[MellowVelo]

Perhaps somebody could shed some light on this...
 
What is the difference between an XLR cable and a standard headphone cable?  It dawned on me the other day that both cables might actually have the same construction, just with different terminations.  Because a company like Headroom simply reterminates the standard HD800 cable for balanced operation, it led me to think that maybe the terminations are all that is different.
 
So this is where the DIY part comes in.  If the cables are indeed the same, would it be possible to buy some inexpensive XLR cable, say from Blue Jeans Cable, and use it to mod my headphones to run in balanced operation?  Maybe I'm dreaming, but this seems like it would be an economical way of going balanced.
 
Thanks for any insight.  Cheers!

 

[Lil' Knight]

Any headphone cable that has 4 conductors can be terminated in balanced. Nothing exotic about that. There are a lot of starquad cables out there to build a balanced cable.

 

[MellowVelo]

So does that mean that a headphone cable must be in a star quad configuration if it is going to be used for balanced operation?  I'm wondering because Blue Jeans Cable offers two different cables for balanced XLR interconnects, Belden 1800F (not star quad) and Canare L-4E6S Star Quad.  Obviously, a balanced XLR interconnect can be made from cable that is not in a star quad configuration, but is a balanced headphone cable somehow different in that it necessitates a star quad configuration?
 
http://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/balancedaudio/index.htm
 
Forgive me if this seems elementary, but I'm relatively new to this, so I'm trying to understand the basics.  Thanks!

 

[Nebby]

On the cable end as long as the cable has four conductors you can terminate for balanced use. On the amp end, you must have a balanced amplifier to drive the headphones. Simply re-terminating the cable to XLR does not make the amplification balanced (not sure if you knew that, your original post was a bit unclear about that....)

 

[MellowVelo]

Sorry if that was unclear.  I was just wondering about the construction of the cable itself.  I fully realize that a balanced amplifier and a balanced source are necessary as well.
 
Thanks for the clarification on the cable. 

 

[Nebby]

Any cable with four wires will work just fine for balanced headphone cable use. The Star Quad construction is supposed to help ensure that noise is evenly distributed so that maximum cancellation can happen but there's nothing about a balanced headphone cable that requires Star Quad cable.
 
Edited for clarity after reading Nikongod's rather well written post

 

[nikongod]

 
Quote:

Sorry if that was unclear.  I was just wondering about the construction of the cable itself.  I fully realize that a balanced amplifier and a balanced source are necessary as well.
 
Thanks for the clarification on the cable. 

You can have a balanced cable with only 2 conductors. Unless I misunderstood, the Blue jeans cables are interconnects/signal cables. In signal level applications a "quad" cable is used because they have much better noise rejection than twisted pair cables. some people still use 2 conductor cables because they generally have lower parallel capacitance, and 4 conductors costs more than 2

 
Despite the truly low power levels involved in driving all but the most power hungry headphones, the construction "ideas" of headphone cables have more in common with speaker cables than interconnects. The way headphone people use these quad cables is NOT the way the designers intended, although it works well.

 

[MellowVelo]

 
 
Quote:

Despite the truly low power levels involved in driving all but the most power hungry headphones, the construction "ideas" of headphone cables have more in common with speaker cables than interconnects. The way headphone people use these quad cables is NOT the way the designers intended, although it works well.

Considering that headphone cables are more like speaker cables than interconnects, would it make more sense to select the Canare 4S11, which Blue Jeans uses for speaker cables, rather than the Canare L-4E6S, which Blue Jeans uses for balanced interconnects?  Both are constructed in a star quad configuration.
 
Thanks for all the responses!

 

[nikongod]

Quote:

Considering that headphone cables are more like speaker cables than interconnects, would it make more sense to select the Canare 4S11, which Blue Jeans uses for speaker cables, rather than the Canare L-4E6S, which Blue Jeans uses for balanced interconnects?  Both are constructed in a star quad configuration.
 
Thanks for all the responses!

nope. 
 
4S11 is too thick, heavy, and stiff to make a good headphone cable. I guess I should have specified that headphone cables are more like speaker cables in that you can get away with less noise rejection than a signal cable where noise pickup can be a very obvious problem. The impedances of headphones are high enough that you dont need a silly-fat cable to not screw up damping factor (if that even matters).

 

[MellowVelo]

Instead of using a star-quad cable, is it possible (and is there any benefit) to recabling a headphone for balanced operation with two entirely separate cables?  In this case, I'm thinking of the Belden 1800F, which has 2 conductors instead of 4.  My limited experience tells me that this would provide better isolation between channels, and the 2-conductor design provides lower capacitance, resulting in less roll-off of higher frequencies.  Maybe this would be a poor man's version of the Double Helix Complement. 

 

[Lil' Knight]

You can do whatever you want, as long as you have 2 conductors for each channel.