So I just got my aftermarket cable in. Which means that I get to use the wonders of the English language to try to describe sound. I also try to keep biases in check and I like to try to put what I am writing in perspective, so this is kinda long because of that.
For reference, up until this point I have been using the short portable cable with the 1/4 adapter into my Monolith THX 788 DAC+AMP (which is true balanced from input to output)
The cable is a Norne Audio Vanquish cable (50/50 OCC silver plated copper and OCC copper and some weird geometry stuff. IDK look it up if you want to know more), I bought it secondhand off of another 9200 owner that was selling his headphones and the buyer did not want the cable. This is my first foray into balanced and aftermarket 'high end' headphone cables. So I don't know what is doing what. This could be all balanced making things sound different. Or it could be part balanced, part cable materials.
What I do know though is that this cable did change make these headphones sound different and in a way that I personally liked. The 2 things that I noticed the most I would put into words as soundstage and compression.
This cable seems to really make the soundstage of these headphones cohesive and more spacious. I know others had praised the soundstage of these headphones quite a bit. I personally don't have any reference to what good soundstaging on headphones is supposed to sound like, so I am probably not the best authority on this topic, but what I do know is that the soundstage felt wider and the imaging felt tighter and everything felt more cohesive, and that before this cable, I never really understood what all the hype was about with people comparing these to other soundstagey headphones, this cable does things to the soundstage of these headphones. Granted, I still have no good frame of reference.
This was to a significant enough degree that I feel confident that I would be able to discern between the cables in a blind test. Furthermore, this cable seemed to bring out a bit more extension in this headphone. Comparatively the silver cable is still to bright and kills to much of the bass for me. And my old default, the portable cable, sounds darker with slightly more bass with a narrower soundstage I will say that it is more intimate and tames the treble a bit more so there is some tradeoffs here.
To the other point, compression. I think this has to do with the wider soundstage, greater seperation and sense of space, and perceived greater extension in the treble while keeping almost almost all of the bass that the silver cable kills. This might have something to do with the 50/50 silver/copper design, or it could just be balanced doing balanced things. But it does make the music seem 'more full and more airy' at the same time.
I think that this cable tipped these headphones into the realm of 'uniqe enough' for me to really want to use them. They felt too reference with slightly boosted bass and treble but not in a 'fun' V-shaped way. They were just kinda boring, great detail, but boring. I was opting to listen to my SVS Ultras in my 2.1 more often than not. With the improved soundstage, they now do just enough differently to the sound that I want to listen to these headphones more often and that they bring something unique to the table.
Norne does not sell the vanquish line anymore from what I can tell on their website. And this cable was $190 brand new. I personally cant tell you how worth it this might be because there is too many thing changing at once for me to pinpoint what is the cause of my perceived improvement. If it is mostly just because it is now balanced, $60-80 for a balanced cable I can deem as worth it. If it has something to do with materials and geometry and everything else. Maybe. It does do some really great things for the 9200. If you can find one used for a really good deal like I was able to, absolutely pick one up. If not, you need to make that call for yourself. Everyone's 'worth it' is different. But I will report that this cable does make an audible difference and one that I find makes these headphones more enjoyable. The difference is not huge. It is not going to transform your headphones or your listening experience. We are still talking about a wire here. But it does enough to matter.
On another note, I just bought a bunch of tubes for my Project Ember that I am going to start rolling through once my adapters arrive, so I'll drop some tube impressions in this thread at some point. I'm probably going to get a 4 pin balanced to 1/4 adapter at some point in the near future so I can swap between my tube amp and my SS without having to change cables. Once I get it, I might be able to help determine how much of the improvement is because it is balanced and how much is the cable construction.