[snarfarlarkus]

Thanks for the review link. And who are the trust worthy people on ebay? And how much would it cost to repair my silver poison although after reading that link, i feel like i am going to buy the silver widow but frank isn't replying to my emails

 

[nephilim32]

IJimmy,

Succintly put.  Thank you! I whished I had those skills.

I agree.  Silver (or high skin-to-volume ratio litz cables) allows better high-frequency transmission which results in better treble reproduction, more details, better soundstage and tighter bass.  Often this sound could appear (pardon the poor choice of word)  to be more detailed but brighter and thinner. I would like to add two important points in selecting the right cable for the headphones

First, its is not  a simple matter of accuacy or quality, but also that of sonic matching.  I found to the detriment of my pocket book hat the most accurate--or arguably the highest-quality cable--is not always the best cable for all headphones.  Quite the contrary.  The underlying assumption here is that our headphone are perfect and accurate tranducers (sound reproducers).  In most cases, that's far from true.  The HD800 for example, one of my favorite pair of headphones, throws an amazingly large soundstage in addition to great inner details and a very tight and deep bass. Alas, the upper registry suffers from a very iiritable harshness and sibilance.  I found that silver or silver/copper cable exacerbates these flaws and make the headphones sound not only overly bright but also thin as though there is hardly any bass at all. On the other hand, when coupled with an arguably less accurate or, as you apty put it, more colored copper cable such as Frank's Copper Venom, you've got...pure magic.  The sound stage remains quite wide but the sibilance and harshness all but disappear and the bass becomes fuller, more impactful and still quite taut.  in a nutshell, we should not select the best or most accurate cable but the cable with the sonic characteristics that best complement those of our headphones.  With Franks cables I found that the best matches are:  HD800/Copper venom (no silver please); LCD2-3/Silver Poison; HE-6/Copper Venom.

Second, the matching is even trickier than I just described as it goes beyond the cable because after all we listen to the whole audio system:  amplifier/cable/headphones.  It is the sonic characteristics of each component, link in the chain if you will, and how they interact with one another that determine the final quality of the sound we hear.  While the way the amp, cable and headphone sound separately and generally (with a variety of systems) are good starting points, the final combination could still surprise you.  I'll leave the discussion of the amp selection for another place and time. 

Cheers.      

And here is

I just got the cables today and emailed Frank that I had received the silver poison cables for the HiFiman HE-400s. They are really beautifully made and sound just fantastic. I have had them on for 2 hrs. and can't over the sound difference just by changing cables.
Thank you again Frank for the great cables. Didn't mind waiting for them. It was worth it.

 

And here is the quote that has completely won me over in order to have assurance that a cable pairing such as the 'Venom' with the HD 800's can be just about perfect. I love what you have to say here, and I'm confident that when I get my copper venom sans the silver, it will smooth out that sibilance and treble. That has been my goal. I hope, truly, that this cable will work. Thus, Justin what kind of termination did you select with your copper venom from Frank? Lastly, is there a quality difference in your findings from the terminations you've selected or tested out? Ie ibasso, rhodium cyaide gold etc. ?

 

[nephilim32]

No blog unfortunately. When customers contact me to ask what options i have, i usually tell them about the new products then.

Justin_Time owns most of my cables for each headphone, god knows what he does with them all  , so he knows of most of my new releases.

Justin is a ridiculously good source for your product testing. I love it.

 

[Kiats]

Justin is a ridiculously good source for your product testing. I love it.

We would all happily volunteer to be guinea pigs, please.

 

[Justin_Time]

Justin is a ridiculously good source for your product testing. I love it.

Thank you for your kind words.
 
For the Silver Poison and Silver Widow, both tremendously transparent cables, I spared no expenses.  For the LCD3, for example, I selected 4-pin single XLR connector to take advantage of powerful balanced outputs. Furthermore, I chose silver pins for the XLR connector--ridiculously expensive elsewhere but relatively affordable with Frank--to make sure I get the most transparent cable possible.
 
For the Copper Venom, however, I simply selected the 4-pin XLR connector--it weighs less than two 3-pin XLR-connectors--of high quality (Furutech) to get the best gain and quietest sound.  I have not tried different materials for the XLR but the Furutech connectors are apparently among the best (gold plated, copper if memory serves but I know little else).  You may already know that Frank does not simply use OCC (Ohno Continuous Cast) copper, but he uses rectangular OCC wires of large gauge and treats the wire surface with gold and some magical surface finishing.  Of course, the whole thing goes into a cryogenic sleep so that it wakes up from the cold slumber restful and ready to serve.
 
Good luck on your Copper Venom.

 

[hifimanrookie]

Thank you for your kind words.

For the Silver Poison and Silver Widow, both tremendously transparent cables, I spared no expenses.  For the LCD3, for example, I selected 4-pin single XLR connector to take advantage of powerful balanced outputs. Furthermore, I chose silver pins for the XLR connector--ridiculously expensive elsewhere but relatively affordable with Frank--to make sure I get the most transparent cable possible.

For the Copper Venom, however, I simply selected the 4-pin XLR connector--it weighs less than two 3-pin XLR-connectors--of high quality (Furutech) to get the best gain and quietest sound.  I have not tried different materials for the XLR but the Furutech connectors are apparently among the best (gold plated, copper if memory serves but I know little else).  You may already know that Frank does not simply use OCC (Ohno Continuous Cast) copper, but he uses rectangular OCC wires of large gauge and treats the wire surface with gold and some magical surface finishing.  Of course, the whole thing goes into a cryogenic sleep so that it wakes up from the cold slumber restful and ready to serve.

Good luck on your Copper Venom.

I agree with u..for best performance balanced xlr is the way to go..i even went more extreme on my special BW...i went on the dual mono dual 3pin XLR route. 1 completely seperated cable per channel....and frank choose his best XLR connectors for my cable with real carbon fibre on them..Yep..with silver pins and yess...it sounds heavenly.

.as i already said...the copper venom frank is now cooking for me (8wire dual mono dual 3pin XLR also) will have to be extremely good to better this! But knowing frank i am sure it will be..it will be a master piece..

 

[snarfarlarkus]

I have a few questions that i am confused with, sorry.

Is the cable "copper venom" a new cable frank is making? And how does it compare to the silver widow?

Does a balanced xlr make the cable sound better? And can i get q balanced xlr with an xlr to 6.3mm adapter just so it sounds better than a normal 6.3mm cable?

And is it really true that silver pins sound better than gold?

Thank you guys, sorry that i dont really understand. I appreciate the help greatly.

 

[Justin_Time]

I have a few questions that i am confused with, sorry.

Is the cable "copper venom" a new cable frank is making? And how does it compare to the silver widow?

Does a balanced xlr make the cable sound better? And can i get q balanced xlr with an xlr to 6.3mm adapter just so it sounds better than a normal 6.3mm cable?

And is it really true that silver pins sound better than gold?

Thank you guys, sorry that i dont really understand. I appreciate the help greatly.

Snarfarlarkus,
 
Pronouncing your User Name may be harder than answering your questions.
 
No, the Copper Venom is not Frank's newest cable.  It came out about the same time as the Silver Poison, just before the Silver Venom, if memory serves.
 
Balanced wiring tends to sound quieter than single-ended wiring. More important, balanced outputs from amplifiers tend to have more gain than SE output from the same amp, which is what you need with power-hungry ogre like the Hifiman HE-6, not so much with the Sennheiser HD-800.
 
The gold-plated plugs work fine with copper wires.  The silver pins seems to help if you use silver wires.  Well, they cost so much it helps ease the pain to think that they sound better....
 
As to which wires, silver or copper, work better, I would answer by repeating what I wrote quite a while back:
 
==============
 
... Silver (or high skin-to-volume ratio litz cables) allows better high-frequency transmission which results in better treble reproduction, more details, better sound-stage and tighter bass.  Often this sound could appear (pardon the poor choice of word)  to be more detailed but brighter and thinner. I would like to add two important points in selecting the right cable for the headphones

First, its is not  a simple matter of accuacy or quality, but also that of sonic matching.  I found to the detriment of my pocket book that the most accurate--or arguably the highest-quality cable--is not always the best cable for all headphones.  Quite the contrary.  The underlying assumption here is that our headphone are perfect and accurate tranducers (sound reproducers).  In most cases, that's far from true.  The HD800 for example, one of my favorite pair of headphones, throws an amazingly large soundstage in addition to great inner details and a very tight and deep bass. Alas, the upper registry suffers from a very iiritable harshness and sibilance.  I found that silver or silver/copper cable exacerbates these flaws and make the headphones sound not only overly bright but also thin as though there is hardly any bass at all. On the other hand, when coupled with an arguably less accurate or, as you apty put it, more colored copper cable such as Frank's Copper Venom, you've got...pure magic.  The sound stage remains quite wide but the sibilance and harshness all but disappear and the bass becomes fuller, more impactful and still quite taut.  In a nutshell, we should not select the best or most accurate cable but the cable with the sonic characteristics that best complement those of our headphones.  With Frank's cables I found that the best matches are:  HD800/Copper venom (no silver please); LCD2-3/Silver Poison [or Silver Widow]; HE-6/Copper Venom.

Second, the matching is even trickier than I just described as it goes beyond the cable because after all we listen to the whole audio system: DAC/amplifier/cable/headphones.  It is the sonic characteristics of each component, link in the chain if you will, and how they interact with one another that determine the final quality of the sound we hear.  While the way the amp, cable and headphone sound separately and generally (with a variety of systems) are good starting points, the final combination could still surprise you.  I'll leave the discussion of the amp selection for another place and time.
 
======
 
I hope this helps. 

 

[hifimanrookie]

I have a few questions that i am confused with, sorry.

Is the cable "copper venom" a new cable frank is making? And how does it compare to the silver widow?

Does a balanced xlr make the cable sound better? And can i get q balanced xlr with an xlr to 6.3mm adapter just so it sounds better than a normal 6.3mm cable?

And is it really true that silver pins sound better than gold?

Thank you guys, sorry that i dont really understand. I appreciate the help greatly.

I will try to go through ur questions one by one as good as i can

- No, its not a new cable.its been around a while..but just recently it got more attention because more and more people are finding out how good they are and buy them...

There are basically 2 models until now.. The copper venom and the silver venom..both in 8wire and (RC4) 4 wire versions...frank told us he going to introduce a more affordable venom line soon.

Compared to the silver widow? Well check the last few pages.. It will tell u all u wanna know about the two cables

Yes and no..it all depends on the amp ur using...my new amp has single output and dual XLR..and my headphone connected to the dual XLR sounds more powerfull...and faster..as if its less restricted.. But as i said..it all depends on ur amp..a well built quality single ended amp can be just as good...XLR doesnt mean its always better!

And no..an adapter doesnt make ur cable sound better

About Pins/ connectors...well..some say it does influence the sound a bit because of the metal used..other say its snakeoil theory...but fact is that a good connector does help the connection between amp and cable....whether its silver based, copper based etc.

And PS..the connectors are never pure gold..they are goldplated copper..or better rhodium plated copper..or silver plated copper,of just partly silver pins ( never found pins thats 100%silver though)

Hope this helped a bit..and if anyone has something to contribute to this or if i said something wrong..pls do corrct me

Damn justin..ur a fast typer u were lightling fast with ur reply... Well.at least the man with the hard to say username has his anwers

And what justin says..getbthe right cable for ur headphone..not just the most expensive one..same thing with the rest of ur rig..get components that sound best TOGETHER..not just the most expensive ones u can buy...

 

[longbowbbs]

 

I have a few questions that i am confused with, sorry.

Is the cable "copper venom" a new cable frank is making? And how does it compare to the silver widow?

Does a balanced xlr make the cable sound better? And can i get q balanced xlr with an xlr to 6.3mm adapter just so it sounds better than a normal 6.3mm cable?

And is it really true that silver pins sound better than gold?

Thank you guys, sorry that i dont really understand. I appreciate the help greatly.

I will try to go through ur questions one by one as good as i can

- No, its not a new cable.its been around a while..but just recently it got more attention because more and more people are finding out how good they are and buy them...

There are basically 2 models until now.. The copper venom and the silver venom..both in 8wire and (RC4) 4 wire versions...frank told us he going to introduce a more affordable venom line soon.

Compared to the silver widow? Well check the last few pages.. It will tell u all u wanna know about the two cables

Yes and no..it all depends on the amp ur using...my new amp has single output and dual XLR..and my headphone connected to the dual XLR sounds more powerfull...and faster..as if its less restricted.. But as i said..it all depends on ur amp..a well built quality single ended amp can be just as good...XLR doesnt mean its always better!

And no..an adapter doesnt make ur cable sound better

About Pins/ connectors...well..some say it does influence the sound a bit because of the metal used..other say its snakeoil theory...but fact is that a good connector does help the connection between amp and cable....whether its silver based, copper based etc.

And PS..the connectors are never pure gold..they are goldplated copper..or better rhodium plated copper..or silver plated copper,of just partly silver pins ( never found pins thats 100%silver though)

Hope this helped a bit..and if anyone has something to contribute to this or if i said something wrong..pls do corrct me

Damn justin..ur a fast typer

u were lightling fast with ur reply... Well.at least the man with the hard to say username has his anwers

And what justin says..getbthe right cable for ur headphone..not just the most expensive one..same thing with the rest of ur rig..get components that sound best TOGETHER..not just the most expensive ones u can buy...

 

[hifimanrookie]

Why did i expect u posting this smiley after my long reply

 

[longbowbbs]

 

Why did i expect u posting this smiley after my long reply

 

[Justin_Time]

Carbon fiber...Hmm. Never had anything like that.  Intriguing!
 
Please let me know how that turns out.
 
Cheers!

 

[snarfarlarkus]

Wow! Thank you so much hifimanrookie and justin time. I really do appreciate it. 
 
Since I enjoyed the SP with my LCD 2, I think I will go with the SW.
 
As for the whole silver/gold pin thing, is that only for balanced cables? If silver pins are considered better for silver cables then I don't see how a balanced to 1/4" jack adapter wont benefit the sound of the cable? I could easily be wrong and I probably am. 
 
And do you guys recommend sleeving on your cables? I prefer the look of no sleeving as I like the look of the braiding of the cables but my previous cable was twisted so much that it kept kinking and eventually ripped... I don't want that happening again, ever.
 
And also an important question for me is, what is a 1/4" jack that can easily be taken out of the source? I owned a SP and it sounded lovely but I got up forgetting that the headphones were on my head as no music was playing and I've adjusted to the weight of the LCD2s and the cable length wasn't long enough so it completely ripped off the left entry plug. The plug was still in the headphones but the cable just ripped. I was surprised as I paid so much for that cable and I would have expected the jack to slide out of my Lyr but instead, the cable just ripped and the jack remained inside the Lyr, unfortunately... The jack was I believe a rhodium jack. 
 
Thanks so much!

 

[nephilim32]

Of

Thank you for your kind words.

For the Silver Poison and Silver Widow, both tremendously transparent cables, I spared no expenses.  For the LCD3, for example, I selected 4-pin single XLR connector to take advantage of powerful balanced outputs. Furthermore, I chose silver pins for the XLR connector--ridiculously expensive elsewhere but relatively affordable with Frank--to make sure I get the most transparent cable possible.

For the Copper Venom, however, I simply selected the 4-pin XLR connector--it weighs less than two 3-pin XLR-connectors--of high quality (Furutech) to get the best gain and quietest sound.  I have not tried different materials for the XLR but the Furutech connectors are apparently among the best (gold plated, copper if memory serves but I know little else).  You may already know that Frank does not simply use OCC (Ohno Continuous Cast) copper, but he uses rectangular OCC wires of large gauge and treats the wire surface with gold and some magical surface finishing.  Of course, the whole thing goes into a cryogenic sleep so that it wakes up from the cold slumber restful and ready to serve.

Good luck on your Copper Venom.

Thank you for your kind words.

For the Silver Poison and Silver Widow, both tremendously transparent cables, I spared no expenses.  For the LCD3, for example, I selected 4-pin single XLR connector to take advantage of powerful balanced outputs. Furthermore, I chose silver pins for the XLR connector--ridiculously expensive elsewhere but relatively affordable with Frank--to make sure I get the most transparent cable possible.

For the Copper Venom, however, I simply selected the 4-pin XLR connector--it weighs less than two 3-pin XLR-connectors--of high quality (Furutech) to get the best gain and quietest sound.  I have not tried different materials for the XLR but the Furutech connectors are apparently among the best (gold plated, copper if memory serves but I know little else).  You may already know that Frank does not simply use OCC (Ohno Continuous Cast) copper, but he uses rectangular OCC wires of large gauge and treats the wire surface with gold and some magical surface finishing.  Of course, the whole thing goes into a cryogenic sleep so that it wakes up from the cold slumber restful and ready to serve.

Good luck on your Copper Venom.

Of course man. No problem. And thanks for the magic info.
I'm looking forward to getting into the cable game with my HD 800's.
I have an ARCAM irDAC and the BURSON SOLOIST SL (opted not to grab an amp with XLR for it isn't necessary for my Senns) to pair with my Sennheisers, so I'm thinking the copper venom is the very last missing link to my audio paradise preferences.
I need an 11 foot cable so it's gonna be mighty expensive!!