Are these balanced cables? I agree that balanced cables make a difference in sound... but not the way you may think. It has been proven by many industry reviewers that balanced cables for headphones have very little or no difference in sound quality compared to unbalanced regular cabling. It does make a difference in speaker cables when the ouput power is moderate and the distance between the amp and speakers is long. I would favor balanced cables for concert speakers when the cables are 10m, 20m, 30m long. But for headphones? I told you there was a difference: the sound quality is the same, but balanced configuration let you benefit from additional amping, since you are using the equivalent of two amps to drive headphones in balanced configuration. The result may be more power, more loudness satisfaction, more dynamic sounding, but it is strictly a question of amping power. With sufficient amp power, the audio quality should not differ in balanced or unbalanced mode. In a 1.2m or 3m headphone cable, the added resistance in the cable, calculated in very slightly higher impendance (ohms) should not even be audiby discernable. A 150 ohms (nominal, averaged) headphone should not sound any different than the same headphone at 153 ohms... The same goes for 300 ohms headphones (which anyways have 450 ohms + peaks at certain bass frequencies). An averaged weighted 305 ohms (instead of 300 ohms) is undiscernable and no cause for concern. By the way, the added impedance with a cheap low gage cable compared to an expensive high gage cable is far less than the 5 ohms in my example, it is rather a fraction of an additional ohm, typically 0,1 or 0,4 ohms added, really undiscernable. That said, if you use a headphone amp that may be switched to balanced mode / unbalanced mode, I agree that in balanced mode the output power capability will be greater in balanced mode, and it may make a difference if your push your amp at higher output for rather loud listening into your headphones, but don’t get fooled, it’s only a question of output power which shows in higher db in your ears, not a question of sound quality difference. I personally don’t listen to headphones at rock concert levels, and therefore I would not find use of additional power from my headphone amp (if it was switcheable to a balanced mode), so the whole balanced mode amping and cabling is just useless to me. My amps are powerful enough for my needs with my HD600, HD58x and HD6xx.
