Not everyone has portrayed the stock cable to be terrible. It is typical of the stock cables of most headphone companies, in that it gets the job done, but can be improved by many aftermarket cables. I think what really puts some people off is the cheap rubbery feel to the outer insulation, which never bothered me much as at least it was relatively tangle free. So if you're happy with the sound, then don't worry about aftermarket cables, but just know that better is possible when you get the urge to upgrade again. However.....
I've said before and I'll say it again: many people pay a lot of attention to the end of the chain (headphones and amp), but ignore the full potential of the source (everything before the DAC) and make do with basic PCs or laptops etc. I've been gradually upgrading my source (my profile not fully up to date yet) and I can't believe how much the end result sound can be affected.
For example, I used to use Roon EQ to tame my HEK V2's most prominent treble peak, but I could hear some fundamental degradation in SQ whenever EQ was engaged. So pros and cons. When I upgraded to HEK SE, I dropped EQ altogether because the EQ cons now outweighed its pros. At one stage in improving my source, I switched my music player app from Roon to Euphony Stylus, and the fundamental improvement that gave to SQ totally swamped whatever value Roon's EQ could provide to my HEK's tonal presentation. Further tweaking of cables, fuses, etc have changed my opinion of my HEK tonal presentation. If you've ever compared sources and didn't notice much difference, then I suggest that you haven't tried the right things in the right order.
So if anyone thinks their HEK sounds, say, a bit too bright, then that may be partly due to its FR curve, but IMO it is
mostly to do with it faithfully showing up upstream issues. You can mask those issues with EQ and warm-sounding headphone cables. But much better to address the root cause. The DAC and amp and headphone cable still do matter of course - because
everything matters!
Hey Attorney!
I'm surprised about your now approach, since I knew you as a fellow EQ proponent. Now I still tend to think if the sound after equalizing is worse, it's the operator that's responsible, not the equalizer per se. Of course finding a really appropriate and passably precise compensation curve is essential, otherwise there's an infinite potential of making the sound worse instead of better.
So I tried an experiment to get an answer to above question – if equalizers, even those in the digital domain, hence without complicating the signal path, can make the sound worse by itself. It consisted of equalizing a 24-bit recording (with my
Wavelab wave editor) by reducing specific frequency areas by 2 dB and increasing them again by the same amount. I repeated this procedure twice, with different frequency bands.
In the end the two amplitude peaks (one in each channel) showed a deviation of 0.001 and 0.002 dB, which seems negligible and hints that at lower levels the signal is unchanged at all.
The listening impression confirmed this: The two tracks sounded absolutely identical.
Now I can't speak for the Roon equalizer, which on the other hand has a good reputation. My own (real-time) EQ curve for the HE1000se had to be adapted after the change from the Lavricables Grand to the Norne Silvergarde S3 with its seemingly better high-frequency extension.
The largest difference is the drop at 16 kHz. Of course that's not really the difference created by the new cable; the latter just offered me a better insight as to the necessary compensations during my trial adventures.
And one thing is clear to me: The HE1000se's original amplitude response is far from being flat, equalizing does wonders. It makes a night-and-day difference. Be it with above
xnor equalizer for
foobar2000 with my desktop computer or the one in my new
FiiO M11 Pro DAP – a source that sounds subjectively better (cleaner, smoother) than any other at my disposal. Apart from its sound quality I'm hesitating to give it my recommendation, though – the firmware leaves a lot to be desired. E.g. it offers just one User EQ with no possibility to store the curve, the inevitable «genre presets» are fixed. What's puzzling is that it should not make a difference, given the signal path → Hugo M Scaler (output galvanically isolated) → Wave Storm dual-data BNC cables (with massive ferrite-core population) → Chord DAVE (S/PDIF input galvanically isolated). What's left is the galvanic connection via mains cables, but my other FiiO DAPs are battery-driven as well.
Addendum:
This post could be called a typical case of shooting oneself in the foot. After closer inspection I have to admit that deducing an unaltered signal curve at lower levels from a deviation as low as 0.002 db at peaks is illegitimate. It turns out that small signals are more affected. There are deviations of ~0.17 dB at –37 dB and up to 3 dB at –70 dB, while the optical appearance of the signal curve is even more altered than the numbers indicate. So I will have to admit that the pretended need for 64 bits for ultimately transparent equalizing has some merits.
However, the two tracks are still indistinguishable to my ears. And for me this result is a strong indication that the beneficial effect of equalizing is clearly stronger than the hypothetical/potential downside in terms of small-signal errors. Also considering the fact that the disposable recordings we listen to have already run through DSPs more than once.
