Sorensiim
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2008
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CABLES, CABLES, CABLES!
I've been enjoying the new Noble cables and let me start with the audible differences: There aren't any. All the Noble cables are made from the same SPC (silver plated copper) wires, so I guess that was to be expected. After trying the Estron Linum Bax, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the (very) thin Noble Prestige cable didn't alter the sound of my K10. The Linum Bax has an impedance of 1.5 Ohm. Not much, but with a CIEM like the K10, it's enough of a shift in the FR for you to notice it. The overall volume drops, the soundstage shrinks a little bit and the sound is just a tad warmer. Other than the drop in volume, the changes are small and some won't even notice them. I met the owner and co-founder of Estron and his chief tech and they confirmed these characteristics. Some really like the changes in sound, others don't, so Estron is working on a low-resistance version. I've tried the prototype and it does sound promising but it's not as ultra thin as the Linum Bax.
Anyway, back to Noble cables! Top left in this picture is the new clear/silver version of the stock cable. The only difference from the regular black version is the new clear jacket, but the material used for this jacket is softer than the black version, making the clear one a bit more flexible and nicer to the touch. At the bottom of the picture above is the glow-in-the-dark cable. I've tried getting a picture of the glow effect but it takes a bit of effort. You can see the cable clearly glowing in a dark room, but it's not like you are going to blind anyone with it. The jacket on this cable is very different from the others, with a very soft, almost cloth-like feel to it. It's the thickest cable of the bunch, but the most flexible as well. Lastly, we have my personal favorite, the new super thin Prestige cable. It's not as thin as the Linum Bax, but very close, almost half the thickness of the stock cable.
Top to bottom: Glow, regular black, clear/silver and the new skinny Prestige cable.
All these cables were terminated with a slim, straight 3.5mm connector, unlike the 45-degree plug on the stock (black) cables:
A nice little connector, but I'll be re-terminating them soon enough. Gotta have that Hirose 6-pin so I can use the balanced output from my PB2!
At the other end of the cables, we find the 2-pin connectors for plugging into your (C)IEMs. They all have memory wire which some people love and others (like myself) hate with the burning fury of a thousand suns. The glowy cable seemed prone to untwisting itself after the Y-split - I don't know if I just got unlucky with this one, or if it's a thing to expect with this cable.
This is why I love the Prestige cable. The stock version (furthest from the camera) is not exactly gigantic, but the skinny Prestige cable almost disappears. It's like there isn't even a cable connected anymore, just feels so soft and light that you won't even notice it. "So, why don't we all just use the Prestige cable, then?". Well... Getting the cable to be so thin and light means stripping out shielding and the Kevlar that makes the stock cable so ludicrously strong. With a pull strength of 10 punds on the Prestige cable it won't fall apart in your hands, but it's a far cry from the 150+ pounds of the stock cable. When I get home from work, I'll probably break out the soldering station and fit an angled 2-pin connector in place of the straight one with
Conclusion
As I stated at the beginning of this post, I haven't noticed any audible differences between the 4 Noble cables (and I think that's a good thing), so I'm not going to wax poetic about Cable X giving you a crisper soundstage and Cable Y giving you blacker blacks on analog synths. These cables all work very well, they sound exactly the same (to me) but now you have some options to pick from. Silver vs. black regular comes down to color preference, with a slight edge in ergonomics to the clear version. Glow-in-the-dark looks pretty cool in a dark room and is IMHO a must-have addition for glow-in-the-dark CIEMs. Or if you wear your headphones in bed at night and you like your cables to be visible. If you like supersoft cloth-covered cables, this is the (C)IEM cable for you as well. Personally, I'm in love with the skinny (Prestige) cable. It's almost as thin and soft as the king-of-ergonomics Linum Bax, but without the change FR. I use my CIEMs almost exclusively at my desk, so the lower pull strenght compared to the other cables is not an issue for me.
. just 1 week wait, give or take..
