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Headphone Cables - Do we really need anything beyond copper, OFC at best?

kemmler3D said:
Yep. The only thing we know of that we aren't sure is quantized is gravity. And they're pretty sure it is, too.
Click to expand...
Gravity is part of the universe. As far as we know, the universe and everything in it is grainy.
 
If your 'quantum' is imperfect, it can be 'purified.' One of the greatest audiophile snake-oil scams ever. :cool:

Bybee Quantum Purifiers
 
MoreWatts said:
If your 'quantum' is imperfect, it can be 'purified.' One of the greatest audiophile snake-oil scams ever. :cool:

Bybee Quantum Purifiers
Click to expand...
This scam beats Bybee.

ASI Resonators: Angel bowls

Test - recenze Acoustic System International Resonators
www.audiodrom.net
I was at an audio club meeting maybe 15 years ago where this product was demonstrated. I was the only one out of 12 that called “bullshit” on hearing any difference with these things taped to various places on the walls, etc. The rest were all “drinking the kool aid”. Naturally, the more you purchased the better the results.
 
Chrispy said:
Not that ETP is audibly different either.
Click to expand...
We don't know exactly. Theoretically yes, but who has been able to test this in practice so far?
Assume that most, if not all, tests with different cables were absolute nonsense because all the cables used were OFC and the copper was manufactured using the OCC process, even if it doesn't say so on the label.

We have yet to do a test like this with maximum ETP (better worse), but we had to put it on hold. Because although we have good contacts in the industry worldwide and are a customer of several smelters, I was unable to get stranded cables that were maximum ETP or worse.

We had tested countless samples with a laser-based material analysis system and even the cheapest hardware store strips, speaker cables, power cables, cheapest stranded cables for hobbyists, etc., were made of higher quality material. Even cables that were definitely manufactured at least 10-20 years ago were better than ETP, and that was the case with 2 samples from the 90s.

That's clear, because these productions were changed over 30 years ago. Of course, this isn't about cables for the audio sector, but rather that this high-quality copper is much easier to process, pull into strands and twist. In addition, the much lower susceptibility to oxidation is another major advantage in production, since strand pulling, twisting and cable production usually have different production sites and the material is exposed to humidity and weather for weeks.

I still know speaker cables from the 70s/80s that oxidized in the living room over a period of 5-10 years. I haven't come across that since the 90s.
 
kemmler3D said:
When the room temperature superconductor hype was happening a while back, I started a thread on what it could mean for audio if it panned out. (It didn't of course). In the thread, it was not obvious to anyone what you could do with a superconductor that would obviously improve on regular old wires.

And yet we still have people desperately trying to improve on regular wires with slightly different regular wires...
Click to expand...
I somehow remembering reading that a room temp superconductor would have to be kept under unimaginably high pressure to work at all. Not doable practically. Doubt that superconducting wire would have little practical value in audio; it would simply be an incremental improvement, if at all. Now if all the voice coils, inductors and interconnecting wire were that way, then maybe you'd have something there.
 
OK1 said:
This rabbit hole is deep. For many many years, in professional music, I was familiar with OFC - Oxide Free Copper. All my cables were just OFC, nothing more.

The ARTTI T10 came with silver plated copper cables. And I do have one KZ silver plated copper cable, which I bought out of curiosity - not expensive. Thought I was doing well.

Today, I discovered there is more in audiophile land - OCC - Ohno Continuous Cast. Where does it end? One just has to stop somewhere. In professional audio - copper without any trimmings is good enough, and that is what is used to create the music and audio we listen to. Just copper for analog cables, no coatings, of any kind. That is what runs or is installed in the top professional studios and home studios - just copper - yes very likely OFC copper, but nothing more than copper in the cable strands.

Makes me wonder why are we going overboard in enthusiast land - silver coatings, silver cabling, graphene, silver copper alloys, and now OCC.

There's an acronym for this excessiveness - OCD. The audio cables in our studios, radio stations, broadcast houses, mastering suites, post production, all made of just copper, nothing else, coated with insulating material. None of this other excess. The people who produce what we hear use nothing else but copper. Nothing else. So why are we trying to hear it with esoteric materials. like silver and graphene? Ridiculous if you ask me.
Click to expand...
Looks like a "Nothing's too good for my little Fi-fi; do you understand? N-n-n-n-nothing!" effect.
 
egellings said:
a room temp superconductor would have to be kept under unimaginably high pressure to work at all.
Click to expand...
This is how the real, existing ones work, but a year or two ago someone claimed to have done it at room temp and normal pressure, so there was a lot of speculation about it. It turned out to be bogus.

I am not sure if superconducting wire would actually help with VCs, inductors (crossovers?) or any of it. At what point is the resistance of copper really a limiting factor for an amp or speaker? I'm not enough of an engineer to know, but I haven't heard anyone bemoaning the fact that we have to use copper for these things, wishing for something better.
 
1st.Virtual.Me said:
Dave Rat did some measurements on 4-wire versus 3-wire headphone cables. It turns out you want 4-wire cables.
Click to expand...
Yep... for headphone cables you really want 4-wire cables (even for TRS plug connections).
Especially for low impedance headphones.

a 3-wire cable can actually make a headphone sound different when the common (return) wire is too high in resistance.
You won't measure tonal balance issues but stereo imaging can be audibly different.

see:
www.audiosciencereview.com

Austrian Audio Hi-X60 Headphone Review

The output resistance of the amp is irrelevant in this case because it is in series with the signal and not the return (ground) path. The culprit is the resistance of the single return wire in combination with the low impedance of the headphone. So it looks like it isn't the short wiring in the...
www.audiosciencereview.com www.audiosciencereview.com

The conductor material isn't the problem, the wire thickness and resistance is.
The lower the headphone impedance the worse the effect is. Ohm's law.
 
Last edited:
OK1 said:
This rabbit hole is deep. For many many years, in professional music, I was familiar with OFC - Oxide Free Copper. All my cables were just OFC, nothing more.

The ARTTI T10 came with silver plated copper cables. And I do have one KZ silver plated copper cable, which I bought out of curiosity - not expensive. Thought I was doing well.

Today, I discovered there is more in audiophile land - OCC - Ohno Continuous Cast. Where does it end? One just has to stop somewhere. In professional audio - copper without any trimmings is good enough, and that is what is used to create the music and audio we listen to. Just copper for analog cables, no coatings, of any kind. That is what runs or is installed in the top professional studios and home studios - just copper - yes very likely OFC copper, but nothing more than copper in the cable strands.

Makes me wonder why are we going overboard in enthusiast land - silver coatings, silver cabling, graphene, silver copper alloys, and now OCC.

There's an acronym for this excessiveness - OCD. The audio cables in our studios, radio stations, broadcast houses, mastering suites, post production, all made of just copper, nothing else, coated with insulating material. None of this other excess. The people who produce what we hear use nothing else but copper. Nothing else. So why are we trying to hear it with esoteric materials. like silver and graphene? Ridiculous if you ask me.
Click to expand...
It is all nonsense.

Copper is all you need. There is no audible benefit in any other material. Even OFC is un-needed, though you often get it "for free"
 
Roland68 said:
We don't know exactly. Theoretically yes, but who has been able to test this in practice so far?
Assume that most, if not all, tests with different cables were absolute nonsense because all the cables used were OFC and the copper was manufactured using the OCC process, even if it doesn't say so on the label.

We have yet to do a test like this with maximum ETP (better worse), but we had to put it on hold. Because although we have good contacts in the industry worldwide and are a customer of several smelters, I was unable to get stranded cables that were maximum ETP or worse.

We had tested countless samples with a laser-based material analysis system and even the cheapest hardware store strips, speaker cables, power cables, cheapest stranded cables for hobbyists, etc., were made of higher quality material. Even cables that were definitely manufactured at least 10-20 years ago were better than ETP, and that was the case with 2 samples from the 90s.

That's clear, because these productions were changed over 30 years ago. Of course, this isn't about cables for the audio sector, but rather that this high-quality copper is much easier to process, pull into strands and twist. In addition, the much lower susceptibility to oxidation is another major advantage in production, since strand pulling, twisting and cable production usually have different production sites and the material is exposed to humidity and weather for weeks.

I still know speaker cables from the 70s/80s that oxidized in the living room over a period of 5-10 years. I haven't come across that since the 90s.
Click to expand...
You think that etp and ofc sound different? Seriously?
 
1st.Virtual.Me said:
Dave Rat did some measurements on 4-wire versus 3-wire headphone cables. It turns out you want 4-wire cables.

Oh, and Check cheap cables you buy with a magnet :)
Click to expand...
So you can go wireless and eliminate the number of cables needed? Or wireless is effected by the presense of oxygen too ? Hmmm...
 
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