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cable change?
- Thread starter zag55
- Start date
widemediaphotography
Active Member
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- Jul 2, 2023
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NEVER!
If you want increase the performance go to next level of Headphone or headphone amp (often the cost is less than changing the cable)
If you want increase the performance go to next level of Headphone or headphone amp (often the cost is less than changing the cable)
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I had a dongle DAC that had approx 2x power on balanced output, so I bought a cheapo $18 4.4mm balanced cable from aliexpress that looked okay (7N OCC). Ergonomically, it's nicer than the stock hifiman edition XS, but soundwise it's brighter and loses a lot of bass. (I'm now absolutely.a believer that the cable does change the sound.) I also have a desktop dac with identical single ended and balanced output so i can compare the two cables directly, and the stock cable sounds way better.
I don't know how much I need to spend to get cable that sounds as good as the stock, much less better, but it's probably not worth it considering for $70 more I could've upgraded to the Ananda. (Some people might consider it a downgrade or sidegrade but that's another discussion.)
I don't know how much I need to spend to get cable that sounds as good as the stock, much less better, but it's probably not worth it considering for $70 more I could've upgraded to the Ananda. (Some people might consider it a downgrade or sidegrade but that's another discussion.)
DVDdoug
Major Contributor
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There's no logical-scientific reason for the cable to make a difference. Headphones cables are even less-critical than any other audio cables.
But, with the wrong connection you can get L-R subtraction which kills the "center", killing or reducing the lead vocals and the bass which are almost always centered (the same in both channels).
If you have a setup with a balance control, or where you can disconnect one side or the other, you can check that. If you are getting L-R cancelation you'll have a mono signal and you won't be able to get left-only or right only. (Or with Audacity you can create a file with one silent channel.)
filo97s
Active Member
sound quality-wise obviously no.
You're lucky enough that the HE-400SE doesn't have the same trash cable as superior headphones build quality-wise, so it doesn't make sense to change neither for this reason (the sleeved cable of the HE-400i/560/ananda and so on is way too stiff, and microphonic)
But if you like a better looking cable, who am I to stop you? Even on my headphones I switched the cable for this reason, with a mogami cable sleeved in a paracord by myself.
You're lucky enough that the HE-400SE doesn't have the same trash cable as superior headphones build quality-wise, so it doesn't make sense to change neither for this reason (the sleeved cable of the HE-400i/560/ananda and so on is way too stiff, and microphonic)
But if you like a better looking cable, who am I to stop you? Even on my headphones I switched the cable for this reason, with a mogami cable sleeved in a paracord by myself.
Thanks. What do you mean by with the wrong connection? Like they wired the cable wrong?
This isn't really an issue. I think he's just saying if the cable is wired wrong (broken) it can mix the channels? This can happen, depending on the cable, I have a balanced cable that is wired wrong for a specific headphone I have and that did result in mono (and shorting the amp) but it just means the cable is broken. It's like saying if you take a scissors and cut a cable in half, it reduces the volume level. It does, but that's not really a general point about cables.
With working cables you do have a bit of crosstalk between left and right due to the shared ground but it's very low down. You don't have this issue with balanced cables but it's not an issue worth worrying about anyway.
Balanced cables give you access to the balanced output on an amp and particularly with portable stuff and harder to drive headphones they make a lot of sense. But this is nothing to do with the cable which is physically identical to a single ended cable, just wired differently in the jack. Balanced theoretically, and often in reality on small portable devices is 2x the voltage, 4x the power, or +6dB. You'll certainly hear that, if you have a harder to drive headphone, but it's nothing to do with the cable. If you had cable A and always used that with your smartphone/laptop, and then you got cable B and always used that with a proper amp, you would attribute that to the cable, would you? It's the different amp output, not the cable.
in this case, though, I'm using a desktop DAC with identical output rating for 6.5mm and 4.4mm (the "balanced" connection is only for convenience). So the difference I'm hearing is really in the cable.
hence my puzzlement.
Edit: I hear clearer difference between the cables than between Fiio KA13 dongle DAC/amp and SMSL C200 desktop dac/amp, which sound practically identical even though they're from two different companies, use different chipsets, and one has 2x power output and costs 2x as the other. With Edition XS, anyway.
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I use an OKCSC 2.5mm balanced cable with my HE-4XX, but only so I can plug them into my Qudelix 5K and the 4.4m output on my Topping A50s (with an adapter).
It is a decent cable for not a lot of money: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B58ZMMFW
I have purchased a 4.4mm 'balanced cable' from AliExpress, that wasn't balanced at all. I could tell even before removing the barrel on the 4.4mm connector as there was not enough wires in the braided cable coming out of it!
Right, one of your cables is broken then. Or there's something broken in the amp where the two outputs aren't actually performing the same.
Headphone cable will use 4 wires, and it uses 4 wires whether it is balanced or single ended, so you can't tell this way. Headphones do not use the 5th ground on a 4.4mm connector. This is used for interconnects or 4.4->3.5mm adapters.
It would be theoretically possible for a single ended headphone cable to use 3 wires up to the Y-split and then 2 each side from there, splitting the ground at the Y split rather than the jack, but I have never in my life and hundreds of cables seen a cable that does this. It would be substantially more expensive to make, so hard to see why anyone would do it.
The only difference between a single ended and balanced cable is the single ended cable connects the L and R ground to the same pin inside the jack. Balanced connects the negative to two different pins. They are physically identical otherwise and both use 4 wires.
solderdude
Grand Contributor
Yes, they could have wired the cable incorrectly (on one side only) in one of the headphone side connectors or the amp side plug.
The headphone will sound quite different in that case and you'll have to have experienced it to find out what's wrong.
Differences will mostly be in the stereo imaging.
When the 'return wire' has a high resistance in SE configuration the stereo imaging will be really weird and mono signals (bass, voices) will sound different.
All easy to check with a multimeter.
There should not be an audible difference, certainly not obvious ones unless something is wrong.
The 'balanced adapter' cable in question was terminated with a female 2.5mm TRRS barrel connector and a male 4.4mm Pentaconn barrel connector. The connectors were joined with multiple conductors which had been braided. There were only 3 conductors.
In my experience, there are many headphone cables with only 3 conductors up to the split or all the way to one of the ear cups. It's not hard to comprehend why a manufacturer would not waste money on a superfluous copper conductor. The AKG K371 in front of me have a cable terminated with a 3.5mm TRS plug and a 3 pin mini-XLR plug, are you suggesting that these plugs are connected with 4 signal wires?
OK, no, I understood you wrong. You said "a 4.4mm 'balanced cable'" not an adapter. I took that to mean a headphone cable. What you got is clearly a broken adapter. I have had headphone cables wired wrong as well, but that's when something is wired wrong.
I am thinking of headphone cables (not adapters) with dual sided entry on the headphone side, like your HE-4XX, all IEMs, most headphones. They have two wires going to each cup, so 4 conductors. Hence my reference to a split, single-sided entry cables won't have a split.
If it's a single cable which has only three pins on the headphone side, then sure, that will only have three conductors. But it's impossible to get a balanced cable for a headphone with a single 3 pin mini-XLR plug so the question of a balanced cable for that simply doesn't come up. People who want to run such headphones balanced need to open up and rewire the internals of the headphone and expose a 4-pin socket, or modify it to dual sided. There are a few single-sided headphones that do have 4 pins natively, so it's possible their cables could be either 3 or 4 wires, but this is getting into the very niche.
What I have never seen, is a dual entry cable that was only three wires from the split to the jack. It's always joined in the jack. I don't doubt this may exist somewhere but 99.9% of dual entry headphone cables will work this way.
You may be right, however, I bought an aftermarket cable for my HE-4XX with the intention of replacing the TRS plug with a 4.4mm TRRRS for connection to my Topping A50s balanced output. I cut the TRS plug off and there were only 3 signal wires going up to the split. This is why I ended up buying the 2.5mm TRRS to 2x 3.5mm TRS cable I linked to above.
It would a lot easier to tell if everyone used the same construction as Sennheiser do for their HD-6xx series headphone cables: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ctor-headphone-cable.21576/page-2#post-721714
