morethansense
Head-Fier
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2011
- Posts
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I recently bought a budget (the cheapest) upgrade cable for my Sennheiser IE8s because I was annoyed at the non-integration of the moulding wire into the IE8 stock cable. The detachable ear-hooks provided no support for me and were annoying as heck. People think the Shures are annoying, they obviously haven't tried the IE8s.
So I purchased these:
eBay: Dark Lord Teflon Senneheiser IE8 by sunricky
Claiming to have silver plated wires, use 4% silver solder and gold plated pin connectors. They also claim to do what all the other upgrade cables do, increased extension on both ends, blahblahblah. Whatever.
Pictures below:
Here's the verdict:
First thing that strikes me is build quality. The cable seems very, very thin. On top of that, plastic-y and very prone to kinks. Complete opposite to the stock cable which is thick, malleable and has a satin/matte-rubber feel to it.
The cable slider is a really bad plastic tube that doesn't stay. I cut it off after an hour.
All the shrink tube encompassing the wire has not been melted at edges and it's really scratchy.
The earpiece connectors fit tightly, take care when pulling them off.
Ok, so you want to know how it sounds too.
Well, I can gladly say, and with much relief, that it doesn't sound worse than the stock cables. Woohoo.
It does have a bit more air, the mid bass is less veil-y. But maybe because the decrease in cross-sectional are for the cable increases resistance, reducing current draw, in turn reducing bass response. Plenty of sub-bass remaining though.
Oh, and also, there's no moulding wire. D'oh.
This resulted in me buying some shrink tube and embarking on a project to add my own.
I may have also gone overboard and decided to build my own, thread here:
<Future Link Here>
Any questions?
So I purchased these:
eBay: Dark Lord Teflon Senneheiser IE8 by sunricky
Claiming to have silver plated wires, use 4% silver solder and gold plated pin connectors. They also claim to do what all the other upgrade cables do, increased extension on both ends, blahblahblah. Whatever.
Pictures below:
Here's the verdict:
First thing that strikes me is build quality. The cable seems very, very thin. On top of that, plastic-y and very prone to kinks. Complete opposite to the stock cable which is thick, malleable and has a satin/matte-rubber feel to it.
The cable slider is a really bad plastic tube that doesn't stay. I cut it off after an hour.
All the shrink tube encompassing the wire has not been melted at edges and it's really scratchy.
The earpiece connectors fit tightly, take care when pulling them off.
Ok, so you want to know how it sounds too.
Well, I can gladly say, and with much relief, that it doesn't sound worse than the stock cables. Woohoo.
It does have a bit more air, the mid bass is less veil-y. But maybe because the decrease in cross-sectional are for the cable increases resistance, reducing current draw, in turn reducing bass response. Plenty of sub-bass remaining though.
Oh, and also, there's no moulding wire. D'oh.
This resulted in me buying some shrink tube and embarking on a project to add my own.
I may have also gone overboard and decided to build my own, thread here:
<Future Link Here>
Any questions?