[Carpet]

The good old cable debate... I knew as soon as I saw the video that it would ruffle some feathers.

There are so many factors involved in this hobby like hearing capability, mood, impedance, noise, ear shape, source file (lossy/lossless), Headphone and IEM pairing, biases, EQ, DAC & Amp pairings, age, outside noise, power, subjective preference, eartip/pad change... E.t.c. that not all of us are going to agree on some things but, it would be nice to see people just agreeing to disagree on some hot topics and moving on rather than getting salty and rude.

Even discussions that start off with good intensions and curiosity turn to crap sooner or later. That's the hobby I guess.

At least nobody mentioned review samples or the merits of the Harmon curve!

 

[Leonarfd]

Scrolling through some AliExpress cables, this must be intended. For it looks like a d_ck to me.
Or it's just my grownup childish mind.

 

[Carpet]

Scrolling through some AliExpress cables, this must be intended. For it looks like a d_ck to me.
Or it's just my grownup childish mind.

No chance at all, just like KC135 flightpaths near Tartus Naval base!

 

[superuser1]

Or it's just my grownup childish mind.

Freud's phallic fixation?

 

[saldsald]

Scrolling through some AliExpress cables, this must be intended. For it looks like a d_ck to me.
Or it's just my grownup childish mind.

looks like this:

 

[superuser1]

looks like this:

It seems the stiffness would yank the iem out of my ears. Has happened with EE cables before

 

[ExTubeGamer]

Try out a Penon Audio PAC480 on your IMR Zenith 2. They compliment each other so well. It's like a perfect match.

 

[Leonarfd]

Noticed this when watching youtube, Antlion who makes the gaming microphone Modmic for headphones have a gaming IEM and also sells the cable by itself.

https://antlionaudio.com/products/kimura-microphone

https://antlionaudio.com/collections/kimura

 

[saldsald]

It seems the stiffness would yank the iem out of my ears. Has happened with EE cables before

Yup this happens occasionally.

 

[infin]

Hello, new to IEMs and the audio world.

Does anyone have recommendations for a cable thicker than the Tripowin Zonie but around or under $20 USD? I was looking at RikudouGoku's Database and found KZ's 8 strand 784 core cable, but it's C pin and I need a 0.78 2 pin.
I've seen many recommend XINHS, are their budget cables thicker than the Zonie?
Thank you in advance.

 

[Leonarfd]

Hello, new to IEMs and the audio world.

Does anyone have recommendations for a cable thicker than the Tripowin Zonie but around or under $20 USD? I was looking at RikudouGoku's Database and found KZ's 8 strand 784 core cable, but it's C pin and I need a 0.78 2 pin.
I've seen many recommend XINHS, are their budget cables thicker than the Zonie?
Thank you in advance.

If you don't mind the red braided colour, this should be fine and good value now.

XINHS 8 Core Silver Red Mixed 5N Single Crystal Copper Silver Plated Upgrade Cable High Purity Earphone Wire MMCX/0.78mm 2Pin/QD
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mrD7yHG

Or

XINHS 8 Core Silver Blue Mixed 5N Single Crystal Copper Plated Silver Upgrade Cable for KZ KZZSX ZSN ES3 KC2
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mMJ2O4a

 

[DanielListening]

I am here to say:

XINHS on AliExpress is amazing value.

ISN Audio cables are amazing value but at a higher cost, I don’t like the terminations on ISN Cables but I forgive it since they sound so good.

 

[Resolve]

You nailed it. This is a great point. He uses Raal for this demonstration? Why? It seems like a setup because Raal's driver impedance is rediculously low that it's comparable to cable impedance.

The video is obviously a bate.

Let's see a video of him do it with a normal headphone.

I mean this crap has been discussed in iem threads years ago. iems with low impedance, we discussed to death.

Raal's webpage says this "True-Ribbon headphones are of very low resistance (impedance)_few tens of milliohms" The headphone impedance is comparable to cable impedance. It's a rare, not the usual, isolated case. Try this with a Sennheiser.

You mean precisely what was indicated in the video? It was expressed very clearly, and multiple times, that it's all specific to unique edge cases where a headphone's impedance is significantly lower than normal. The thing is, depending on where you look online, there's a false narrative gaining inertia that under no circumstances will a cable make an audible difference. Now the spirit of that narrative may come from a benign place - that is... course correcting on marketing claims about exorbitantly priced cables that in fact aren't going to make any tangible difference, regardless of the story being told about them. But sometimes these narratives go overboard, obscuring the truth behind this stuff, and we saw evidence of that repeated in the comments section of the video. So, yeah it might be a platitude for folks who know better, but when the norm is to deny people's experiences even in cases when cables are actually making a tangible difference (like the edge cases described, for ultra low impedance headphones or IEMs), then that's a problem.

 

[infin]

If you don't mind the red braided colour, this should be fina and a good value now.

XINHS 8 Core Silver Red Mixed 5N Single Crystal Copper Silver Plated Upgrade Cable High Purity Earphone Wire MMCX/0.78mm 2Pin/QD
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mrD7yHG

Or

XINHS 8 Core Silver Blue Mixed 5N Single Crystal Copper Plated Silver Upgrade Cable for KZ KZZSX ZSN ES3 KC2
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mMJ2O4a

I'm good with any color, and this one looks nice. Would you recommend any cables with sleeves similar to the XINHS graphene cable, or is it likely all of them are out of my price range?

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804192917300.html

 

[Leonarfd]

No

I'm good with any color, and this one looks nice. Would you recommend any cables with sleeves similar to the XINHS graphene cable, or is it likely all of them are out of my price range?

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804192917300.html

I'm not sure if I understand your question, do you mean costing of the cable?

As I understand Graphene coating like the one you linked is supposed to increase the main character of the cable under the graphene. But how much or if it works I have no idea about.