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Where on earth does speculation about a cable changing sound stage and tonality and technicality even come from? (alien.top)

submitted 1 year ago by IDE_IS_LIFE@alien.top to c/headphones@hi-fi.community

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I'm thinking of leaving a FB group called Chifi audio reviews because daily there's people asking the same unfounded questions about what cables sound the most transparent, or tame treble, or increase detail etc. Sometimes it's the same thing but about DACs which I almost understand (shitty outputs can make headphones and IEMs sound thin and lean but I think that's just a matter of bad designs). Burn in is another such culprit. Do just a couple of minutes of searching online and you'll be presented with facts and reasoning telling you it's bunk.

It drives me nuts, it's like having flat earthers and scientologists everywhere in the hobby everywhere I turn. It's slowly driving me nuts, lol.

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[–] Nightweeb92@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I don't particularly know where it comes from.

But, I have actually experienced something in a way with cheap off the wall Skullcandy headphones a long time ago (take it with a grain of salt). This was before I found the space and ended up with V-MODA Crossfade M-100 master that changed my listening experience.

I was once gifted a pair of Skullcandy Lowrider on-ear, they had a detachable TRRS in-line mic cable. That cable sucked, one day that cable started catching this static sound that got annoying. So I scrapped the in-line cable and bought a regular TRSS/TRSS AUX from I think Ugreen on Amazon. That cable made a subtle but noticeable difference in both volume and sound. I wouldn't say it completely changed the soundstage or anything like that, but the headphones did get a slight bump in volume and also the sound was a little more defined, nothing drastic though. The low end sounded tighter and there was a slight bit of instrument separation effect because of it too because they didn't completely sound blended together like a muddy mess as before. By comparison of what I have now those headphones are shit.

My theory on that was that the newer cable most likely had higher quality shielding with better material conduction for the input connection and the trrs connections, without any mic in between meant there was a more secure connection and signal passthrough being delivered with a secure contact connection from end to end as the original cable was in-line trs/trrs. But the input in the headphones cup could also take trrs.

I also play guitar, though instrument cables work a little differently in this area since it's analog rather than digital signals traveling.Quality makes a difference. Cheap cables affect tone and pick up electrical interference that translates to unwanted hum, in some cases just touching it would cause it too. Higher quality shielded cables will eliminate the hum, length also matters here as shorter cables produce better sound due to having less signal loss than longer cables. That loss in signal can actually be felt while playing because there's milliseconds of latency making guitar playing not feel as snappy and immediate the moment a string is hit.

So ideally for headphones, I think maybe for some a cable might make a subtle difference rather than a drastic one if the original cable is poor quality ..or it might not make a difference at all. There's variables to take into account too, but I'm not a sound engineer to get into the whole science of audio and cables, this is just my hands on experience with some things. By relative theory, what I think ..could also just be complete shit by another's personal perception experiences and scepticism. Naturally I wouldn't hold it against anyone either because audio tech science is weird.