[HiFi1972]

Another pro audio background guy here that has built his own cables, feels they improved the sound, doesn't think you should pay more than $50 for an upgrade cable, and thinks it's nuts that people spend even half as much as what the 650s cost on cables.
 
It does take a necessary amount of skill to build a good cable; it takes me at least an hour to make one and think those who charge over $50 for an upgrade cable are charging a bit much for their time (I'm not talking about exotic materials, no comment there). You're also paying for the custom printed shrink tubing too.
 
My advice for anyone considering a headphone cable upgrade (and custom length interconnects for their systems while we're at it) is: Learn to solder, make your own and put the money you would be throwing away on a better DAC and Amp (unless you're gifted enough to design and build those too).

 

[nephilim32]

Hi spagetka

Before I continue I will write that I am not an "all cables sound the same person". Nor am I "anti-cable".

The key problem with assessing hi fi is auto-suggestion.

While I believe that cables can sound different I also believe that the reports of cable difference are often a result of auto-suggestion.

Okay to the subject which I think you have brought up of actual information about cable differences and how to quantify them scientifically.

A good scientific method to quantify perceived cable differences is the blind ABX test.

You would think that given the vast amount of money the cable making companies ask for their cables surely they have carried these out?

How can a company ask for 1,000 $/£/€ or more for a cable without carrying out this simple enough scientific test to ascertain if it really does represent value for money?

And yet, amazingly, for many years now, no such tests have been carried out, at least not in public!

Except one...

And here it is:

Can We Hear Differences Between A/C Power Cords?

In this very well carried out test of the Nordost Valhalla power cord a high resolution system has the Valhalla swapped with generic "out of the box" power cords for every components.

The panel of attentive listeners are unable to detect any difference.

I did an A/B test in this manner. I bought a Burson Soloist and replaced the stock AC power cord with a PANGEA SE 9 7 AWG power cable and found no difference! I have very analytical sources as well like the ARCAM irDAC and Sennheiser HD 800's, but no tighter refined bass or enhanced clarity in the overall soundstage as the cable maker (jay victor) said with the PANGEA. It's a farce, but man does that cable look really cool attached to my rig!! Lol

 

[bigshot]

I honestly don't know why anyone would think that a power cord can affect sound. to me, anyone who thinks that would be immediately suspect for anything he says.

 

[SunshineReggae]

  Hah!
 
 
But really, to the others, if you combine impressions like this:
with:
or:
or:
 
you should see that as soon as bias creeps in people hear what they want to hear.
We're not interested in your anecdotes so there's no point in posting them. Do proper tests instead.

 
No wonder this guy was banned, lol. Was so angry and desperate to make a point that he suffered from tunnel-vision and took everything extremely seriously, taking every opportunity to 'enlighten people' with overwhelming force. Too bad, he knew a lot.

 

[niceguyliu]

I have an HD600 and have used stock cables, Cardas cables, DIY cables. From my ears, I can hear differences, but it is more like changing the sound signature than actual "improvement". Maybe to some, the change of sound is more attune to their tastes and that's why they feel it's "improved" 
 
I dig the Cardas cables, as it sounds smooth but it seems to take a little from the treble. But for the price of almost a pair of used HD600s, I'm just not digging the price tag. 
 
My conclusion is that you just get a "different sound", and better built cables. It won't just magically make your HD600s sound like HD800s

 

[SilverEars]

  I have an HD600 and have used stock cables, Cardas cables, DIY cables. From my ears, I can hear differences, but it is more like changing the sound signature than actual "improvement". Maybe to some, the change of sound is more attune to their tastes and that's why they feel it's "improved" 
 
I dig the Cardas cables, as it sounds smooth but it seems to take a little from the treble. But for the price of almost a pair of used HD600s, I'm just not digging the price tag. 
 
My conclusion is that you just get a "different sound", and better built cables. It won't just magically make your HD600s sound like HD800s

You have to look at it this way.  What aspects of the cables are there?  The cable is a conductor which has impedance that includes capactive, inductive, and resistive aspects to it.  I have seen cables measured, and it shows flat impedance magnitude response which means it's resistive.  Also, is that resistance significant?  HD600 has 300ohms of impedance, and the cables typically have .7ohms of impedance.  Headphones like the HD600 don't even react much to 40ohm and it's not likely .7ohm cable will cause any noticible difference.  

 

[bigshot]

It's easier just to say that headphone cables should make absolutely no audible difference at all. The only time when they might is when they are defective.

 

[Ultrainferno]

I don't like these discussions between believers and non believers so I won't post in here anymore. But to the non belivers: have you even tried listening to other cables or did you just look at numbers that don't say everything?

 

[Strangelove424]

Belief requires evidence. You're looking for faith in cable, not belief in cable. 
 
If the evidence were there we would have seen it by now. There would be a litany of ABX tests proving it, measurements proving it, or null tests proving it. But there aren't. In fact, there is nothing but overwhelming evidence proving otherwise. Failed ABXs, moot measurements, and dead silent null tracks. A terminal moraine of proof. 
 
Do you think we started listening to audio yesterday? I'm sure everyone here has used more than one piece of audio cable in their life. We've all heard lots of cables. Radio shack cables. Frys cables. Mono price cable. Hell I even sprung for Monster once, but only because it was on sale dirt cheap. Can you believe they had the gall to put "signal flow" direction arrows on the cable? I felt like the cable was calling me an idiot.  
 
You can't hear a difference if it's not there. 

 

[SilverEars]

When I saw this, I had no doubt that cable is just resistance that is between headphone and the source.  From there, based on the value of the headphone and the cable, there is no doubt if cable has any affect or not, unless we have an Einstein here in the forum that help us by discovering a new phenomena in a conductor that creates audible changes in the signal even if the value of the resistance is insignificant.  Maybe, some cable manufacturers purposely develop the cable to have significant enough capacitance or inductance in the cable to create audible changes in the FR.  Until I see one, it's just resistance of the cable.  I think this is pretty reasonable.
 

 

 

[jimification]

 
 
 
This is an impossible question and if you research greatly from the multitude of audio forums, you will find it always ends in the same impasse. Those discussions can be interesting the first time around but IMO ultimately there is no "answer" to be found there, only the same arguments from each side.
 
You might consider that A/B/X testing as a method of determining "the answer" is futile…if you look up “auditory memory” and the way in which sound is processed by the brain, you might decide that it would be very difficult, if not impossible for anyone to detect subtle differences in sound between two subsequent listens to the same piece of music.
 
One thread I found that WAS interesting was somewhere on the “what’s best” forum, I think, where a designer of very high end speakers was interested in investigating if cables made a difference and proposed an experiment where people could take a length of CAT5 cable and wire it up to speakers two different ways (which gave very different R, L and C values) then measure the R, L and C of each version to ascertain differences and try listening to each to see if there were audiable differences from those changes. Ultimately, it seemed hardly any one on the thread could be bothered to try the test and preferred instead to give the standard arguments for why it wouldn't work but the initial few pages were quite interesting from what I remember.
 
Ultimately, my advice is to either borrow some cables to try (on the understanding that you can return them if you don't like them) or buy a good "name" cable used, that way you can try it for as long as you like but get your money back if you decide there is no, or little benefit.
 
Good luck!
 
 
 

 

[Dark_wizzie]

 
You might consider that A/B/X testing as a method of determining "the answer" is futile…if you look up “auditory memory” and the way in which sound is processed by the brain, you might decide that it would be very difficult, if not impossible for anyone to detect subtle differences in sound between two subsequent listens to the same piece of music.
 
Ultimately, my advice is to either borrow some cables to try (on the understanding that you can return them if you don't like them) or buy a good "name" cable used, that way you can try it for as long as you like but get your money back if you decide there is no, or little benefit.

Wait... the argument is that abx doesn't work because a few seconds is too long for our auditory memory to bear, yet cables make a difference and I remember it makes a difference because I remember what the headphones sounded like before using new cables? That makes no sense. Either cabling is fine and we can remember differences and therefore ABX works, or cabling doesn't (and ABX might or might not still work).
 

   
No wonder this guy was banned, lol. Was so angry and desperate to make a point that he suffered from tunnel-vision and took everything extremely seriously, taking every opportunity to 'enlighten people' with overwhelming force. Too bad, he knew a lot.

That's actually not why he was banned. And I'll speak no more on it less I get banned too.

 

[bigshot]

If the difference is so small (or more likely nonexistent) that auditory memory fails you when comparing, odds are the difference doesn't add up to jack diddly.

 

[Strangelove424]

 
 
 
 
This is an impossible question and if you research greatly from the multitude of audio forums, you will find it always ends in the same impasse. Those discussions can be interesting the first time around but IMO ultimately there is no "answer" to be found there, only the same arguments from each side.
 
You might consider that A/B/X testing as a method of determining "the answer" is futile…if you look up “auditory memory” and the way in which sound is processed by the brain, you might decide that it would be very difficult, if not impossible for anyone to detect subtle differences in sound between two subsequent listens to the same piece of music.
 
One thread I found that WAS interesting was somewhere on the “what’s best” forum, I think, where a designer of very high end speakers was interested in investigating if cables made a difference and proposed an experiment where people could take a length of CAT5 cable and wire it up to speakers two different ways (which gave very different R, L and C values) then measure the R, L and C of each version to ascertain differences and try listening to each to see if there were audiable differences from those changes. Ultimately, it seemed hardly any one on the thread could be bothered to try the test and preferred instead to give the standard arguments for why it wouldn't work but the initial few pages were quite interesting from what I remember.
 
Ultimately, my advice is to either borrow some cables to try (on the understanding that you can return them if you don't like them) or buy a good "name" cable used, that way you can try it for as long as you like but get your money back if you decide there is no, or little benefit.
 
Good luck

 
I will not lose a single minute or blow a single dollar with exotic overpriced cables.  I've had enough cable in my life to know there aren't any differences, and I have better things to do with my audio time. There are so many techniques in audio that are metered and measured, that actually do make a discernible difference, and for much cheaper than exotic cable. What frustrates me the most is that someone new to the hobby picks up the above statement and spends hundreds of dollars, going in circles and burning their patience and their budget. They get an HD6XX for $399 and then spend $200 on a cable when they could have had an amp, another pair of headphones, or 20 CDs. That's a sad thought to me, and it makes me embarrassed to be part of a hobby that often has no qualms getting newbies to spend all their cash in dark, unproven corners of the market.  

 

[superjawes]

I know I should not care, but I don't want people to spend a lot of money on something for the wrong reasons. That path leads to people leaving a hobby that they might have enjoyed.

Cables are simple devices. In fact, they are so simple that calling them "devices" is a stretch. There are good reasons to buy "better" cables. You can get a stronger cable for portable use. You can get one that matches your personality. You could even get a balanced cable to use with your fancy balanced amp. But if you want a sound quality improvement, spend your money on a new pair of headphones, or an amp, or a DAC, or better music files, or a plane ticket to fly to LA and slap a sound engineer for shoddy mixing.