[nlse]

I have a Moon Audio Silver Dragon on my trumpet....I mean Z7.

I am using it with a TwagV3 balanced cable vIA the ak240. Compared to the stock cable, the mid are more forward and the bass are tighter. Haven't checked the highs carefully but I am liking what I hear so far. For me, there is a noticeable improvement.

how much of an improvement would you say it is, does it impress you every time you listen to the details, as the stock-cable does give you any feeling of a high-end headphone-experience?


Does the sound come a bit more present and lush?

 

[gerelmx1986]

The more I listen to my 1R's the more i love them, they have nice natural sound and suprisingly well and accurate attack perfect for all genres i must say, the harpsichrd is accurately reprsented in terms of attack during fast passages, pachelbel organ music nice bass presentation, just as i Heard a pipe organ for the firstime in 2014 during my Hamburg stay

 

[hemtmaker]

how much of an improvement would you say it is, does it impress you every time you listen to the details, as the stock-cable does give you any feeling of a high-end headphone-experience?


Does the sound come a bit more present and lush?

I think for any systems, the initial impact will always wear out after you get used to the sound. Having said, the mid sounds a bit muted when I got back to stock. It's very hard to quantity the level of improvement as different people have different hearing sensitivities. Also, what I described as an improvement due to the change of sound, might be viewed as worse off for some. For me, I definitely enjoy the change as I also use a OCC silver cable for my Shure846 and notice similar improvements.

 

[Mickice]

Now don't go trumpeting the benefits of condoms on headphones!

I wonder if you could use a condom and mold it into a speaker diaphragm?

 

[Beagle]

I think that would be a bit of a stretch. I wonder if the old birth-control diaphragms could have been used for headphone drivers?.

 

[BRCMRGN]

  Does anybody know if the Sony balanced pin configuration is the same as the balanced mode on the PONO player? It also uses dual 3.5mmTRS for balanced operation.

The PONO balanced mode does work with the Sony Z series balanced cables.

 

[dweaver]

Hmmm an affordable balanced source... Interesting

 

[gerelmx1986]

Hmmm an affordable balanced source... Interesting

There are rumours swirling arround about the NWZ-ZX1 walkman successor the ZX2 of course, wonde rif this thing will have balanced audio, but the ZX1 was screw* expensive... wonder will be the same for the No. 2 too

 

[gerelmx1986]

Mixing sex with audio... funky haha hope it gets back to normal Z7 topics

 

[Hooster]

  I think I have found the ultimate demo disk for this headphone.
Eagles - Hotel California.

This recording comes out beautifully bright and deep all in one, its beyond fantastic.
Using my Winamp bar graph visualisation, it looks like there is some decent range on this recording too.
I am using the CD with my SONY PHA-1 DAC.

09 - The Last Resort ...started to bring a tear to my eye. 

I just came back from my local Sony shop. I listened to those headphones through a Sony HAP-Z1ES Music player and a Sony TA-A1ES amp. I played around with the files in the Music player and came across Hotel C in hi res. I have to say it was very convincing indeed. The cans are very well made and comfortable and seem capable of a very refined sound. Of course those components together with those cans make for a pretty expensive headfi system, but in this case I think you pretty much get what you pay for.
 
The way they implement their balanced cables is however very silly. I know the Japanese work so hard that they suffer from sleep deprivation, but why was everyone with a brain asleep when they decided on this?:
 

 
http://download.sony-asia.com/consumer/IM/4538073311.pdf
 
Balanced 4 pin XLR is now the industry standard. I wonder why Sony does not use it...
 
http://www.audeze.com/products/accessories/balanced-cable-4-pin

 

[HemiSam]

Proprietary intentions is the only semi-logical answer I can come up with.  Silly.
 
HS

 

[czcsfb]

Sony is silly indeed!.
 
Three ways to solve the issue:
1. My fellow in Japan bought a pair of balanced Sony standard to balanced 4 pin XLR converters which makes Sony's balanced cable able to connect to all regular balanced amplifiers, but I couldn't find this kind of converters online anyhow;
2. Make your own regular 4 pin XLR cable or mod a Sony balanced cable with 4 pin XLR plug, as I know some head-fiers have done this already;
3. Say Yes to what the manufacturer provided, buy a 1/4" plug Kimber cable MUC-B30UM1 from Sony online store like I did, as I am bad at handcraft (OK, I'm just too lazy) and cannot make my own cable. 

 

[Currawong]

Balanced cabling is supposed to have a ground connection as well. 4-pin XLRs do not. I'm not sure how they came up with their design, but it is regularly duplicated with regular 3.5mm TRS plugs, so I think it is better than, say, what Sennheiser used. Regardless, Sony are proposing a new 5-pole TRS (or rather, TRRRS) plug which is 4.4mm to cover all scenarios, be reasonably small and yet have good a contact area.

 

[Hooster]

  Balanced cabling is supposed to have a ground connection as well.

 
Why? You can connect a ground shield to the body of a 4 pin XLR if you like. I made a cable with a 4 pin XLR and I don't even remember if I connected the shield to the body or not. It works fine so it does not worry me.
 
Inside a Neutrik NC4MX, the arrow points to where you can connect the ground if you are so inclined. The other connections are obviously to the 4 pins.
 

 

[john57]

Most headphone balanced cables do not have the shield ground connected and you certainly do not want both ends of the cable shield connected to ground.