[renji1337]

I have coiled my cables like this.
 
 
 
Will this harm the cable or the sound quality?
 

 

[WraithApe]

In terms of sound quality - only if coiling the cable significantly affected the basic properties of the cable - so, no.
 
Unless they were extremely inflexible or of brittle construction, I see no reason why coiling them would place undue stress on the materials. I also have my headphone cables coiled in the same way, to shorten the length.

 

[CanadianMaestro]

Haven't noticed any diffs when coiling/kinking my HP cables. As long as you don't physically crush them, it shouldn't matter.

 

[renji1337]

thanks guys!

 

[CanadianMaestro]

I would have thought this would be a common sense thing, like not shoving a paper clip into a live wall outlet.....

 

[renji1337]

  I would have thought this would be a common sense thing, like not shoving a paper clip into a live wall outlet.....

I know nothing of cabels . I know that having really long cables isn't good and for some reason I thought that possibly stuff could be "slower" when coiled into a circle? idk lmao

 

[cheeseeater]

It's not a dumb question. A transformer is basically two coils placed in close proximity so that one coil is within the electro-magnetic field of the other. So it can actually make a difference.there are variables to consider such as the number of turns ,(loops) and the amount of current. For headphones the amount of current it's small so it's hard to notice but I have noticed that sometimes a difference which is nearly impossible to can contribute to listening fatigue. I do coil my cables but not that tight. The tighter the coil the more "turns" you will have. Even if there is no other coil nearby the conductor still must contend with its own field. An inductive field is like adding a resistor to your cable. I'd loosen it up. The tighter the cable the worse the effect. And make bigger loops.

 

[renji1337]

It's not a dumb question. A transformer is basically two coils placed in close proximity so that one coil is within the electro-magnetic field of the other. So it can actually make a difference.there are variables to consider such as the number of turns ,(loops) and the amount of current. For headphones the amount of current it's small so it's hard to notice but I have noticed that sometimes a difference which is nearly impossible to can contribute to listening fatigue. I do coil my cables but not that tight. The tighter the coil the more "turns" you will have. Even if there is no other coil nearby the conductor still must contend with its own field. An inductive field is like adding a resistor to your cable. I'd loosen it up. The tighter the cable the worse the effect. And make bigger loops.

hmm, are both my coils in the picture too tight? i can make them less.
 
i know the one on the right is pretty tight but its a really flexible cable, the one on the left isnt.
 
when you mean make them less tight you mean bigger circles right?

 

[Eee Pee]

So this should really be bad then eh? 

 

 

[cheeseeater]

Renji1337, all I'm saying is that depending on the equipment that you use you may want to make your loops larger. You'll probably never notice any kind of difference but on the other hand you may experience a little more listening fatigue due to a very tiny drop in quality.
Yes. Big circles mean fewer turns. I'm just sayin that's what I would do. And regarding eee pee's photo, that cable looks great for a Bose system. Or maybe Beats. But even then, if you were to overlap those coils in the same space, rather than the spiral shown, it wouldn't just be bad it would be horrible. And you wouldn't be able to but it because no one would be so stupid as tomake

 

[cheeseeater]

...to make it.

 

[Eee Pee]

And regarding eee pee's photo, that cable looks great for a Bose system. Or maybe Beats.

 
Or a heck of a lot of studios that decide what the music you hear sounds like.

 

[cheeseeater]

Anyone who has a halfway decent headphone has the experience of hearing a surprisingly poor recording produced in a studio. I have not personally seen coiled cables in a studio.Maybe it happens. Not surprised.

 

[Jabbah]

I did some rough calculations for this and a coiled headphone cable such as in the picture with reasonably thick insulation will add about 0.09 ohms to the impedance for 10 turns and about 0.03 ohms for 5 turns. So very unlikely that it would be possible to hear a difference.

 

[cheeseeater]

I won't argue with that. In Fact, I said in post #10 that the difference probably wouldn't be noticeable. I do still wonder though: even if it's not noticeable in an A/B comparison, maybe the added ohms in a long listening session might cause listening fatigue a little sooner than otherwise. My position has never been that this DOES happen. My position is that the question was not a dumb question and that I personally keep my loops larger and loose just in case. Of all the arguments I've ever heard (copper vs. silver; balanced vs. single-ended; tubes vs. solid-state; etc.), this one is the cheapest. It cost me zero dollars and zero cents to loop my cables a little larger and looser. Maybe my next six hour listening session I'll get a little less fatigued. Thank you, by the way, to Jabbah for doing the rough calculations.