[elmoe]

   
Yet you have not sold them, bought monoprice cables that are just as good and pocketed the difference!!, interesting... oops said I would not post anymore silly me 

 
Sure I have, I sold every single one I thought I could get my money back on, and kept the ones that wouldn't be worth selling (read: that I would sell for less than 50 bucks, might as well just keep those). It says so right there in my post you quoted. I did sell most of the expensive ones though, and pocketed quite a difference as well.
 
The only pair of ICs I haven't sold in fact are the Cardas, which I could get around 100usd for, because they have small tears around the RCA connectors which would make their selling price plummet.

 

[Souldriver]

I'm going to use my guitar work for reference on this and say the quality of a cable is 10x more influencial on sound than the material used.
 
Jumping from a cheap $10 cable to a $30 thicker, well built one made my guitar sound much better, clearer, more frequencies coming through, more detailed etc. But jumping from a $30 well built cable to any of the $50+ well built cables didn't really do much, if anything to the sound. Maybe a tiny bit more highs were present. I keep the expensive cables bc I already spent the money in them, the extra money I pulled into them also went to better durabikty in the construction and a lifetime warranty on some of them. But if they broke I would go back to the $30 cable that sounded just as good.
 
 
Some players like Jimi Hendrix liked the cheap ass, high impedance $10 cables bc they would roll if highs and fuzz things up. But it wasn't material it was cheap construction.

 

[elmoe]

  I'm going to use my guitar work for reference on this and say the quality of a cable is 10x more influencial on sound than the material used.
 
Jumping from a cheap $10 cable to a $30 thicker, well built one made my guitar sound much better, clearer, more frequencies coming through, more detailed etc. But jumping from a $30 well built cable to any of the $50+ well built cables didn't really do much, if anything to the sound. Maybe a tiny bit more highs were present. I keep the expensive cables bc I already spent the money in them, the extra money I pulled into them also went to better durabikty in the construction and a lifetime warranty on some of them. But if they broke I would go back to the $30 cable that sounded just as good.
 
 
Some players like Jimi Hendrix liked the cheap ass, high impedance $10 cables bc they would roll if highs and fuzz things up. But it wasn't material it was cheap construction.

 
Yep, any properly built cable should sound the same as any other properly built cable, regardless or price or materials used. If there's any kind of difference between two cables, you can be sure one of them is faulty.

 

[superjawes]

Yep, any properly built cable should sound the same as any other properly built cable, regardless or price or materials used. If there's any kind of difference between two cables, you can be sure one of them is faulty.

...well there is a length exception. Whatever wire you use is going to have Resistance and Capacitance per length (and inductance), and you can hit a point where your wire is having an additional effect despite being "good" in build quality.

Of course the length of a headphone cable is going to be extremely short relative to these effects, as would most guitar cables (and if you needed a really long guitar cable, you're probably getting excellent construction and materials for multiple reasons).

 

[elmoe]

...well there is a length exception. Whatever wire you use is going to have Resistance and Capacitance per length (and inductance), and you can hit a point where your wire is having an additional effect despite being "good" in build quality.

Of course the length of a headphone cable is going to be extremely short relative to these effects, as would most guitar cables (and if you needed a really long guitar cable, you're probably getting excellent construction and materials for multiple reasons).

 
Yes but I think we're talking about hundreds of feet here, so it's not much of a problem as far as hifi cables are concerned.

 

[superjawes]

Yes but I think we're talking about hundreds of feet here, so it's not much of a problem as far as hifi cables are concerned.

Not "hundreds" of feet if you're talking about an 8 Ohm speaker and small wire (where resistance can add up quickly), but yes, much longer than one should concern himself with here.

 

[elmoe]

Not "hundreds" of feet if you're talking about an 8 Ohm speaker and small wire (where resistance can add up quickly), but yes, much longer than one should concern himself with here.

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm
 
Scroll down to see the table.
 
For 10/12 AWG it can go up to hundreds of feet, but yes even with smaller wire it shouldn't be much concern.

 

[superjawes]

I've seen the table. That's why I said "small wire"

With #22 you still get 12 feet on 8 Ohms, which is much more than you need for headphones. Heck, it still gives you some decent distance on speakers as long as you don't have to do any weird routing.

To be clear, I am agreeing with you. I was just trying to point out an actual science reason why a cable could make a difference.

 

[elmoe]

Yes yes we are on the same page, just thought I'd post the link for anyone who wants a look.

 

[TheoS53]

I recently put together a rig to measure response from IEMs, so I decided to test out the cable myth. 
 
I got a silver oxygen free cable with the stacking kit for my Fiio X5, and compared it to the original copper cable that came with my Fiio E12 amp.
 
The cables in question went between the audio box and the amp
 
Tests were done using REW V5
 
I tested both with the bass boost on, and off. 3 tests for each cable, a total of 6 for each cable
 
Frequency response:

 
 
Phase
 

 
 
I read about people saying that silver cables sounded brighter, so I checked that out too
 

Even zoomed in at a 0.1dB scale, absolutely no difference
 
 
So, from these measurements, it does indeed seem like there is absolutely no difference between the audio reproduction between silver and copper cables (as I had suspected). However, to be fair, this has only been a single test, and only 1 sample of each cable type was used

 

[bzippy]

  I'm going to use my guitar work for reference on this and say the quality of a cable is 10x more influencial on sound than the material used.
 
Jumping from a cheap $10 cable to a $30 thicker, well built one made my guitar sound much better, clearer, more frequencies coming through, more detailed etc. But jumping from a $30 well built cable to any of the $50+ well built cables didn't really do much, if anything to the sound. Maybe a tiny bit more highs were present. I keep the expensive cables bc I already spent the money in them, the extra money I pulled into them also went to better durabikty in the construction and a lifetime warranty on some of them. But if they broke I would go back to the $30 cable that sounded just as good.
 
 
Some players like Jimi Hendrix liked the cheap ass, high impedance $10 cables bc they would roll if highs and fuzz things up. But it wasn't material it was cheap construction.

I am also an electric guitar player and I agree that there is a very noticeable difference in instrument cables (cable that goes between the guitar and the amp). Like, even the potato-eared masses would easily hear these differences. But the instrument signal is super tiny and very susceptible to differences in cable capacitance. Speaker cables handle much more current and most think there is no difference as long as the wire gauge is appropriate for the cable length. I imagine headphone cables are more similar to speaker cables in application and therefore it matters little, if at all.
 
That said, out of unbearable curiosity I just ordered an aftermarket cable to replace my stock HD600 cable. But it only cost $40 (from lunashops.com). And I chose the pure OCC over silver-plated OCC purely because I think it looks prettier.

 

[TheoS53]

 
I am also an electric guitar player and I agree that there is a very noticeable difference in instrument cables (cable that goes between the guitar and the amp). Like, even the potato-eared masses would easily hear these differences. But the instrument signal is super tiny and very susceptible to differences in cable capacitance. Speaker cables handle much more current and most think there is no difference as long as the wire gauge is appropriate for the cable length. I imagine headphone cables are more similar to speaker cables in application and therefore it matters little, if at all.
 
That said, out of unbearable curiosity I just ordered an aftermarket cable to replace my stock HD600 cable. But it only cost $40 (from lunashops.com). And I chose the pure OCC over silver-plated OCC purely because I think it looks prettier.

I must admit, I have read from audio pros (or perhaps it was a video), they found no audible differences with silver, except when it came to guitars. strange

 

[Hapster]

I recently put together a rig to measure response from IEMs, so I decided to test out the cable myth. 

I got a silver oxygen free cable with the stacking kit for my Fiio X5, and compared it to the original copper cable that came with my Fiio E12 amp.

The cables in question went between the audio box and the amp

Tests were done using REW V5

I tested both with the bass boost on, and off. 3 tests for each cable, a total of 6 for each cable

Frequency response:




Phase





I read about people saying that silver cables sounded brighter, so I checked that out too



Even zoomed in at a 0.1dB scale, absolutely no difference


So, from these measurements, it does indeed seem like there is absolutely no difference between the audio reproduction between silver and copper cables (as I had suspected). However, to be fair, this has only been a single test, and only 1 sample of each cable type was used

/thread

 

[zachawry]

  I recently put together a rig to measure response from IEMs, so I decided to test out the cable myth. 
 
I got a silver oxygen free cable with the stacking kit for my Fiio X5, and compared it to the original copper cable that came with my Fiio E12 amp.
 
The cables in question went between the audio box and the amp
 
Tests were done using REW V5
 
I tested both with the bass boost on, and off. 3 tests for each cable, a total of 6 for each cable
 
Frequency response:

 
 
Phase
 

 
 
I read about people saying that silver cables sounded brighter, so I checked that out too
 

Even zoomed in at a 0.1dB scale, absolutely no difference
 
 
So, from these measurements, it does indeed seem like there is absolutely no difference between the audio reproduction between silver and copper cables (as I had suspected). However, to be fair, this has only been a single test, and only 1 sample of each cable type was used

 
I'm sorry, I don't meant to sound harsh, but the only thing those test show is that you don't understand the limits of your testing system. 
 
There is more to how humans perceive sound than pitch and loudness. There is a whole field devoted to studying it called psychoacoustics. 
 
For example, would your test show the same signal for recordings of exactly middle C pitch at exactly 50db, but produced by, say, a violin, a singer, and a purely computer-generated tone? I'm not sure exactly how you tested, but it seems like graphs would be identical for the identical pitch at the identical decibel level. 
 
And yet, the human ear can hear the difference. 
 
I'm hardly well-read in psychoacoustics, but I've read some, and I know that there is a lot more going on in the system than just pitch and loudness. 
 
You're like a guy with a stethoscope who claims that two hearts are identical because they're beating at the same rate, where one is producing crazy electrical irregularities that you aren't seeing because you are depending on one simple measuring device to evaluate an incredibly complex system.

 

[Steve Eddy]

I'm sorry, I don't meant to sound harsh, but the only thing those test show is that you don't understand the limits of your testing system. 

There is more to sound than pitch and loudness. There is a whole field devoted to studying it called psychoacoustics. 

For example, would your test show the same signal for recordings of exactly middle C pitch at exactly 50db, but produced by, say, a violin, a singer, and a purely computer-generated tone? I'm not sure exactly how you tested, but it seems like graphs would be identical for the identical pitch at the identical decibel level. 

And yet, the human ear can hear the difference.

I'm afraid the lack of understanding is yours.

In the electrical domain, the audio signal exists as nothing more than voltage and current versus time. So you have a time domain and a frequency domain. In order for a cable to make any actual audible difference, it must alter the signal in the time to main and/or the frequency domain. And we can measure any alterations in each of these domains to levels orders of magnitude lower than our ability to perceive. And it has been shown over and over again that unless a cable is broken, or incompetently designed, it will not alter the signal sufficiently in either domain as to be audible.

To put it bluntly, getting an audio signal from point A to point B without any audible degradation has been a "solved problem" for probably close to a century.

And the copper/silver/whatever debates are particularly absurd. All a wire brings to the table is its conductivity, which on the applications side of things manifests as simple resistance. And a given amount of resistance is a given amount of resistance regardless if it's from a copper wire or a silver wire. There is no otherworldly property that distinguishes the two.

se