[cocolinho]

Yep gotta agree with this. I find eartips and source give much more changes to the sound than cables. But as usual YMMV, different strokes for different folks.

I agree with this. We can even measure the differences between tips (influence on frequency response) . Cables? Never.

 

[Redcarmoose]

I agree with this. We can even measure the differences between tips (influence on frequency response) . Cables? Never.

I’m pretty sure cables have measurable differences, especially IEM cables. It’s not that I have even read this, but stuff like this is everywhere.

https://www.google.co.id/amp/s/amp....5_how_can_cable_impedance_affect_iems_and_is/

 

[gLer]

To me this thread is all about a subjective list of favourites. Nothing more, nothing less. You're also only meant to rank only the IEMs you've heard, not what you 'think' might be the best. If we can leave it at that, and take the in-depth discussions and analysis to the product threads, that's would work better.

 

[cocolinho]

I’m pretty sure cables have measurable differences, especially IEM cables. It’s have not even read this but stuff like this is everywhere.

https://www.google.co.id/amp/s/amp....5_how_can_cable_impedance_affect_iems_and_is/

I did not read it all but yes I agree impedance might, depending on the IEMs, change the FR. Like output impedance of a amp. But anything above let's say 1ohm impedance would be a terrible cable and a lot of cheap cables are way below 0.5ohm which will not affect FR
And so far I never saw a comparison based on FR, like I did already for tips.
At the end, based on my personal experience tips, quality of the records or even player software have more influence than cables (as long as cable is good enough, meaning no resistance)

 

[Redcarmoose]

I did not read it all but yes I agree impedance might, depending on the IEMs, change the FR. Like output impedance of a amp. But anything above let's say 1ohm impedance would be a terrible cable and a lot of cheap cables are way below 0.5ohm which will not affect FR

The cable debate will never end. There is really only one experience in my journey where the Kimber $260 cable made a big difference with my MDR-Z1R and MDR-Z7. Also there are many many people who believe (the Kimber cable) really does affect the full-size headphones. But it’s crazy some of the giant threads I’ve looked at on Head-Fi. You have to wonder how folks get so into cables? I have 5 aftermarket cables but still I don’t look at them as life changing only subtle changes. Though there are actually people who pick the cable for genre of music and choose the IEM secondary!

But there is no need for people to get worked up. Somehow the whole experience of listening to IEMs is just that. A cable is kind of like fancy designer shampoo that may enhance the shower experience for those who find subtle differences like packaging and feel extra stuff is important.

It kinda is the last thing. The last thing is a point of interest in human psychology. Look at ice-cream they put a cherry on top. Buildings they put a point of focus on top. That may be a lightning rod, but still there is some kind of satisfaction that comes from finishing touches. Still I’m as guilty as many for believing in this correction aspect. Like many I believe copper smooths out the mids and highs?

So the listener has picked out the hi-res song file, the DAP was a choice, the IEM was a choice and somehow there is this tiny correction. It’s important because it’s the end, the last point of control besides the tips. This hobby has a lot of artistic and scientific control aspects. It’s a blend of art and science, yet mostly it has what I call believers. At least I’m on the believer audiophile side. The believers want to believe in the stories. The believers don’t need proof only the suggestion of proof.

 

[Edric Li]

But it's such a small difference in real life that when someone describes an IEM/headphone, whether they have $1000 aftermarket cable or a stock cable, the way they describe the IEM in the same way. Also your brain will adjust to the sound of the cable if there is even a difference and won't really change your opinion of an IEM.



The rave reviews for having a good cable is based on comfort and quality in the feel of the cable and in not how the cable sounds. The cable won't change the ranking of that IEM either. Like 64 audio u/a12t has a pretty bad stock cable in terms of quality for the price of the IEM, but still is consistently high in a lot of people's ranking list. To go to headphones real quick, the Focal Clear stock cable is pretty bad in feel, but still ranks highly in terms of sound and when someone swaps it to a cheaper custom braided cable or a nice high end soft nice feeling cable, the opinion on the sound of the headphone is the same, but the comfort and feel of the cable improves drastically.



Personally, at least in this thread, I can see having both a normal tier list and list separated by tuning, but having just a tier list separated by tuning might make it more difficult to really judge a tier list. Also SE846-like tuning is used for stage use? I am not a musician, but some of those listed like the SE846 and JH 16 I can't imagine being stage monitors and A12 is pretty different sounding from those other IEMs.

I typed up a response but I think that's too much. All can be summarized in two words: not true. I am astonished if you have actually listened to a $1000 cable, say the pw audio 1960d, and honestly cannot hear how drastically it changes the sound. Astonished. Like I said, it's night and day for me.

To your last point: se846 and JH16 is two of the most popular stage monitor today. This is such a know fact that I don't even care to look up a source for you. I learned to find common ground between different sound, and come to realize that A12 is much more similar to SE846 and JH16 than those in other categories. A12 was designed to compete against JH Roxanne. Back in 2014 every 12 driver IEM sounded similar to Roxanne. And Roxanne was designed to improve over JH16. They have the exact same target audience.

 

[ImMcLovin]

I typed up a response but I think that's too much. All can be summarized in two words: not true. I am astonished if you have actually listened to a $1000 cable, say the pw audio 1960d, and honestly cannot hear how drastically it changes the sound. Astonished. Like I said, it's night and day for me.

To your last point: se846 and JH16 is two of the most popular stage monitor today. This is such a know fact that I don't even care to look up a source for you. I learned to find common ground between different sound, and come to realize that A12 is much more similar to SE846 and JH16 than those in other categories.

I haven't sat down for a long time with a $1000 cable, but I do remember trying IEMs with really high end cables at an audio show (don't remember the price or which IEMs it were since it was 2 years ago). I have not A/B tested it with that price of cable and will try at an audio show whenever that is able to happen.

Didn't know that regarding the se846 and JH 16, I thought the sound signature of stage monitors are generally preferred to be more neutral, but guess I was wrong. I know JH and Shure are really popular among stage monitors, just didn't think those two models in particular. I would have expected more the SE535, JH 13, or others. I'll have to try the u12t again as well as it has been a while so you could be right there.

 

[Edric Li]

Didn't know that regarding the se846 and JH 16, I thought the sound signature of stage monitors are generally preferred to be more neutral

This very off topic but I think this is a good chance to talk about the beauty of this stage-monitor type of tuning and the beauty of Jerry Harvey's tuning in general, since someone literally brought this up a page ago.

535 was released after JH13 and 846 was after JH16. JH tuned his monitor to be very dark (and Shure followed suit), because he realized that a more balanced/neutral sound will in fact cause fatigue for long listening session. In other words, our ears are more sensitive to high frequency reproduced by IEM than to that reproduced by headphones. JH prioritized non-fatigue-ness, at the cost of sounding dark and not neutral.

After freqphase was introduced, JH claims to figured out one way to reduce fatigue from a different direction: better imaging = less brain processing = less fatigue. That's why now hear JH adding more treble to his product, e.g. the Lola, but still keeping in mind not to cause fatigue.

In short, JH still makes wonderful product today, though often under appreciated because they sound way too dark compared to other companies product at first listen. It's all about the beauty behind that darkness...

 

[Kerouac]

I think it is very, very important to take note and point out the cable one used for demoing a particular IEM. The difference cables made are night and day. They may not make the IEM exceed what it is capable of, but I would say a lot of attributes that we evaluate depends more on the cable than on the IEM, e.g. depth of soundstage, treble harshness, body of the imaging.

I typed up a response but I think that's too much. All can be summarized in two words: not true. I am astonished if you have actually listened to a $1000 cable, say the pw audio 1960d, and honestly cannot hear how drastically it changes the sound. Astonished. Like I said, it's night and day for me.

I never thought that I would ever post in this thread again, but I'm still subbed because I'm always curious what ticks other peoples boxes, regarding preferences.
Synergy (iem/dap/cable) played a big part in my own and final listing last year: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/rank-the-iems-youve-heard.454855/page-128#post-14768944
As you can see I also mentioned the PW1960 2w and EA Horus 4w in my two favorite combinations at that time. They cleary (still) bring out the best in the 2 IEMs (Zeus and Phantom) that I use them with. I also tried a cable swap between the Zeus and Phantom, and both IEMs instantly sounded less good (to my ears) compared to the mentioned combinations. So, imho: some cables and IEMs just seem to bring out the best in each other and therefor I totally agree with the 2 above posts by you

 

[Edric Li]

I never thought that I would ever post in this thread again, but I'm still subbed because I'm always curious what ticks other peoples boxes, regarding preferences.
Synergy (iem/dap/cable) played a big part in my own and final listing last year: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/rank-the-iems-youve-heard.454855/page-128#post-14768944
As you can see I also mentioned the PW1960 2w and EA Horus 4w in my two favorite combinations at that time. They cleary (still) bring out the best in the 2 IEMs (Zeus and Phantom) that I use them with. I also tried a cable swap between the Zeus and Phantom, and both IEMs instantly sounded less good (to my ears) compared to the mentioned combinations. So, imho: some cables and IEMs just seem to bring out the best in each other and therefor I totally agree with the 2 above posts by you

I have yet to hear an IEM which the 1960s doesn't bring the best out of! 1960s is one of those best gears I will never own, part of it is that it's expensive, part of it is that it's too heavy (I did not know that there's a 2w version). The Horus is more of a hit-or-miss depending on the pairing, I agree.

God I wish I heard the Erlkonig with the 1960s... That midrange has to be out of this world.

 

[Damz87]

.
God I wish I heard the Erlkonig with the 1960s... That midrange has to be out of this world.

It’s not (to my ears at least). Much preferred the stock cable synergy.

 

[BobJS]

You can look up yourself, but the reason why cable can carry acoustics of the sound roughly is that: high frequency travels closer to the surface of a cable and low frequency travels closer to the center. This how silver-plated copper and gold-plated silver cable changes the sound.

...

The skin effect really only comes into play at much higher frequencies than audio. Early in my audio escapades I couldn't hear any differences with cable and tried to calculate how it could be so. Simple differences in conductivites are meaningless unless there is a variance dependent on frequency. If you look at resistivites and skin effect thicknesses vs frequency (over the audio range) from a skin effect calculator (say, https://chemandy.com/calculators/skin-effect-calculator.htm), say between copper and silver, it is difficult to see how this could explain a variation in frequency response between cables.

As time as gone by, and I've moved from high impedance headphones to low impedance IEMs, I can clearly hear consistent differences in frequency response on some low impedance IEMs by cable (say all copper vs all silver or SPC).

So I'm an official cable skeptic, but can hear clear differences in some cases, and would love to have a scientific explanation, because one must exist.

 

[BobJS]

I’m pretty sure cables have measurable differences, especially IEM cables. It’s have not even read this but stuff like this is everywhere.

https://www.google.co.id/amp/s/amp....5_how_can_cable_impedance_affect_iems_and_is/

Hey this pretty much answers the question I posed above.

 

[sxcjack]

1. 64 audio tia trio
2. Campfire Solaris OG
3. Empire ears legend x


4. Sony Wf1000-xm3 (owned)
5. Sennheiser MTW (owned)
6. MW07 (owned)

7. AirPods

2 and 3 are interchangeable depending on the music genre.

 

[max1236]

1.Unique Melody Mest - my favorite iem i've tried, super fun and engaing, 3d soundstage. Seems like what the trio wanted to be, very enjoyable slight v shape, epic with rock, metal, r&b, edm. Bass can be a bit much sometimes but great texture. Edit: after burning in bass seems more tame. 6k peak might be a deal breaker but it doesn't bother me on most song's. Love how the cymbals sound on this one, everything sounds very natural to me. Took a while for my ears to get used to the fit but now they are very comfortable and evened out the treble peak.

2. 64 Audio U12t - very good all rounder, would have liked a more even treble response but it's still very good, I felt there was a peak in the very high treble that may not be noticeable for older ears. liquid smooth sound and very interesting bass presentation that does really well with hip hop. very inoffensive tuning good for long sessions but maybe a little boring. technicality's about the same as mest but not as holographic.

3.Thieaudio Monarch - maximum clarity and imaging really separates each track in the mix. very "studio" sound pulls all detail and texture to the front, like sitting in the first row sound , lack of bass texture was a deal breaker for me, I probably would have liked clairvoyance more

4.64 Audio trio - not a good tuning for me, guitars sounded recessed and too much treble. treble cans sound pretty mind blowing but is just too much quanitity for me. really nice bass tho. likes well mastered stuff

4. Jvc drop ha fdx- excellent value, layers beautifully but lacks detail and treble extension. didn't like the comfort.