Kinera Leyding Upgrade Cable

Summary
This is Leyding, a 70$ upgrade cable from Kinera. This is a silver plated copper 8core cable with modular terminations. This is a good looking, fairly premium feeling cable, with a light weight design and medium thickness. This is quite soft so there is no memory. If you are looking for a versatile iem cable below 100$ from a name brand, this is a very good option.



Intro
Hey guys, whats up
Today I am reviewing the Kinera Leyding, a $70 upgrade cable. This is more of a long term review as this has been one of my primary iem cables for quite a while now.
Talking about “Kinera”, they are one of most popular chifi audio brands out there and for good reason. They been around for quite a while now and have made amazing iems from budget to multi kilobuck flagships. I am a big fan of their gear and have owned many kinera iems in my audio journey. Talking about cables they have a good line up, Ace being one of their most popular.
Let’s get into Leyding’s review. Startung off with specs:

Specs
Material: OFC + Alloy copper with 5N silver plated
Braid way: 8 core 3-dimensional braided
Diameter: 1.0mm/core
Strands: 24 strands of 0.05mm alloy copper with 5N silver plated + 14 strands OF 0.06mm OFC
Cable skin material: soft PVC
Interface: 0.78 2pin/mmcx
Plug: 4 pin detachable plugs, 2.5mm/ 4.4mm/ 3.5mm
Plug material: copper with 24 carat gold plated
Plug internal connection: 6N OCC+ OCC with silver plated mix
conductor
External metal part: Aluminum alloy anode
Cable length: 122cm+-2cm
Cable structure. litz + multiple structure + twisting strands



Disclaimer
As we all know cables are a very debated topic among audiophiles, whether they actually make a difference or not. I am not here to argue or debate but just to share my own personal opinion/ experience. In my opinion and experience cables do “influence” the sound of certain iems a bit more than others. The changes are pretty minimal thats why I call it “influence” rather than change.
When I am out shopping for a cable, the physical construction and feel is more important to me than what it sounds like.
This cable was purchased with my own money and this review is my true and honest opinion, thanks.


Packaging
Moving on to the packaging section, Leyding comes a minimalistic premium looking box. Inside the box, it comes with a simple kinera branded hard shell pouch, the modular terminations and papers. In my opinion they should have given a better pouch.


Build, Feel and Design
Going over the build, this is a silver plated copper (OFC + Alloy copper with 5N silver plated) cable. Its available both in MMCX and 2pin connectors, mine are 2pin. The connectors and split are made of aluminum alloy. One of the selling points of this cable is that it has modular terminations. In terms of thickness, this is not too thick nor too thin, in the middle. This is fairly light weight. The cable is very soft, there is literally no memory. Earhooks are fine, they do not cause any botheration. The modular terminations fit quite snug.

Most importantly how does it look and feel? In my opinion this is a beautiful looking cable, this goes quite nicely with darker colored iems. In terms of feel this is a bit subjective but I think its quite premium feeling. Although I personally like thicker and heavier cables, I do like this quite a bit.

Sound
How does this cable sound? This is a very debated topic as I have already mentioned in the disclaimer section, but my take on cables is, cables do not change the sound rather they influence it, the change is a bit more significant on some iems more than others.
Anyways, I find this cable mostly improves the bass region a bit, this helped thicken the lower frequencies. I found this particularly pleasing with bass light hybrid iems. There is barely any change in mids, but treble did improve very mildly. I find this adds a touch of shimmer to the upper mids to treble region.

Conclusion
To conclude, this is a good option if you are in the market for a cable below 100$ from a name brand. I do love this cable but at this price custom cables such Cema electro are also very good if not better. The main question is whether we want a name brand or not. Personally, I have more custom ones than name brand ones.