The starfield cable is litz but most people don't like it so I'm not sure how much of a difference litz even makes.
The orb stock cable is actually pretty nice imo, but it only comes in 3.5mm sadly..I'm back to stock cable with Orb. No need to tinker with cables and tips. I figured out what was my problem with Orb. That's the same problem that I have with most of my IEMs. Experiments with EQs led me to realize - that best soundstage and realism are achieved when I flatten the Harman curve, that most IEMs have. L3 has a flatter curve and that's probably one of the reasons I like it.
Blessing2 (Crunch) Orb(Enhance)
With that EQ Blessing was giving me TOTL level of performance. Orb was behind, but it's $100 cheaper and also subject to bass preferences. On the go, Orb will be my choice of audiophile sound. Fit, isolation, and inconspicuous look. Check, check, check.
Thie Legacy3
BGVP Zero is another non-Harman tuned IEM. Very unusual warm mid-bassy tuning, but I find it not only acceptable but quite addictive, especially with acoustic. Zero I don't EQ. It sounds so open that most of my IEMs sound congested in comparison. (except L3, EQ-ed Blessing2 & FH7)
Once I remove excessive lower treble, - minimal boost brings Orb to perfection and I get bigger soundstage, no congestion while still enjoying delicious bass and vocals. It was that 4-8K elevation that created perception of severely rolled off upper treble. Problem solved. I still will experiment with more advanced EQ, but even basic tools of EQFI improve sound dramatically.
Found 20 band EQ with adjustable band frequencies on Android, but it's finicky and I'm still trying to make it work.
Tripowin 16SPC is what I actually tried, then I tried tinsel type 8SPC, kind of like this but pure SPC:
I'm curious why you say overly thick cables may degrade quality. At least with speaker wires this isn't the caseTripowin 16SPC is what I actually tried, then I tried tinsel type 8SPC, kind of like this but pure SPC:
It was boosting all treble too much, making lower treble hot, not actually helping the roll-off. So, for me cable swapping is over for now. If I have to EQ anyway, I could as well not comlicate that task by introducing cable FR. Overly thick cables may actually degrade quality. So, with 16 cores we're pushing our luck already. That 16SPC works well on my Roland though.
My experience has been that thicker cables may degrade the quality. Degradation is minor, so - it's just lesser evil that we chose. Cable inductive resistance attenuates higher frequencies. It can be mitigated by using SPC that compensates frequency dependent loss, putting skin-effect vs inductive resistance effect. Success of that compensation depends on carefully chosen cable makeup(# of SPC/copper #threads/cores, braid). If cable is super-high quality is designed to be neutral and not change highly precise original tuning. Or, (like Beyer/Senn) - IEMs are tuned for thinner, more comfortable cable. (Love German companies pragmatism). Has anyone tried to replace ier-z1r or M9 cable? Sony stock cable is the only one that sounds correctly with those IEMs. Daa, they're tuned for that cable.
With speakers it's not the case, because on that scale cables are usually not overly thick. With speakers we have several orders of magnitude higher current, and as a result of that - inductive loss is much higher. On top of that higher frequencies are lost through capacitance of the longer cable. So, with thicker multi-threaded cable the loss is compensated. (Amount of surface concentrated in the same diameter matters).
I'm going to play devil's advocate here and say correlation is not causation. The only part of what you said that makes sense to me is what you said about capacitance. Technically having a wire that's too thick and too much capacitance can have the effect of a low pass filter but as far as I'm aware you would need both a very overly thick/long cable and a very underpowered AMP.My experience has been that thicker cables may degrade the quality. Degradation is minor, so - it's just lesser evil that we chose. Cable inductive resistance attenuates higher frequencies. It can be mitigated by using SPC that compensates frequency dependent loss, putting skin-effect vs inductive resistance effect. Success of that compensation depends on carefully chosen cable makeup(# of SPC/copper #threads/cores, braid). If cable is super-high quality is designed to be neutral and not change highly precise original tuning. Or, (like Beyer/Senn) - IEMs are tuned for thinner, more comfortable cable. (Love German companies pragmatism). Has anyone tried to replace ier-z1r or M9 cable? Sony stock cable is the only one that sounds correctly with those IEMs. Daa, they're tuned for that cable.
Many audiophile companies however, lately started to get on the bandwagon, and include substantial looking and feeling thick cables to satisfy the expectation of expensive luxury product.
Xelento has very thin cable for comfort reason and IEM is subsequently tuned for that cable. If you attach thick SPC - you will change original tuning. I've done that with Xelento because I wanted brighter sound. Accuracy wise it was inferior, just sounded better with some genres. When I used EQ - I've gotten better results with stock cable. Same with Orb.
With speakers it's not the case, because on that scale cables are usually not overly thick. With speakers we have several orders of magnitude higher current, and as a result of that - inductive loss is much higher. On top of that higher frequencies are lost through capacitance of the longer cable. So, with thicker multi-threaded cable the loss is compensated. (Amount of surface concentrated in the same diameter matters).
Let's say, If IEM puts out 100db with 10mW of power and average speaker needs let's say 10W(probably more). Take 5mm thick 8 core cable and make it x1000. It will be thicker than fire-hose. It's already too much for IEM (IMHO), not too much for a loud-speaker.
So, what we (audiophiles) are doing - is just fine-tuning IEM to our preferences without the trouble of EQ-ing.
But, when cable is too thick - it has higher capacitance, that puts more load on power Amp, (often unpredictable, how that output handles that kind of load). Both capacitance and inductance of the cable may also react unpredictably with IEMs own. Lower conductivity doesn't benefit IEM.
So, my philosophy is - to minimize thickness when possible.
I think that thin 8 core braided cables should be a reasonable limit, that isn't pushing the tolerance of the Amp output too much. So many times I've connected thick cable to correct minor FR issue and found that sound is not clean anymore. Sometimes it boosts also frequencies you don't want to boost (happened with ORB), and with some sources you also get more distortions.
If only EQ on Android was not such a pain in the neck...
I'm not suggesting that you should always worry about distortions and other signal degradation. My point of previous post was - that if I had good EQ on every device, I'd be choosing cables by look and comfort, given that they're good enough quality. For high-end IEMs, I also would stick to similar design - to not interfere with IEM tuning. A few posts earlier on this thread, in my reply to Dsnuts I said, that I practice Cable-matching extensively. I have dozens of cables that I try with different IEMs until I find synergy.
This is consistent with the science. I've read the same impressions from Legend X owners, who experimented with expensive cables. I don't have experience with pure silver. Theoretically, pure silver shouldn't be much different from pure copper of the same design, so I didn't see the need to pay for more expensive material instead of built quality.
