[dougms3]

Has anyone tried the red cable with Sony z7 or z1r? Significant improvement?

 

[vo_obgyn]

Anyone using the Red cable with the Focal Clear (original) cans? Significant upgrade SQ-wise from the stock Focal cable?

 

[dougms3]

A little late and not the comparison you wanted but... I had the Black Dragon single ended for my Focal Elears. Moved up from them to some Wireworld Nano Eclipse and a month ago to the Wywire Platinum. I really like the Platinum a lot. Was going to try the Red but with the 40% off I decided to try the Platinum thinking I would send them back if didn't impress me. They're not going anywhere.

I copied your logic and also pulled the trigger on the Platinum xlr cable thinking I'd return them if they didn't offer a significant improvement.

They are not going anywhere lol. They're staying with me until a technology is invented to make them obsolete.

I was a bit worried when I got them because they didn't seem impressive out of the box. The wires were very light, thin, and a bit microphonic to be honest, quite unimpressive to say the least. But I figured I'd give it chance and run it through the recommended 200 hour (ugh) burn in time before judging too harshly. Ran it through 200+ hours of a mix of pink, brown and white noise with some listening in between. There were some swings in the sound characteristics during this time period, especially the bass. Freshly connected, it killed alot of bass then slowly came back, mostly during the tail end of the burn in period.

It adds another dimension to the music but its difficult to describe all of the things it does. It seems to bring microdetail forward, make it clearer and detailed while also making it more audible. The separation is enhanced significantly, it is just another level with the cable. The mids and treble are the most affected, there only seems to be minimal change with the bass. The treble has more energy but not overbearing.

My ears adapt fairly quickly to the sound and even though its noticeable while listening, I really get a sense of the gap in difference with my other cables when I swap back to them. The mids and treble are significantly quieter. I have to concentrate to hear the faint microdetails and they are recessed and less clear. The reduced level of separation almost seems muddy by comparison. It might be enough of a difference that if I were to blind test someone they might think it were two different headphones.

Its difficult to justify the price for most people because it is quite expensive but I would say its enough of a difference from the cables I've compared it against to justify it for me. Also I have 3 headphones that I can use with this cable so theres that.

Tested the cable on my Sony Z7m2 and Pioneer SE-Monitor5.

Other cables used were custom cables from xinhs 8 core graphene, gold/silver/copper 8 core, custom cable from Flexoh xlr cable on etsy, stock Sony 4.4mm balanced cable, stock Pioneer 2.5mm balanced cable.