jornfin
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2006
- Posts
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Sennheiser HD 650 upgrade: Silver Dragon V2 vs. Zu Mobius
Setup
Power supply: Shunyata Research cables and power line filter
Source: Densen Beat 400 XS CD-player (comparable to Meridian G8, Linn Ikemi) (spiked on Soundcare feet)
with…
Amp: Pathos Classic One (hybrid amp) (spiked on Soundcare feet)
Speakers: Dynaudio C1
Speaker cables: Goertz Veracity AG2 (silver)
or…
Headphone amp: Musical Fidelity X-Can V3 (spiked on Soundcare feet)
Interconnects: Goertz Alphacore Triode Quartz (silver)
Headphones: Sennheiser HD 650
Headphone cables: Zu Mobius (much used for 1 year) vs. Moon Audio Silver Dragon Version 2 (burned in 100 hours)
Music
Acoustical music: The Be Good Tanyas, The Wailin’ Jennys, ave Carter and Tracy Grammer, Allan Taylor, John Gorka and others
Rock etc: Billy Joel, Lucy Kaplansky, Bruce Springsteen and others
Jazz: Keith Jarrett, Billy Holiday, Miles Davis acoustic and electric, Billy Haden and others
Classical: Bach vocal and solo suites, Beethoven: violin and piano concerts, Schönberg chamber music
The great Zu Mobius
When I started doing my intensive listening through headphones about 4 years ago as a result of our first daughter being born, I started to look around for a set up that would come anywhere close to my amp – speaker set up. I came up with the X-Can V3 and the Sennheiser 600s. Those seemed to be the ultimate headphones; I couldn’t even imagine better cans. Nevertheless they were later traded in for the 650s which I found to be more musical and natural sounding, quite like Sennheiser had promised they would be. I then started looking for upgrade cables. I only got to listen to the Cardas and the Zu Mobius, others are not sold in Finland, where I live. The Mobius was as much better as the Cardas, as the Cardas was better than the stock cable. I have always loved it!
Why look for others?
So why continue to look for others? Two reasons. One, this is a hobby, right? Two, much as I love the lush, natural warmth of the Zu, there was quite a bit of detail missing compared to my amp –speaker set up. I am not a nut for detail, getting all excited about hearing those fingers slip on the guitar strings at 1 minute 23 seconds into song x. But when entire instruments are missing (say, a banjo playing behind the guitar; a second voice in the background etc.), I am too far away from the live performance for me to be happy. What I would have wished for was a cable that would be as musically beautiful as the Zu, but commit fewer “sins of omission”. This could only be a silver cable.
Why silver?
Reading my way through a larger number of Headfi threads I was surprised at how many people seem to be opposed to silver cables, because of “their cold or hard or unnatural sound”. Well, all those reviews notwithstanding, a cable is a passive device. It does not have a “sound”. What really happens is this: Any signal that is sent from A to B (anywhere in this universe, above quantum level anyways) degrades on the way. You can amplify it, but that’s getting more of the same, it’s not making the signal any better. The difference between cables is not a sound of their own. It’s in the way the signal degrades as it passes through them. The loss of information experienced in a silver cable (compared to a copper cable of the same quality and build) is always smaller.
Why some people don’t like it
Why then do so many people oppose silver? Well, digital sources are hardly ever musical. For less than 2000 dollars it is very, very, very difficult indeed to find a CD-player that does not sound aggressive, bright, cold, hard and/or in-your-face. Adjectives sound familiar? Yep, that’s it. With a source like that, copper can seem the better choice because of it’s very weakness – along with all the other information that is lost, you lose the information that makes the source aggressive, bright, cold, hard and/or in-your-face.
Two wrongs don’t make a right
This may sound like a blessing, but it does mean you are hoping for two wrongs to make a right. The correct thing to do when experiencing aggressiveness, brightness etc, is to save up for a better source. Because what your source does not produce, can’t possibly be heard through speakers or headphones, either. I am not mocking people who have had less money to spend on a CD-player than I had. But headfi is full of people who are willing to trade in their headphone amp 3 times and their cans 4 times a year, always losing money, looking for a better sound and not getting it, because they are working on the wrong – the downstream – end of their chain.
Provided your source is musical and natural sounding, silver is the better choice nine times out of ten. The Zu Mobius is a silver coated copper cable. It had to be expected that a silver cable of similar build quality would provide the missing musical detail and sound better. So when Moon Audio came up with the Silver Dragon Version 2, I wanted to try it out.
Build quality
With many high end enthusiasts, sound is the only thing that matters. They look down on anyone concerned with aesthetics, build quality or other aspects. Well, with a headphone cable I disagree, because its build alone affects how comfortable it is to listen and this will affect whether you do or don’t listen at all. For all my love of the Zu Mobius, the build quality is nothing to rave about. 1) It is so stiff I find it hard to coil it up without detaching it from the cans. I basically used to attach and then detach it every night. 2) In very dry weather (such as we get all winter, up here) the rough mantling often charges electrically against my carpet. As a result I get frequent light electrical shocks, as you do when taking off a woollen sweater. Not enough to electrocute me – but enough to annoy me. 3) The plugs don’t fit nearly as well as the original stock cable’s plugs.
The Silver Dragon V2 does better in every aspect. The plugs fit in just as snugly as the stock cable’s, the cable is highly flexible, easy to coil up without unplugging, it does not charge up electrically and, on top of everything else, looks very nice. In essence, it looks and feels a lot less home made than the Zu.
Sound
First of all: I never listened to the cable before the 100 hour burn in period was over. Listening to cables (or components or speakers, for that matter), is like looking at a window with the blinds down. It does not tell you a thing about the view, or, in this case, the sound. The greatest high end products on earth can sound miserable before they are burned in.
Like the Zu, the Silver Dragon V2 is entirely silent. Even when I crank up the amp with no music playing, I get nothing but silence.
The SD did exactly what I had hoped it would do. It presented instruments and voices as beautifully as the Zu Mobius, but where the Zu seemed to reduce the music to its basic emotional components, the SD filled in the missing detail. This made each and every instrument and voice sound more genuine, more like real life. An acoustic guitar, a stand up bass, a voice, a bass drum whack, everything sounds more like it does when listened to live on stage. As a curious result, I started visualizing the instruments, almost seeing them on stage with my eyes closed. I never did that with the Zu,
The Zu creates a mental image of a dark stage, where different instruments are highlighted by a spot light here and there. With the SD, presenting more details also meant filling in the gaps and thereby connected the different parts of the musical performance to form a whole. The image is one of a well lit stage, all instruments visible all the time. Though I was putting on CDs I had listened to a lot during the last years, I was clearly hearing a lot of things for the first time.
As I said, I always loved my Zu Mobius. While listening to the SD, all the improvements mentioned above where clearly discernible, but they seemed small, nevertheless. Would I want to give up one 250 dollar cable for a new 250 dollar cable because of these improvements? Well, the best test is to simply go back to the original cable and see do you miss the new one. It took me about 5 minutes to miss it, and badly! After getting used to the refined, more musically complete presentation of the Silver Dragon, the Zu suddenly seemed to give a crude, rough drawing, a sketch, rather than a an accurate and complete picture of the music as recorded.
Conclusion
I am really excited about this cable. Comparing it to the Zu Mobius I would expect it to cost at least 150 dollars more, given the same length. But they actually are roughly the same price! This is clearly the best Sennheiser upgrade cable I have listened to. I keep rediscovering my CD collection, and what could be more fun! Moon Audio’s Drew recommends the cable for anyone who listens to classical music, jazz, acoustic music or any other kind that depends on detail. I have to agree that it is this kind of music that benefits the most. But I do not see any music not benefiting at all.
If you can trust your source to be non-fatiguing, non-aggressive, not hard or bright sounding; if it sounds musical and natural (in a word: analogue), than this is the cable you want to treat your Sennheisers, and yourself, to. In a very high quality set up, I finally have a headphone cable that matches the quality of the other components.
(And the Zu? I think I’ll keep it for my TV. Old friends are hard to part with. But as for music, there will only be one cable attached to my 650s. )
Setup
Power supply: Shunyata Research cables and power line filter
Source: Densen Beat 400 XS CD-player (comparable to Meridian G8, Linn Ikemi) (spiked on Soundcare feet)
with…
Amp: Pathos Classic One (hybrid amp) (spiked on Soundcare feet)
Speakers: Dynaudio C1
Speaker cables: Goertz Veracity AG2 (silver)
or…
Headphone amp: Musical Fidelity X-Can V3 (spiked on Soundcare feet)
Interconnects: Goertz Alphacore Triode Quartz (silver)
Headphones: Sennheiser HD 650
Headphone cables: Zu Mobius (much used for 1 year) vs. Moon Audio Silver Dragon Version 2 (burned in 100 hours)
Music
Acoustical music: The Be Good Tanyas, The Wailin’ Jennys, ave Carter and Tracy Grammer, Allan Taylor, John Gorka and others
Rock etc: Billy Joel, Lucy Kaplansky, Bruce Springsteen and others
Jazz: Keith Jarrett, Billy Holiday, Miles Davis acoustic and electric, Billy Haden and others
Classical: Bach vocal and solo suites, Beethoven: violin and piano concerts, Schönberg chamber music
The great Zu Mobius
When I started doing my intensive listening through headphones about 4 years ago as a result of our first daughter being born, I started to look around for a set up that would come anywhere close to my amp – speaker set up. I came up with the X-Can V3 and the Sennheiser 600s. Those seemed to be the ultimate headphones; I couldn’t even imagine better cans. Nevertheless they were later traded in for the 650s which I found to be more musical and natural sounding, quite like Sennheiser had promised they would be. I then started looking for upgrade cables. I only got to listen to the Cardas and the Zu Mobius, others are not sold in Finland, where I live. The Mobius was as much better as the Cardas, as the Cardas was better than the stock cable. I have always loved it!
Why look for others?
So why continue to look for others? Two reasons. One, this is a hobby, right? Two, much as I love the lush, natural warmth of the Zu, there was quite a bit of detail missing compared to my amp –speaker set up. I am not a nut for detail, getting all excited about hearing those fingers slip on the guitar strings at 1 minute 23 seconds into song x. But when entire instruments are missing (say, a banjo playing behind the guitar; a second voice in the background etc.), I am too far away from the live performance for me to be happy. What I would have wished for was a cable that would be as musically beautiful as the Zu, but commit fewer “sins of omission”. This could only be a silver cable.
Why silver?
Reading my way through a larger number of Headfi threads I was surprised at how many people seem to be opposed to silver cables, because of “their cold or hard or unnatural sound”. Well, all those reviews notwithstanding, a cable is a passive device. It does not have a “sound”. What really happens is this: Any signal that is sent from A to B (anywhere in this universe, above quantum level anyways) degrades on the way. You can amplify it, but that’s getting more of the same, it’s not making the signal any better. The difference between cables is not a sound of their own. It’s in the way the signal degrades as it passes through them. The loss of information experienced in a silver cable (compared to a copper cable of the same quality and build) is always smaller.
Why some people don’t like it
Why then do so many people oppose silver? Well, digital sources are hardly ever musical. For less than 2000 dollars it is very, very, very difficult indeed to find a CD-player that does not sound aggressive, bright, cold, hard and/or in-your-face. Adjectives sound familiar? Yep, that’s it. With a source like that, copper can seem the better choice because of it’s very weakness – along with all the other information that is lost, you lose the information that makes the source aggressive, bright, cold, hard and/or in-your-face.
Two wrongs don’t make a right
This may sound like a blessing, but it does mean you are hoping for two wrongs to make a right. The correct thing to do when experiencing aggressiveness, brightness etc, is to save up for a better source. Because what your source does not produce, can’t possibly be heard through speakers or headphones, either. I am not mocking people who have had less money to spend on a CD-player than I had. But headfi is full of people who are willing to trade in their headphone amp 3 times and their cans 4 times a year, always losing money, looking for a better sound and not getting it, because they are working on the wrong – the downstream – end of their chain.
Provided your source is musical and natural sounding, silver is the better choice nine times out of ten. The Zu Mobius is a silver coated copper cable. It had to be expected that a silver cable of similar build quality would provide the missing musical detail and sound better. So when Moon Audio came up with the Silver Dragon Version 2, I wanted to try it out.
Build quality
With many high end enthusiasts, sound is the only thing that matters. They look down on anyone concerned with aesthetics, build quality or other aspects. Well, with a headphone cable I disagree, because its build alone affects how comfortable it is to listen and this will affect whether you do or don’t listen at all. For all my love of the Zu Mobius, the build quality is nothing to rave about. 1) It is so stiff I find it hard to coil it up without detaching it from the cans. I basically used to attach and then detach it every night. 2) In very dry weather (such as we get all winter, up here) the rough mantling often charges electrically against my carpet. As a result I get frequent light electrical shocks, as you do when taking off a woollen sweater. Not enough to electrocute me – but enough to annoy me. 3) The plugs don’t fit nearly as well as the original stock cable’s plugs.
The Silver Dragon V2 does better in every aspect. The plugs fit in just as snugly as the stock cable’s, the cable is highly flexible, easy to coil up without unplugging, it does not charge up electrically and, on top of everything else, looks very nice. In essence, it looks and feels a lot less home made than the Zu.
Sound
First of all: I never listened to the cable before the 100 hour burn in period was over. Listening to cables (or components or speakers, for that matter), is like looking at a window with the blinds down. It does not tell you a thing about the view, or, in this case, the sound. The greatest high end products on earth can sound miserable before they are burned in.
Like the Zu, the Silver Dragon V2 is entirely silent. Even when I crank up the amp with no music playing, I get nothing but silence.
The SD did exactly what I had hoped it would do. It presented instruments and voices as beautifully as the Zu Mobius, but where the Zu seemed to reduce the music to its basic emotional components, the SD filled in the missing detail. This made each and every instrument and voice sound more genuine, more like real life. An acoustic guitar, a stand up bass, a voice, a bass drum whack, everything sounds more like it does when listened to live on stage. As a curious result, I started visualizing the instruments, almost seeing them on stage with my eyes closed. I never did that with the Zu,
The Zu creates a mental image of a dark stage, where different instruments are highlighted by a spot light here and there. With the SD, presenting more details also meant filling in the gaps and thereby connected the different parts of the musical performance to form a whole. The image is one of a well lit stage, all instruments visible all the time. Though I was putting on CDs I had listened to a lot during the last years, I was clearly hearing a lot of things for the first time.
As I said, I always loved my Zu Mobius. While listening to the SD, all the improvements mentioned above where clearly discernible, but they seemed small, nevertheless. Would I want to give up one 250 dollar cable for a new 250 dollar cable because of these improvements? Well, the best test is to simply go back to the original cable and see do you miss the new one. It took me about 5 minutes to miss it, and badly! After getting used to the refined, more musically complete presentation of the Silver Dragon, the Zu suddenly seemed to give a crude, rough drawing, a sketch, rather than a an accurate and complete picture of the music as recorded.
Conclusion
I am really excited about this cable. Comparing it to the Zu Mobius I would expect it to cost at least 150 dollars more, given the same length. But they actually are roughly the same price! This is clearly the best Sennheiser upgrade cable I have listened to. I keep rediscovering my CD collection, and what could be more fun! Moon Audio’s Drew recommends the cable for anyone who listens to classical music, jazz, acoustic music or any other kind that depends on detail. I have to agree that it is this kind of music that benefits the most. But I do not see any music not benefiting at all.
If you can trust your source to be non-fatiguing, non-aggressive, not hard or bright sounding; if it sounds musical and natural (in a word: analogue), than this is the cable you want to treat your Sennheisers, and yourself, to. In a very high quality set up, I finally have a headphone cable that matches the quality of the other components.
(And the Zu? I think I’ll keep it for my TV. Old friends are hard to part with. But as for music, there will only be one cable attached to my 650s. )
If your source is analog, the SD is a sure bet in any case. Also, music: If you are all about Metallica, stick to the Mobius. What you win with the SD might not be what you appreciate in music. If you like acoustic music, jazz, classical, folk etc. which depends on the sound of the individual instrument and voice, I recommend the SD. 
