[baskingshark]

For anyone reading this in the future I purchased this:
TRN 8 Core Knitting Silver Plated OCC Copper IEM 2.5/3.5mm Earphone Audio Cable

For $10 on ebay and it is incredible quality. Might as well buy a couple! As good if not better than the fearless stock cable. To be honest I A/B'ed them probably 7/8 times w/ good seal and a dark room and could not tell any difference. If anything the TRN cable was sharper/crisper but I likely could not tell a difference were I blindfolded.

It came in a very aesthetically pleasing package it felt like I was unboxing an apple product. I could not believe the quality and presentation of this product. I'm going to order a few of the unbalanced ones for future use.

The "Fiio square braided cable with 8 pieces of OCC silver plated wire" was neither 0.78mm or 0.75mm - it was larger than either so the seller kind of ripped me off on this one claiming it was a 0.78mm. Go figure the name brand one didn't work and the generic was great.

tldr;
You don't have to pay $150 or even $50 on a cable to get good quality out of a high-end set of IEMs in my opinion.

That's good u found your cable! But I read in this thread that some TRN 8 core cables have unsoldered wires: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/trn-impressions-thread.881761/page-40#post-15037249
Seems the 16 core ones are ok.
That was a few months back though, not sure if their newer batches have fixed the problem. U can always use a multimeter to measure though.

 

[crenfro]

Interesting. My balanced 2.5mm cable sucks - it totally sounds like that "out of phase" audio clip from the thread you posted, but my 3.55mm one sounds fine. Despite having a BS in electrical engineering I don't know how I'd measure this with a multimeter - I assume I'm just measuring connectivity between ground to ground and signal to signal? It seems as though it is just that only some of the wires are not connected to the jack? Or maybe the L/R are shorted? I should then measure between L&R and verify infinite resistance right?

I'll try the 2.55mm w/ the phase checker test track later today to see if it's messed up between L/R. It looks like it's hit or miss w/ these cables. I ordered 2 cables, one was good the other wasn't - I'm honestly okay with that. I was wondering if just my earstudio amp had a messed up 2.55mm output but now I'm wondering if that was just a crap cable.

 

[baskingshark]

Interesting. My balanced 2.5mm cable sucks - it totally sounds like that "out of phase" audio clip from the thread you posted, but my 3.55mm one sounds fine. Despite having a BS in electrical engineering I don't know how I'd measure this with a multimeter - I assume I'm just measuring connectivity between ground to ground and signal to signal? It seems as though it is just that only some of the wires are not connected to the jack? Or maybe the L/R are shorted? I should then measure between L&R and verify infinite resistance right?

I'll try the 2.55mm w/ the phase checker test track later today to see if it's messed up between L/R. It looks like it's hit or miss w/ these cables. I ordered 2 cables, one was good the other wasn't - I'm honestly okay with that. I was wondering if just my earstudio amp had a messed up 2.55mm output but now I'm wondering if that was just a crap cable.

Hi friend, i'm not an expert at cables and electrical stuff, but there's a dedicated thread in headfi about DIY cables and measurements and stuff.
They are very helpful, they've answered my cable questions such as resistances and measurements many times, so maybe u can ask around in there: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/low-end-cheap-generic-otherwise-bang-for-buck-cable-thread.891911/

Some of them disassemble cables to verify soldering and connections too.

 

[wyou0606]

Have you tried Customs?