[markvj]

I've seen this refered to in countless threads - recabling a set of phones to make them "balanced" - what's this mean? What's the benefit?

 

[granodemostasa]

balenced is when the left driver is run through a different amp/dac set then the left driver. amplifiers that do this can cost anywhere from 1500 to unheard of amounts of money. to do this one would have to recable the headphone...
balencing the headphone tends to make it's sound quicker and expand the dynamic range... some headphones are easier to balence than others; for example sennheisers have a removable cable to each driver meaning that one can go from balenced to non balenced by simply pulling the new cable out and back in... while other headphones might need full out surgery to be recabled.