I Take It Back-Denon D1000 Recable
Jul 25, 2008 at 7:56 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 15
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Oh My, Where to start? Well a few weeks ago I did a recable on my D1000s.
I'm not a big fan of the stock cable. So I went ahead and did my set with some Mogami mini quad. The difference was night and day. I was never a cable believer until then. The stock cable on these cans are about the size of a hair.
It looks nice and thick on the outside but when you open up the cans you see the solder points. I have no idea how they soldered the original wire.
They must have had a telescope to see them.
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Anyway the Mogami really opens up these cans. The mids and highs came clear as day.
I was A/B up against Canare mini and I thought the Mogami was better.
Don't get me wrong, the Mogami RAWKS. So a friend of mine has a set and after hanging out one night he wanted me to add a new cable to his set.
So he brings his cans by earlier tonight. He wanted me to do his just like mine,with the Mogami. I didn't have any on hand. And I didn't wanna dash into the city to grab some
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Hey!!! You drive in Hollywood at 5pm..Get back to me on that
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But I did have some Canare cable here. So my friend said "Why not".
So I cabled them up real quick.. HOLY HELL!!! I take it back, The Canare RAWKS WAYYYYYYY better then the Mogami. I said to myself, Who put Beyer DT770s Bass in these cans. No Joke. His cans are slamming. And it's not flabby or anything bad. I'm talking Deep and Tight. I'm still up in the air on the mids and highs. I feel my set has ALOT more definition. I wouldn't say his is muddy sounding but just not as crisp. Maybe a little muffled, but not too bad at all. I don't think many people would even think about a new cable for these cans. I say DO IT!!! The improvement is amazing!!!

With the Mogami you don't get the hard hitting Bass but everything is well blended. The Canare tho..WOW!! The bass is right there. You can't go wrong with either cable. So I guess it's more of which way you wanna go?

If you have any basic soldering skills, this is an easy job. Go for it, A Very big difference for sure!!
 
Jul 25, 2008 at 8:25 AM Post #2 of 15
I'm sort of curious....just at a guess, what AWG would you say the original cable was?

I'm determined to figure out a logical reason as to why wiring makes such a big difference with headphones, and such a marginal difference with most speaker setups.
 
Jul 25, 2008 at 8:37 AM Post #3 of 15
Cool bean, will have to try that too. Sound like fun. Thanks heap for the info.
AP
 
Jul 25, 2008 at 4:00 PM Post #4 of 15
I don't know if the earpads are the same as the D2K or D5K, but if so, you should look into doing Markl's earpad modding. Helps a LOT with soundstage and tightens up the bass some (not a lot in the bass tightening dept. but the simple act of moving the drivers away from your ears and slightly forward does wonders). I have buttloads of fiber fill left over...let me know if you want some for you and your friend's cans, and I'd be happy to ship it off to you. Just shoot me a PM if interested (that goes for any of y'all).
 
Jul 25, 2008 at 4:40 PM Post #5 of 15
Quote:

Originally Posted by DemonicLemming /img/forum/go_quote.gif
I'm sort of curious....just at a guess, what AWG would you say the original cable was?

I'm determined to figure out a logical reason as to why wiring makes such a big difference with headphones, and such a marginal difference with most speaker setups.



I'm not for sure if the original cable/wire could even be sized as an Awg?
I forget what it's called but it looks like a peppermint/candycane stick.
You know that really tiny braided stuff? It has maybe 10 super small coated wires wrapped around the main wire. I mean hair like small.
My guess is the Mogami which is 24 awg just has a stronger signal. I think the Canare is even a little bigger. I don't really notice much difference adding a new cable to full-size cans, little at best. But on these small cans it makes a big difference. For sure not placebo effect. It's night and day. With the D1000s it makes them hit their top potential. Right off the bat , We did a before and after test using the same cd,source ect. And with the new cable even the volume was louder at the same original setting. Hard to explain, it was like plugging them into a nice amp, but we did nothing different!!!
 
Jul 25, 2008 at 6:57 PM Post #6 of 15
Steve Kelbly helped me out with mine..

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Steves Impressions pre and post

"I listened to a few standard tracks I use to test things including Chemical brothers – Under the influence, Emiliana Torrini – Heartstopper, Michael Jackson – Man in the Mirror, Edward Elgar – Enigma Variations Adagio, Miles Davis – Flamenco Sketches, Radiohead – No Surprises, Prodigy – Breathe, Dave Brubeck – Take Five, and plenty others.



At first listen the main thing I noticed was the lack of detail resolution, They aren’t very sensitive ‘phones and seem to hide the quiet notes, compressing the dynamic range. I have been spoiled by this lately and it stood out to me. The bass guitar notes seemed to blend into one long note instead of hearing the individual vibrations. Mids weren’t too bad, pretty engaging and enjoyable, but not tonally 100% accurate. Treble was certainly not sibilant which is probably a good thing for most people as that’s a common annoyance with many cans.



After the recable the main improvement was the detail retrieval, those bass guitar notes were now separate which was nice to hear. Bass is much more controlled and punchier, not blurry like before. The instrument separation was also a noticeable improvement, soundstaging being more accurate and believable. I was really starting to enjoy them! The treble was still controlled and not sharp at all but had more of the fine details. Maybe the recable has lowered the noise floor or improved the signal noise ratio allowing more details to be revealed. They still don’t sound as good a s a D5000 of course, frequency extension top and bottom is not as good and the level of resolution is not as high, however they are now a very good sounding pair of cans and much more enjoyable to listen to regardless of their worth, bringing a smile to my face and chills down my spine and that’s the main test.



Every area of the sound has been improved, the only possible negative could be microphonics if the cable is rubbing/banging against things while listening, you may hear the sound vibrate through the earcups. The APS and SAA cables do this too though, the only one I have heard that doesn’t is the Jena wire but that’s quite expensive."


Havn't finished modding them ... am gonna do some stuff myself...when Ido i will start a thread

definitely worth the mod Tokenganjaclan thanks for the tip!

Everybody already knows but Steve Kelby rocks!
 
Jul 27, 2008 at 9:14 PM Post #7 of 15
I couldn't agree more with Steve"s impressions. The cans really become MUCH more detailed. And I already talked about the Bass. I really can't believe these are the same cans.. It's that much of a change
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Jul 27, 2008 at 9:31 PM Post #8 of 15
Holy **** I wanna try that. How much does it costs?
 
Jul 27, 2008 at 9:45 PM Post #9 of 15
Quote:

Originally Posted by neodyme60 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Holy **** I wanna try that. How much does it costs?


Not Much, Parts will run ya about $15-20 and about 30 mins of your time.
Even if you have no soldering experience it shouldn't cost ya more then $75 to have someone do it for you. From my experience the cost is in labor, even the major guys charge an arm and a leg. Even tho their parts aren't much more $ then DIY. There are plenty of places that will do it for you. If you got money to blow look at the " regular" Cable guys or contact a diy'er if you are on a budget!!
 
Jul 28, 2008 at 1:42 AM Post #11 of 15
Quote:

Originally Posted by malldian /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Anyone try markl mods on these?


Don't think you can do the full blown Markl mod. The drivers are really different then the 2000-5000. I guess you could stuff the pads? I prefer them stock----new cable. I don't think any kind of inner mod will really do much.
With a new cable, I don't think there is much room left for improvement. It seems too me the cans reach their full potential.
 
Jul 28, 2008 at 2:26 AM Post #12 of 15
The differences between cables imo should not be so noticeable, I'm a fan of Canare cable myself, so do not take me wrong, but AFAIK what we have laways heard is that they are really subtle, and in cases none. If that happen, I'm assuming two things, an incoirrect gauge was used in the first case, and/or a defective soldering point would be kicking in...
 
Jul 28, 2008 at 8:51 AM Post #13 of 15
The results are indeed astonishing. I tried several weeks ago recabling the Denon's siblings - Creative Aurvana Live! The stock cable is total crap, it contains hardly any copper, just a few enameled threads per wire. I put professional OFC cable, one per transducer and the only soldering is done in the plug. My friend said these headphones kill the K701's and they sound what the E9's should do. It's no joke, that guy is a Rudistor NX-33's owner, having pretty good Lynx source and balanced interconnects. He chose th GS1000's finally for himself, letting go the E9's. He also recabled his headphones with the Grado cable and used balanced plugs. Direct comparison to the D5000's and the GS1000's shows better dynamics of the Aurvana's.
Dampening the interior gave no positive results actually. I tried different amounts of cotton rings to dampen the transducers. The only interesting thing was soundstage increase. My another friend said it was like concert hall efect turned on. However bass lost speed and timing, and the vocals had no intimacy after the mod, so I removed any damping. I attach some picture's of the headphones owned by my friend from another forum. 6.3mm jack is installed on mine, all the rest is the same in both, not considering the cable length.
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Jul 28, 2008 at 10:12 AM Post #14 of 15
Awesome... I definitely want to do this to my denon d1000's...

I think I would want go with the Canare cable since I'm a bass lover and I want to hear the full potential of the bass in my cans... But I was looking for it online and I'm confused about which cable I should buy...

Could anyone give me a direct link to whichever cable I should use? Quality is my first priority, money isn't too much of an issue, although I don't want to hurt my wallet... Also, is there a cable which might be better than the canare, while still unlocking the bass to its full potential?

Thanks very much! Any help is appreciated.
 
Jul 28, 2008 at 3:27 PM Post #15 of 15
Quote:

Originally Posted by FelineSerpent /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Awesome... I definitely want to do this to my denon d1000's...

I think I would want go with the Canare cable since I'm a bass lover and I want to hear the full potential of the bass in my cans... But I was looking for it online and I'm confused about which cable I should buy...

Could anyone give me a direct link to whichever cable I should use? Quality is my first priority, money isn't too much of an issue, although I don't want to hurt my wallet... Also, is there a cable which might be better than the canare, while still unlocking the bass to its full potential?

Thanks very much! Any help is appreciated.



Don't know where you are located? But this is the Canare part # L-4E5C
You can get this cable a ton of places. Markertec or Redco are very good places. A word of caution tho. Anyone who is gonna add a new cable be careful when you de-solder and solder the new wires to the drivers.
The contact point is a small plate that is only held in place by the plastic driver housing. If you use to much heat the plastic will melt and the plate will melt out. If that happens you're in big trouble. So take your time.
De-solder one wire at a time and let it cool before you add the new wire to each +/- Very easy job, just take your time
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