[jon parker]

I think I prefer the wide soundstage of the 540 II, but I always had a sense of it being somewhat blurry or unclear. I would upgrade something, initially be impressed by the added level of clarity, but then gradually start to feel again like there was a blur. When I got the 560II I could right away what the difference was, and that was in the time domain; there was no bluriness because it was much faster. I'd never understood what "fast" meant before I heard that comparison, but it revealed lots of nuances that the 540II was just not able to convey due to time smearing, and the 560II felt much more realistic as a result

Thanks for that, I think you are spot on there. I LOVE the hd540 but there is something not quite right. Not in a bad way at all. Maybe a subtle characteristic that may very well be as you say.
As for the 560 II Ovation, I was doing some audio restoration work today and it really is perfect - revels EVERYTHING and yet still delivers a profoundly natural timbre, tonality etc. Again I agree with you about the speed. Im going to be thinking about that more as I work with them

 

[lantian]

I went for 0.2mm diameter single core for my interconnect and hp cable. Sourced from a goldsmith in Germany, any gold/silver handler should have pure silver and gold wire on hand buy it by mm length wise.
For my latest one went with single core 0.4mm diameter, perfect size though used the wrong insulation so made it way to stiff. Always recommend going for single thicker core, rather than many smaller ones, find best sound, also go with a bit larger size cotton for insulation, best results sound wise if you go this rout. Cotton is definitely superior insulation for audio cables.
If you do make your own let us know how it goes.

 

[Backsplash7]

I went for 0.2mm diameter single core for my interconnect and hp cable. Sourced from a goldsmith in Germany, any gold/silver handler should have pure silver and gold wire on hand buy it by mm length wise.
For my latest one went with single core 0.4mm diameter, perfect size though used the wrong insulation so made it way to stiff. Always recommend going for single thicker core, rather than many smaller ones, find best sound, also go with a bit larger size cotton for insulation, best results sound wise if you go this rout. Cotton is definitely superior insulation for audio cables.
If you do make your own let us know how it goes.

I was thinking about going with 0.5mm, which is roughly awg24, so I can have as fair a comparison as possible with extant cable, although, I wouldn't bother making it modular at this price, so it wouldn't be a true apples to apples test.
I've been thinking about cotton as the insulator though, and isn't cotton electrically conductive?

 

[Backsplash7]

Thanks for that, I think you are spot on there. I LOVE the hd540 but there is something not quite right. Not in a bad way at all. Maybe a subtle characteristic that may very well be as you say.
As for the 560 II Ovation, I was doing some audio restoration work today and it really is perfect - revels EVERYTHING and yet still delivers a profoundly natural timbre, tonality etc. Again I agree with you about the speed. Im going to be thinking about that more as I work with them

Its nice to be able to own both pairs (ouchey ears notwithstanding) so you you can enjoy both sounds, but the 540II for me is quite uppermid/treble forward but with a nice expansive stage, wheras I find the 560II to be a little less big sounding but remarkably linear

 

[lantian]

No cotton is not electrically conductive, best insulation available for audio signals at the levels we are using them. 0.5 is good size, though being single core it's more comparable to awg 20-22. Would definitely recommend 1-1.5mm cotton insulation for 0.5mm wire.

 

[Backsplash7]

No cotton is not electrically conductive, best insulation available for audio signals at the levels we are using them. 0.5 is good size, though being single core it's more comparable to awg 20-22. Would definitely recommend 1-1.5mm cotton insulation for 0.5mm wire.

Thanks, I'll have a look for that diameter of cotton! Out of interest, what plugs do you use?

 

[lantian]

For headphone plugs use ones from audiofonics.fr or the ones from cardas both basically the same. For 6.35 plug reused the stock one for one and Hicon Hi-j63s03-g for other cable.

 

[Backsplash7]

I've been having a look around to see what options I have for silver wire, and I have come across quite a few options, all of which have their own merits, so I'll need to take some time to mull things over, but I'll lay it all out anyway.

First up is 99.99% 0.5mm solid core, bare wire or teflon sheathed, this is the most budget friendly option.

Next, 0.4mm solid core with cotton and oil insulation, small price increase, but an arguable tradeoff against option 1.

Now from a brand I've actually heard of, 99.999% UP-OCC 0.51mm stranded or 0.52mm solid core, teflon insulated.

Same brand, slight cost increase, 99.999% UP-OCC 0.8mm x 0.3mm rectangular wire in teflon.

99.999% solid core with polyurethane insulation. I have no idea if polyurethane is a good dielectric.

The silver wire I've already used once actually sits at this point in the list, 99.999% 0.5mm type 2 litz, unknown insulation.

And the most expensive by far, 99.999% 2.5mm x 0.25mm ribbon in cotton and oil (wider options available, but a bit eye watering)

Essentially I'd priced up the cheapest option in my head, happy with it, and then that little voice said "but occ wire is technically better, it'll only bug you if you've left performance on the table even if it is pricier". Darned voice was right. But I was quite surprised to come across the differently shaped wire options though, which are of interest as I've never used anything other than traditional round wires before. Some brief reading suggested that the non-round wires have better skin effect characteristics as they have a higher surface area, which makes sense, though I can only guess at how important this factor would be, versus having occ conductors, so anybody who would like to chime in and enlighten me, please do. I guess that both occ and a square/flat wire probably reduces the resistance of the wire and increases the subsequent speed of the signal, but I cant find a measurement for occ vs non-occ so far.
The ribbon does on the face of it seem pretty good, but when you consider the cross sectional area, the ribbon is equivalent to around awg 19.5, which, while significant, the round occ multistrand wire is available up to awg20 for almost the same price. In this light, that makes the rectangular occ wire an attractive compromise.
I wish I had found these other options before I made my original silver cable.

 

[sennsay]

Haha, I think Donald Duck highs are what I'm getting at the moment anyway! But I've had a look into the eichmann plugs and those cables, and I definitely appreciate the need for decent pure silver plugs now, so thanks for that. Perhaps the answer is to try and make my own cables, maybe try a couple of different construction ideas and compare them. When yourself and @lantian have sourced pure silver wire, did you go for thicker solid core, or stranded?

Never stranded, which I have not seen anywhere, at least not at the time I bought all my wire. I bought both 0.25mm (like the Slinkys) 5 nines pure silver single strand wire and I found on eBay some lengths of 0.25mm x 1mm flat silver wire of the same quality. I still have the two shortish (0.5M) ICs I made with each type. Interestingly, it was the flat wire that gave the closest results to the Slinkylinks, though not as utterly even across the frequency board, they had a touch of upper mid lift, with superb bass response, almost as utterly pure as the Slinkys, whose tonal definition and lack of distortion beats anything I've heard. Not to say there isn't even better, but at what price! I've heard $5k and above ICs that most certainly are not better than the Slinkys and left me cold. As in the review above, given a good recording .. heck, even a lot of AAC files I have from iTunes ... the sheer naturalness of the midrange is quite something and utterly grainless across the board. Any recorded grain will show up instantly though, yet still be true to a human voice that has been clearly manipulated in production. The Mogami cable on the headphones lets all that through effortlessly, even if there is even better cable out there, again at what cost. If I had a pair of Meze Elites then I believe that the cost is most certainly worth it.
The LaCacanya shielded pure silver cables (1M) have silver locking RCAs and use 0.5mm solid core wire, sound terrific if you can find some, but do have that little upper mid glare at times, though I suspect if I got rid of the metal RCAs and used silver soldered Bullet plugs instead, I would get better results, it's worked for everything else I've done that with. There is a signal purity to those connectors. Danny from GR Research would agree entirely with that approach, their tube connectors for speakers work on just that purity of signal, get rid of cheap metal!

 

[moriez]

Cheers. How about simply putting two new foams on top of each other. Doesn't that come close to the thick original foam?

 

[lantian]

Cheers. How about simply putting two new foams on top of each other. Doesn't that come close to the thick original foam?

Sound gets destroyed if I do that, the material is the main thing in here, thickness is only second. Just like all foams in these headphones, they where selected after carefull RnD process to be as transparent as possible. Sennheiser no longer has or produces it. Pretty sure might be the case of it no longer being produced by anyone because of costs/ health reasons. As with most of the stuff from that decade.

 

[lantian]

I've been having a look around to see what options I have for silver wire, and I have come across quite a few options, all of which have their own merits, so I'll need to take some time to mull things over, but I'll lay it all out anyway.

First up is 99.99% 0.5mm solid core, bare wire or teflon sheathed, this is the most budget friendly option.

Next, 0.4mm solid core with cotton and oil insulation, small price increase, but an arguable tradeoff against option 1.

Now from a brand I've actually heard of, 99.999% UP-OCC 0.51mm stranded or 0.52mm solid core, teflon insulated.

Same brand, slight cost increase, 99.999% UP-OCC 0.8mm x 0.3mm rectangular wire in teflon.

99.999% solid core with polyurethane insulation. I have no idea if polyurethane is a good dielectric.

The silver wire I've already used once actually sits at this point in the list, 99.999% 0.5mm type 2 litz, unknown insulation.

And the most expensive by far, 99.999% 2.5mm x 0.25mm ribbon in cotton and oil (wider options available, but a bit eye watering)

Essentially I'd priced up the cheapest option in my head, happy with it, and then that little voice said "but occ wire is technically better, it'll only bug you if you've left performance on the table even if it is pricier". Darned voice was right. But I was quite surprised to come across the differently shaped wire options though, which are of interest as I've never used anything other than traditional round wires before. Some brief reading suggested that the non-round wires have better skin effect characteristics as they have a higher surface area, which makes sense, though I can only guess at how important this factor would be, versus having occ conductors, so anybody who would like to chime in and enlighten me, please do. I guess that both occ and a square/flat wire probably reduces the resistance of the wire and increases the subsequent speed of the signal, but I cant find a measurement for occ vs non-occ so far.
The ribbon does on the face of it seem pretty good, but when you consider the cross sectional area, the ribbon is equivalent to around awg 19.5, which, while significant, the round occ multistrand wire is available up to awg20 for almost the same price. In this light, that makes the rectangular occ wire an attractive compromise.
I wish I had found these other options before I made my original silver cable.

Flat ribbon cables are supposedly far superior to standard round ones, but have never experienced them myself. Just like single core is superior to multi strand, flat ones should be even better, than single core

 

[Backsplash7]

Never stranded, which I have not seen anywhere, at least not at the time I bought all my wire. I bought both 0.25mm (like the Slinkys) 5 nines pure silver single strand wire and I found on eBay some lengths of 0.25mm x 1mm flat silver wire of the same quality. I still have the two shortish (0.5M) ICs I made with each type. Interestingly, it was the flat wire that gave the closest results to the Slinkylinks, though not as utterly even across the frequency board, they had a touch of upper mid lift, with superb bass response, almost as utterly pure as the Slinkys, whose tonal definition and lack of distortion beats anything I've heard. Not to say there isn't even better, but at what price! I've heard $5k and above ICs that most certainly are not better than the Slinkys and left me cold. As in the review above, given a good recording .. heck, even a lot of AAC files I have from iTunes ... the sheer naturalness of the midrange is quite something and utterly grainless across the board. Any recorded grain will show up instantly though, yet still be true to a human voice that has been clearly manipulated in production. The Mogami cable on the headphones lets all that through effortlessly, even if there is even better cable out there, again at what cost. If I had a pair of Meze Elites then I believe that the cost is most certainly worth it.
The LaCacanya shielded pure silver cables (1M) have silver locking RCAs and use 0.5mm solid core wire, sound terrific if you can find some, but do have that little upper mid glare at times, though I suspect if I got rid of the metal RCAs and used silver soldered Bullet plugs instead, I would get better results, it's worked for everything else I've done that with. There is a signal purity to those connectors. Danny from GR Research would agree entirely with that approach, their tube connectors for speakers work on just that purity of signal, get rid of cheap metal!

You've gotten me thinking more about plugs, and general attention to detail. I'm now trying to find occ silver 4 pin xlr plugs, but so far have only found occ copper, or 99.9% gold/rhodium plated silver. And your remark about shielding got me thinking as well... I've noticed that in a lot of rca cables the manufacturers quite often use a mismatching metal for the shield, so the cable might be silver plate but they use a copper shield, or use pure silver wire but with silver plate shielding. I imagine this must be a purely cost-saving exercise, but I imagine that this must create some issues. Would using a matching pure silver wire for shielding make a difference do you think?

 

[Backsplash7]

Sound gets destroyed if I do that, the material is the main thing in here, thickness is only second. Just like all foams in these headphones, they where selected after carefull RnD process to be as transparent as possible. Sennheiser no longer has or produces it. Pretty sure might be the case of it no longer being produced by anyone because of costs/ health reasons. As with most of the stuff from that decade.

I finally got around to comparing the filter foams, to positive effect.
Testing with the 560II due to aforementioned issues with the 540II at the moment, but assume the same will carry over. I've been using the more transparents filters with them for as long as I've had them, and whilst I find these headphones to be linear, fast and very lifelike in their performance, if I had to pick holes, I would say that they are a little cool, slightly shy on the bass, and a little analytical. Not major problems, as I like my sound to be clear and accurrate first and foremost. Changing to the denser filters seems to address exactly those holes I've picked, and in exactly the right way. First thing I noticed was increased bass presence and a fuller midrange, but with no negative tradeoff, the bass was still quick and articulate, and the midrange didn't get bloated, it just became a bit warmer. And while there was not a trace of the detail or microdetail being reduced in any way, somehow it made it both less analytical, and more realistic at the same time.
The spacial information was still there, and the depth was still good, but it seemed like it was somehow a bit more effortless, I wasn't being shown that depth as something slightly separate, it was... unified?
Overall I agree with lantian, there's clearly something missing using the currently available official sennheiser filters. It just goes to show, you never know until you try

 

[lantian]

You've gotten me thinking more about plugs, and general attention to detail. I'm now trying to find occ silver 4 pin xlr plugs, but so far have only found occ copper, or 99.9% gold/rhodium plated silver. And your remark about shielding got me thinking as well... I've noticed that in a lot of rca cables the manufacturers quite often use a mismatching metal for the shield, so the cable might be silver plate but they use a copper shield, or use pure silver wire but with silver plate shielding. I imagine this must be a purely cost-saving exercise, but I imagine that this must create some issues. Would using a matching pure silver wire for shielding make a difference do you think?

Have had same thought process myself many times to be totally honest.
Just like you am pretty much 100% certain this is a case of cost savings, or giving them a bit of credit cost savings because performance increase is almost negligible (but my philosophy is all small things eventually add up to the whole, no matter how negligible they might seem) compared to price increase X amount of times.
There would no doubt be performance benefits using silver. If memory serves right @Whitigir has some experience using silver plates for shielding in his dap mods, and reported actuall improvements in sound quality with his hd800s.
Pur gold would be the best option ever, though almost unaffordable. Replaced my luxmans internal wires for signal with 3n pure gold 0.2mm. With pure gold in chain, like a whole nother dimension and textures beyond imagination have appeared .
Though gold is incredibly easy to burn with the temperature needed to solder, would say almost as finicky as voice coils in these headphones, but doable.
Getting everything made of pure silver is second best, and probably only viable option.
Also can recommend using mundorf solder with4%gold in it. Getting pure silver RCA plugs should be no issue if you can order from UK. Check out hifi collective. Those are my go-to guys for audio grade components for diy or repairs, have amazing stock.
Getting pure silver 6.35 jack's , believe futuretech might have something, but not sure.
But as for headphone plug itself pretty sure only option is to buy some pure silver rods in that diameter, file and cut them to size by oneself and get someone to 3d print the smaller size casings for it.
If I knew anyone who has a 3d printer would have already done this myself.
Sorry for getting so carried away and this is all readable.