HP/IEM cables and SQ

Discussion in 'Modifications and Tweaks' started by Stuff Jones, May 22, 2021.

  1. Stuff Jones

    Stuff Jones Friend

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    I know this is probably a tired eye roll topic for many, but maybe some still have interest and indulge the topic again. I had my first come to Jesus cables might make an audible difference moment after being an indifferent skeptic. Note that it was only suggestive and I can't be bothered to really experiment. I replaced an SPC cable with a nicer UPOCC cable for my UM 3DTs. The upper mids harshness which many including myself noticed and james444 and others modded away seems tamed and the sound smoother and fuller. These are the stereotypical characteristics of copper, from what I've read. But I was a skeptic so not expecting to hear a difference.

    Note that my source has changed too, which obviously makes a difference. The copper cable is balanced while the SPC SE. So I'm not making any claims, but I am now more open to becoming a cable belieber. Plus, open mindedness to once dubious phenomena is in the air with all the UFO revelations...

    Anyway, I'm curious if there's any kind of SBAF consensus on cables. Do they make a difference? If so, how? Metal type? Purity of the metal? Girth?

    And what does one do with the measurement nerds who measure no difference between cables? Or the double blind test that found people couldn't consistently distinguish between speakers connected with coat hangers and expensive wire?
     
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  2. Woland

    Woland Friend

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    Be careful how you interpret what you read on forums. There's a lot of self-selection going on.

    People who have tried rolling cables, tubes, caps, streamers etc and found they make no difference stop buying them, reading about them, and posting about them. Maybe they post their observation once or twice and get anecdotal responses or 'shit-post' tags, so they move onto something more rewarding. So you don't see many posts from these guys.

    Meanwhile people who do hear differences goad each other on. See head-fi or Reddit for this in the extreme. But there's still a degree of that here on SBAF, especially by 'randos'. You'll find a lot more posts by these guys, because they haven't gone silent.

    I don't know of anywhere where you can get a balanced view.
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2021
  3. HotRatSalad

    HotRatSalad Friend

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    I think cables can make a difference on IEM if they are super sensitive. I've been using 3DT with a bright source (claimed by many) and a pure silver cable and never had an issue with upper mid harshness. That's usually the area I dislike most on IEM's and DAPS.
    I have an SPC cable also of decent quality and a copper cable. I've been using the dusk on loaner with an SPC cable, I should swap to my silver and see if I notice anything. I got the impression of better clarity and openness and tightening up of the sound more than anything going from SPC to Silver on 3DT. I did not really hear less bass or more highs though. Can you share the copper cable you are happy with, need a better one myself.
     
  4. Stuff Jones

    Stuff Jones Friend

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    I got this. It's the only niceish cable I've purchased so I'm no expert, but ergonomics are good and the plug is nice and small. The 3DT apparently has some 2 pin fit weirdness, but this fits with a little carefulness and persistence.

    https://audio46.com/products/effect-audio-maestro-in-ear-headphone-cable
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2021
  5. HotRatSalad

    HotRatSalad Friend

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    Thanks for sharing, wow a sane priced effect cable who knew ! I got a KB ear limpid pro 8 core and its nice for $23 (normally $80 but did anyone ever pay that for it ?). Ergonomics are great, it's thick but so supple and disappears. Been wanting to get a better pure copper. My SPC is a tripowin c8 from amazon so I didn't have to wait a month from AE. I have no issues with it and like it. 3DT works well with both as far as the pins go, pretty snug though.
     
  6. bilboda

    bilboda Florida boomer

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    I try not to worry about that stuff. I purchased an upgrade for my Empyreans because they sound different than the tour pair I had heard and I have read they are a complete and obvious upgrade in multiple reviews including some I trust. If it doesn't work, I return them. if there is a restocking fee, I consider it worth the price. At some point I will take that approach to the iconoclast rca's xlr's and maybe speaker wire...30 day trial
     
  7. fastfwd

    fastfwd Friend

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    You tell us.

    Why does that matter?

    Ignore them, same as they mostly do to people who hear a difference.

    Blind tests don't do what people think they do. They're great for testing a person's ability to perceive objective differences -- e.g., I hold up a circle/triangle/star and you, blindfolded, prove that you have ESP by identifying it. Or I play a FLAC and a 320K MP3, and you prove that you have golden ears by telling me which is which. Blind tests test PEOPLE.

    But if you're evaluating speaker wires, what you want to know -- ALL that you want to know -- is whether buying a particular wire will improve your subjective experience. You're testing the wire, not yourself.

    To get an accurate result, you need to test the wire under accurate conditions: as if you'd actually bought it. A blind test makes that impossible, since of course you wouldn't be blind to the look, cost, construction, manufacturer, etc., of cables that you'd bought.

    This means that wires might sound better to you only because you know that they're expensive. Or who knows, maybe because they look expensive but aren't. Or because they're made by a manufacturer with a cool name, or they came in a carved walnut box or something. So what? The point -- the only point -- is that they sound better to you. Who cares why? What difference does it make?
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2021
  8. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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  9. Stuff Jones

    Stuff Jones Friend

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    Oddly confrontational but I'll bite. I had hoped my post made it clear that I didn't have much experience and therefore lack strong opinions. Hence the question to others.

    Matters in the context of what? I'm curious. It's up to you and others to determine whether or not that matters.

    Why? Why exclude their purported evidence?


    Does this apply to your understanding of medical testing as well? With a large enough sample, double blind tests parse real effect from placebo.

    Speak for yourself and what you want to know. I want to know if something actually works.

    All of us are smart enough to parse these different factors. Knowing whether or not a cable actual improves sound is completely separate how ergonomic and appealing you find it.


    Your question is why try to understand our biases and try to think and perceive the world closer to how it is? This is a remarkably incurious view. And it's also odd that this weirdly post modern view that each of our subjective experiences > objective truth applies only to cables. Why measure any audio component or sound at all, or try to understand why different components and designs induce different audio performances?
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2021
  10. Stuff Jones

    Stuff Jones Friend

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    Last edited: May 23, 2021
  11. bilboda

    bilboda Florida boomer

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    Good sound theory is here. Read the Design Theory and the Blogs and Links. Nothing for hp's but the concepts are the same and the measurements are real and in depth.
    https://iconoclastcable.com/index.htm
     
  12. fastfwd

    fastfwd Friend

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    Didn't mean to be confrontational. My intent was simply to emphasize that, in my opinion, your own subjective experience is what's important.

    Yes, sometimes even if the subjects know they got the placebo. More evidence that the subjective experience matters, and also that double-blind tests are fine for testing people, but aren't reliable for testing THINGS.

    Well, yeah. But define "actually works". Do you mean "sounds better to me", or do you mean "produces a measurable improvement in the sound"?

    If the latter, it's easy to know: First measure to see whether there's even a difference, then decide whether that difference is in the direction of improvement. There's no meaningful difference that can hide from modern measurement tools -- or even decades-old tools: My cheap used oscilloscope shows 80-nanosecond square waves crisp as can be, and my ancient AP System One can measure THD+N of like -100dB (or it would, anyway, if I bought a new power supply for the equally ancient PC that runs it).

    But you've already said that you hear differences that "measurement nerds" can't see. So if that's what "actually works" means to you, then clearly the only way to judge is through your own experience.

    I disagree. Which makes it easy for me to explain why someone might hear a difference even when no measurable electrical difference exists. That's the question you're asking, right?

    No. My question is why not accept that your experience is real even if it isn't shared by or provable to the rest of the world?

    Now, in your case you seem to have changed other things in addition to the cable, and nobody's actually measured your two cables and pronounced them to behave identically. So there might really be a shared/provable explanation for this particular experience.

    But if in the future you find yourself hearing a difference where none can be measured -- like an atheist who sees a miracle -- what are you going to do? Call yourself a liar?

    I didn't say that. My view applies to all other audio components, too -- and to cars, art, etc. And it's not exactly "> objective truth"; it's more like "> objective measurement of the narrow set of characteristics that some nerd thinks are important".

    My position isn't that performance of a component is completely arbitrary and unpredictable. OBVIOUSLY measurements are meaningful. What I'm saying is basically three things:

    1. Other characteristics matter too, differently to different people -- unlike measurements, which are understood to mean more or less the same thing by everyone.

    2. It's not unexpected that a characteristic that's important to a listener (even subconsciously) might manifest to that listener as something audible, even if it doesn't actually affect the measured behavior of the audio system -- just as a placebo can cure a disease even if it doesn't actually contain a compound that cures the disease.

    3. If you're cured by a placebo, you're just as healthy as if you were cured by real medicine.
     
  13. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    I've stopped playing around with IEMs and their cables, but my general preferences were against SPC and for fat pure copper cables. As an example, the stock "Litz" SPC cable that came with Andromeda sounded very tinny and shrill. Changing to a large gauge pure copper cable smoothed out the treble and fattened the bass. I have found this tendency for most IEMs though usually to a lesser extent, as well as for full-size headphones.

    So for me: SPC = bad, phat pure Cu = good
     
  14. Stuff Jones

    Stuff Jones Friend

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    I think we're talking past each other. I'm not interested in placebo effects, which are intuitive and well established across a range of human experiences. I'm sure the placebo effect explains at least part of peoples perception of differences between cables. My question is does it explain all and if not, what explains the rest?

    In other words, I'm trying to understand if there's any objective basis for there being SQ differences between cables. I'm agnostic on this question and interested to evidence of all kinds: theoretical, measurements, empirical studies with listeners, self experiments, informed speculation, whatever. I'm simply curious! (And a little confused why this topic seems so controversial).

    What is your opinion? Do you think there is an objective SQ difference between cables, regardless of whether we can currently measure it or "prove" it?
     
    Last edited: May 24, 2021
  15. fastfwd

    fastfwd Friend

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    There is. Cable assemblies have varied capacitance/inductance/resistance, so if you arrange things right (e.g., high cable resistance and capacitance, weak driver, low-impedance load) they'll form filters that attenuate different portions of the audio band. And they have varied sensitivity to EMI, so some will pick up more interference at the mains frequency, or from RF sources, than others.

    There are objective SQ differences, but none that cannot be measured.
     
  16. bilboda

    bilboda Florida boomer

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    And there is just no way of knowing what exists that cannot be measured. If you think we know all there is to know about physics, that we have "arrived" you will always be mistaken, not matter how much more we learn, there will always be more unknowns.
    So. I haven't heard anyone talking about the Speed of Sound as discussed by Galen Gareis in his website and elsewhere or Vp, velocity of propagation. Different frequencies travel along a wire at different speeds.
    So there is just one thing that can be measured that you weren't aware of.
    It starts:
    "BACKGROUND: Speaker and Interconnect cables for the audio range have an Achilles’ heel that must be directly addressed, or is often completely ignored. Audio cables are more about the TIME dependency of the signal through the audio band than simple attenuation, resistance, or the concept that we just need low resistance, capacitance and inductance. We can’t allow capacitance or inductance to actually go “as low as we can” while balancing the cable’s velocity of propagation’s non-linearity through the audio range. What changes are happening when we consider the Vp differential and what can we do to INCLUDE this in our DESIGN? Do we even realize what the speeds of various frequencies are through the audio band?"

    https://iconoclastcable.com/techpapers/vpandimpedance.pdf

    It's worth a read, it's a long paper, lot's of measurements and coherent thought that explains his final designs.
    Within these designs, there are different choices of wire available which yield consistent subjective differing results that have defied measurement . Now if only he would make a headphone cable.

    There is a ton of info on that site if you want answers to your questions, I'd start there.
     
  17. fastfwd

    fastfwd Friend

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    I stand by my statement that there are no objective SQ differences between cables that cannot be measured.
     
  18. bilboda

    bilboda Florida boomer

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    prove it...r u implying that "objective SQ differences " don't exist, only subjective SQ differences do?
    Is this what Steely Dan implied with Pretzel Logic?
     
    Last edited: May 24, 2021
  19. fastfwd

    fastfwd Friend

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    No. Right above your previous post, I wrote, "There are objective SQ differences, but none that cannot be measured."
     
  20. bilboda

    bilboda Florida boomer

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    hmm, I wonder if I am beginning to understand. In order to be objective, it must be measurable. If it cannot be measured, it cannot be objective. hmmm...what did you think of the velocity of propagation measurements and how to mitigate time distortion caused by the varying speed of different frequencies through a wire?
     

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