Want to post my impressions of the PlusSound PPH Cable.
Not going trivialize this is a commitment by a buyer to move to this cable, but for those who do, you wont be disappointed as I see Deezel177 has also stated.
First off want to say THANK YOU to Christian for ALWAYS making himself available to give and having great advice.
In this “write up” I know I’m going to touch on 2 items I know religious wars have been launched here at Head-Fi.
1) how much cable changes can help tune sound or even if they do and
2) Burn In of components
Apologies in advance if I state a differing opinion, as they are just that, my opinion.
I also want to make clear I too believe what I have read from reviewers whom I trust on Head-fi state:
Don’t expect a cable to magically make an overly bright IEM neutral or take an extremely dark or bass centered IEM and move it to be more natural.
However if the IEM/Headphone is close, or feels like there is a veil on the sound, IMO cables can help fine tune the sound, lift the veil off the sound and get them to be what you are looking for.
But as a reminder ALL I will write below is IMO, and as with anything I post I always like to remind folks, YMMV
Also I don’t consider myself a reviewer, just someone who enjoys audio, and likes to share information so hence my comment of this being a “write up” and not a review. The PPH Cable mentioned here was purchased and not given to me.
Thanking in advance all who take the time to read this post!
Having just purchased the JH Audio Jolene’s and impressed by the natural/neutral sound of these IEM’s, I wondered what a cable change might do.
I reached out to Christian at PlusSound for 3 reasons
1) His advice has always been sound without trying to upsell.
2) His willingness to work with a customer in all aspects and to provide top notch customer satisfaction
3) PlusSound is in Downtown Los Angeles California and during this time of Covid and Shipping logistics going awry internationally, it is proving to not be an trivial issue with Hi-fi components.
For those familiar with JH Audio IEM’s sound, the Jolene’s are not the typical slightly dark JH Audio house sound. (having owned/owning several pairs of JH Audio IEMs I have found this to be my experience.) They are much more neutral/natural with very clear and open highs.
The Jolene’s come out of the box with a very nice SPC 8 wire braided cable with the ability to tune the Bass/Sub Bass frequencies +/- 14db via an inline bass adjustment pod on the cable.
With the stock cable the Jolene’s are very natural to neutral in its sound. Just a nice clean sound with nice clear highs, very clear and slightly forward mids, good bass, and really good sub bass extension.
For most out there the Standard SPC braided 8 wire cable will probably be enough and I think many will be happy with the cable as is.
Because out of the box they are natural/neutral they represent a value and I’ve seen other reviewers on Head-Fi talk about how the Jolene represents a “value” as its sound challenges other TOTL IEM’s out there that are 2x-3x the cost of the Jolene’s
I’ve auditioned many of the IEM’s that are being compared to the Jolene’s by several reviewers.
And while these competitors have great sound with their standard cables (none of them use a cheap “plastic” cable, most use a very nice SPC or equvilant cable), for me I’d still be looking to do a cable change, so I’d have to figure in the change of the cable into the total cost, and it would be around a 4x+ cost difference of the Jolene’s. This opened up options for me buying the Jolene’s and a cable like the PPH, and still be lower cost than these other IEM’s
I wanted to see what changing cables would do on the Jolene’s.
I own converters to make MMCX and .78mm 2 pin cables work on the JH Audio 4Pin connectors and these have the bass adjusters on the adapter. While not ideal, it lets me cable roll and will let me know if a cable I’m looking at is in the ball park or not with the sound I’m chasing when using JH Audio IEM’s before pulling the trigger to have a custom JH Audio cable built.
For this reason I ordered my Jolene’s with the older 4pin connector vs their new 7Pin connector (I only know of 2 cable makers today offering JH Audio’s 7 Pin connector to date) Since the current implementation of the 7pin connector is only using 4 pins, I thought this was a good move that let me use my investment in cables and adapters on these new IEM’s.
(NOTE: Christian has mentioned until he can get a high quality 7pin connector that will fit the larger more complex cables he makes, he is waiting to offer the 7pin JH Audio connectors. Hope this will be soon!)
I was able to run a number of cables from SPC, to GPC copper cables, to straight copper, to straight silver, to silver blends, to multi silver/silver blend cables (one example , being my existing Tri-silver X8 for JH Audio) None of these cables in my inventory made the Jolene’s sound better and several turned them from natural/neutral to either V or U shaped sound signatures.
Talking to Christian what I was hearing and where I wanted to go, we both came to the conclusion the PPH is where I should go.
I’m glad I listened again to Christian and here is what I found with the Jolene’s and can whole heartily recommend the PPH/Jolene Combo to anyone wiling to make the investment as they just opened everything up from the stock cable and did nothing bad.
Out of the box the Jolene’s had great soundstage left to right but wasn’t the deepest soundstage front to back.
With the PPH I’m getting depth to the soundstage now, but even more impressive is that I’m getting layering and pinpoint location of sounds on stage, yet hearing space (air) between the performers/instruments.
I can hear instruments and sounds more in 3D layers, with some below to the left and right and others next to each other but yet can still hear one is closer to the front of stage and the already wide soundstage of the Jolene’s seemed to widen a tad bit more with the PPH.
With the PPH the sound it outside of my head and I’m amongst the instruments, and performers.
With the Jolene’s the straight silver and silver blend cables were good, but tended to go to the “bright” side of sound, and sometimes there was a harsh bite on some tracks
No such problems with the PPH despite part of the cable make up being a silver cable. I believe the Palladium plating has much to do with this.
The PPH’s highs were clear, clean without ever going to bright/overbright. Female vocals always were a joy to listen to with a presence/weight to them. High Hat and cymbals are clear and a joy to listen for.
The high mids are clear, precise with vocals in this register clear and steady
The mids are clear, neither recessed or too forward. They are just right. IMO opinion the stock cable placed the mids a little more forward, the PPH hits it just right. Male voices in this register are clear and warm. But despite being a copper cable also, this is NOT a warm cable one would normally associate with copper, again associate this with the Palladium Plating but this time on the copper cable.
The PPH cable just has a nice tone/timbre that a straight silver or silver blend sometimes does not have, as many silver cables lean more towards a clinical sound.
Guitars both acoustic and electric sound just right with the tone being what you associate being in the same room as the guitar being played. This can be truly appreciated on this HW combo with tracks that have both types of guitars playing.
The lows are strong, steady and clear with a nice amount of sustain, yet have a good decay (almost an Oxymoron saying this) and as others have noted almost analog like.
The lows are very entertaining on this cable. Kick Drum hits are just clear and strong but never overpowering as an example. Bass Guitar and upright bass is fun to listen to.
But the Sub Bass on this cable/combo would entertain any bass centric/basshead listener. CLEAR, STRONG, present and impressive. Subwoofer like in quantity and quality that I was NOT getting on the stock cable or in this quantity on the either the Leo2, the Tri-silver or the other cables I ran through during my testing.
Now I’m going to open up the 2nd controversial item. Burn in.
Out of the box after receiving this cable I was worried as the PPH didn’t seem to add anything more to the low frequencies than the stock cable and on the highs there was a shrillness/sibilance In the highs. Christian had recommended a min of 100hrs of burn in and if possible 150. I put 130 hours of burn in and then listened to the same tracks I initially listened to and found the cable is smooth neutral to natural with ZERO sibilance or shrillness to it.
I’m discounting brain burn in here, as I did not listen while the cable and IEM’s were burning in except to just lean over and make sure some sound was coming out of them From my initial listen they did NOT go into my ears until the 130hour mark.
I’m definitely hearing the difference on FLAC tracks I know well and use as my references.
IF interested what I used to test. Please use this info to see if what I wrote approximates your preferences
I listen to 16 and 24bit FLAC and high bitrate MP3’s on my DAP
High Def and MQA tracks on my streaming services
Genres of music range from:
Classic Rock (late 60’s through the late 80s)
Jazz (standards through modern smooth Jazz)
Classical (Chamber Music to Full Orchestras)
R&B (60’s through late 80’s and few current artists)
Hardware used:
Lotoo PAW 6000 for FLAC and MP3
Lotoo S1 for Tidal as it does 4X MQA unfolding, and for Amazon HI Def tracks
Cables are terminated in either 4.4mm Balanced or 3.5mm unbalanced
When a 3.5mm Balanced was used, also did a back to back comparison using a 4.4mm to 3.5 converter.
And again....
All of the above is truly just my opinion and your mileage will vary depending on HW and Music you listen to
Thanks again for reading!