Cable suggestion for Hifiman HE-4XX
Oct 5, 2018 at 8:39 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 11

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Hi,

I have the Massdrop HE-4XX headphones, but the cable that it came with is really short and I need something that's at least 3m long. These headphoens have 3.5mm connectors on both ends and strangely enough, I haven't been able to find any cables with 3.5mm male connectors on both ends! The only cable I found was from "CablesOnline" which is a 6ft stereo to mono splitter and that works fine, but it's still not long enough.

I'm not keen on buying a cable that costs more than the headphone itself. I'd really appreciate suggestions as all my searches have come up empty!
 
Nov 30, 2018 at 8:10 PM Post #9 of 11
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I have the Neomusica cable and recommend it. I have mine braided and it’s holding up well.
 
Nov 30, 2018 at 8:22 PM Post #10 of 11
Wow that's half the price of the headphones ($75)! Thank you so much for the link, I somehow thought I would be able to find something for around $20?!

I recently picked up a balanced Periapt Cable to use with my 4xx and Aune X7S. It’s the best $75 I’ve spent in a while. This is my 2nd balances cable from Periapt. The other is for my 6xx. The cables are well built and look great. I waited about 6 month to get the balanced cables for the 4xx. That was a mistake. The X7S is meant to be used balanced both my 6xx and 4xx shine in balanced mode from the X7S via my Periapt cables.
 
Apr 19, 2020 at 2:56 PM Post #11 of 11
Hi - I don't have a cable suggestion, but I did find out why the stock cables are so bad and why people are having a lot of problems with them.

Below is a badly lit image of the stock cable, cut about four inches from the input connector. What at first looks like a bare copper shield and three nicely wrapped signal/ground leads is actually four identical copper spirals, with three of them anodized (blue, green, and red) and each of them with a braided nylon core. So, one bare copper conductor in direct contact with three other anodized copper conductors. I spent the bigger part of my career in electronics design and manufacturing and I can't tell you how quickly I would have been fired had I tried something like this.

Yes, the anodizing layer is non-conductive, but is also very brittle. You do not anodize parts which are expected to flex during their life, and you especially don't put them is contact with other anodized surfaces since the surface cracks are very abrasive. And you especially don't put them in contact with one another if the are exceedingly thin, flexed, and expected to carry a discrete electrical signal.

Okay, kind of ranting there.

Anyway, so the problems I was experiencing with this cable (frequent drop-outs and/or decrease in signal) matches up exactly with the kind of problems you would expect from this kind of construction where, over time, multiple slightly resistive shorts develop leading to significant loss of signal.

Hope this is helpful.

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