[Bill-P]

I got a new Fiio E11 in today.
 
Long story short, the stock cable (short, dual L-shaped plugs) makes the sound very very warm and sometimes muddy with my M50S. I didn't notice that because out of the box, I plugged the E11 into my Mac with the Monster cable that came with my Beats Solo headphones, which sounded very clean, only slightly on the warm side, and almost sibilant.
 
Should there be this much of a difference? Does cable length play into it?

 

[fatcat28037]

IMO there is no way the sound from a $65 amp is going to change the way you describe because of a 4 inch cable unless the FiiO is seriously defective. The length of the cable, unless you're dealing with inches versus many feet will not make a difference. And keep in mind that Monster cables are just "OK", they're nothing special.

 

[Bill-P]

Thanks for the answer.
 
Unfortunately, there really is that much of a difference. I can notice it in my ATH-M50, ATH-FC700A, and ADDIEM. Is the amp defective? I'm not under that impression because the sound quality coming from the amp is very good to me. It's just the cable "effect" that's baffling me. I was never a believer in cable effecting quality.
 
What's interesting is that my Fiio E7 doesn't exhibit this behavior.
 
Also, for what it's worth. I measured the cables. The Monster cable is tad longer than 4ft, the regular cable is indeed 4 inches.

 

[Bill-P]

Oh, wow, after 10 hours of music, now that "clogged up" feel of the cable is gone, and the supplied 4-in cable sounds a lot cleaner and more open. In fact, I'd say it sounds even better than the monster cable.
 
This is quite an interesting phenomenon to me. I didn't think an amp would need "breaking in", but apparently, I just experienced something similar.