Sorry I probably should qualify my comments a bit.
After spending small fortunes over the years on shop bought cables i decided to take a few apart and then spent about 6 months lost in a rabbit hole experimenting lots of different wire from different manufacturers, in different combinations. The upshot of which was the only wire that made instant tangible improvements was mono crystal copper or silver, the best of which is made by neotech, who supply most of the worlds high end hifi manufacturers, while spending very little time marketing to consumers.
The larger proportion of aftermarket and stock cables are made of oxygen free copper, some of which is silver plated to very little effect and all of the examples I’ve heard sound pretty similar. It’s much easier to manufacturer than continuous mono crystal and therefore is more readily available and much cheaper. As far as i can tell unlike interconnects or digital cables, shielding is pretty inconsequential with hp cables so anyone focus on it in the marketing is offering you that dreaded “snake oil”. The most important features to look for are the weight/ gauge and type of conductor used.
with silver you need 4 cores or more of 24awg wire, the heavier the better. Any less and the sound can be thin, cold and potentially bright. Contrary to commonly held misconceptions, silver shouldn’t sound bright, in the right quantity it should give a smooth, natural almost warm side of neutral sound, but separation and detail retrieval should be improved as should dynamics, bass will be extended and really kick, but controlled while mids should have liquid natural quality. In my experience a good upocc silver cable makes pretty much any headphone sound better. Interestingly when I’ve blind tested it on some of my long suffering audio mates, it’s been regularly mistaken for copper.
upocc copper also bucks the copper trend and is actually very airy precise with lovely full deep bass, also with a good amount of kick. Its incredibly good value. And if you’re up for getting the soldering iron out £50 (bass on 1.5m 4 core) will get you a cable that will out perform any stock cable or OFC cable at pretty much any price point.
if you don’t fancy getting your hands dirty, there are a few cable companies like artic and cosmic-cables.co.uk who are using neotech’s upocc wire and selling at a very reasonable price. I am also happy to talk through the shopping list and give point by point build instructions, but be warned once you hear what you can get for fraction of the price of often inferior shop bought alternatives, this can become highly addictive!
apologies for taking us even further off topic!
