fast when using solidstate amps, tubes are a must to make it listenable for me, and even then I have to wait a good half hour for everything to warm up or risk having my ears hurt. Until then, it sounds dead & kinda harsh, and is no fun at all.
Other than that it's quite similar to the Oehlbach cable, as mentioned above it bring you a little bit further up and it also seems to be a tad more detailed. The highs seem a bit more extended but it's hard to be sure at this point. I do get a sense at times that my Senn 580s aren't quite "disappearing" as well as they did before, sounds seems to come more from the drivers instead of being located in space in my head, but then I swap back to the Oehlbachs to try & confirm it and it comes up inconclusive. It's something that I'll have to figure out over the long term.
My feeling so far is that these things are not forgiving, they might be on the bright side or maybe it's some treble harshness, I don't know yet. I'll have to write an update later on when I get more listening done.
