[kai_yip]

how many wires in senn 600 replacement cable in each channel?

I would like to make a XLR version cable for my 600 based on the stock cable, so I need to know if there are 2 wires in each channel.

Thanks
Kai

 

[Ebonyks]

Each channel has two wires, a hot wire and a return wire. The headphones are unbalanced, so any balanced cable would run two wires into the postive pin

 

[kai_yip]

Ebonyks,

Thanks for your reply. According to 13DoW, the hot wire of the headphone is connected to positive pin, while the return is connected to negative of balanced cable.

What is the consequence of such configuration? and will it sound better than unbalanced output?

Thanks
Kai

 

[Ebonyks]

Your understanding of balanced cables seems to be a little bit off.

A non-balanced cable simply has two wires, one positive, one neutral. A balanced cable has a total of three wires, one negitive, and two alernating positive wires (as is my understanding)

The generalization of balanced vs non-balanced is that balanced cables sound better over long distances, and given that the average headphone cable is 10 feet long, a balanced cable has a significant advantage over a non-balanced one. Of course, there are only a handful of amps that have balanced output, the headroom blockhead, and the gilmore balanced amp ( I don't believe there's a name for it yet) The gilmore is half the price of the blockhead, and should be released "Soon" according to antness

 

[13DoW]

Headphone transducers are balanced in the nature - they only see the voltage difference between their terminals.
Usually we drive them single-ended by grounding one side. If you have a suitable balanced source then that works just as well, if not better (eg. a CD player with balanced output and volume control).
If you use XLRs then pin2 is positive, pin 3 negative. For HD-600s the fatter of the two pins at the headphone connector is connected to ground in the stock cable, so in a balanced cable should go to pin3 to maintain absolute polarity.

I think Kai is interested in adapting an after-market cord to drive HD600s from a balanced source and is enquiring to see if anyone knows what cable geometries are used. I expect they are either twisted pairs or star quad and can be driven single-ended or balanced (with the appropriate connectors), an overal shield is OK as it can be connected to chassis ground via XLR pin1.
I doubt any of these cables use a coax type cross-section but if so, it might not work well as a balanced cable.

Whether the sound is better in balanced mode probably depends more on the source than the cable .

Regards
13DoW