IEM cables

I know talking cables in audiophile circles is like talking politics at the dinner table. Nevertheless, assume you want to buy a balanced cable to take advantage of your gear's superior balanced output. Two questions:

1. Generally is silver vs copper clarity vs body as purported? Should one aim to balance warm IEMs with silver and bright ones with copper?

2. Does anyone have a go to source for cheap (<$100) balanced cables? Anyone tried Penon's?

xxx. Do cables make a difference?

 

In my limited experience with IEM cables (and cables in general), I've found that SPC definitely has a brighter sound than plain copper, and definitely prefer the latter with Andros and EX1000s.

I think most aftermarket "upgrade" cables can be terminated balanced, as long as the L/R ground lines are separate. So you could get a cheaper SE cable and just reterminate it as required.

There are a lot of cable discussions scattered throughout the IEM general discussion thread.

 

You could try VE cables, they have some pretty good quality Junkosha although it's a bit microphonic https://www.veclan.com/engappliance_sel_one?eng_ApplianceVo.eac_id=16
Not the prettiest but quite cost effective and you get a plethora of options.

Also note that they now have 4.4mm balanced female adapters starting at 10USD, which i've been looking everywhere for.

 

There was a time when Silver cables were typically brighter and offered better clarity, where as coppers offered warmth and body and thus began the stereotyping. And today things have shifted slightly. Now there are silver cables that are warm (some cables from Silver-Fi, EA Thor II) and Copper cables that are clarity focused (EA Ares II, PWAudio 1960 4-Wire). So it is almost to a point where it is impossible to guess how a certain cable would sound just based on the material/metal.

As for pairing the cable and IEMs, I see people doing different approaches. Sometimes they try to balance it out by pairing a warm IEM with a dry type of cable. But then I also people pairing a warm IEM and a warm cable to improve on the warmth and body further. In fact I see people listening to 64Audio Fourte with bright cables as it brings some improvement in other areas.

So basically:
1) No pre-defined Right or Wrong. What ticks your preference is Right
2) People's preferences seem to change from time to time. So I see people (including myself) enjoying a bright cable this week and switch over to a warm cable next week to soak in the warmth
3) IEM cables is a slippery slope

Most cheap cables (<$100) from what I have seen are SPC cables which give an impression of improved performance by boosting the treble. I try to stay away from SPC cables. Their negatives in most cases outweigh the benefits, at least for my own preferences as they in most cases never get the mid-range right. But not all SPCs sound the same either. For example Rhapsosio Dark Knight 8W is actually slightly warm and slightly bright due to focus on upper-bass and lower-treble. Where as a certain SPC cable from Null Audio had a focus on sub-bass and had dry mid-range with a bright treble.

I'd recommend either the PWAudio No5 or the EA Ares II. Both are different sounding although both are OCC Copper Litz 4 Wire cables. And depending on your preference, I could say which might be the better option for you. And yes, you can order them with Balanced plug. I also see people saying nice things about Impact Cables on Etsy. But I haven't check it out myself.

XXX It depends on the cable. Some cables offer very little difference while some offer a noticeable difference

 

Does anyone have favorite adapters? I've got a SE, balanced 3.5 and balanced 4.4 sources.

Is any suggestions to affordable and reliably go between these sources?

 

1. One head-fier has a cable terminated with mini-XLR and 4 separate pigtail adapters (3.5, 2.5, 4.4 and Dual 3.5) that connect to the mini-XLR. I think that is a cool system. The cable was built by the head-fier who goes by the username Peterek. I have good stuff about his cables although I have not tried one myself.

2. I know Whiplash Cables used to make modular cables. Not sure what type of interconnect they used though. I'll try to dig up some info.

3. The system that some cable manufacturers are following is have the cable terminated with a straight pin 2.5mm TRRS plug and then have 3.5mm SE and 4.4mm Bal adapters/pig tails.

 

You can now buy these interchangeable connectors : https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?sp...k0fHg&id=561242923838&ns=1&abbucket=12#detail

 

If cables do indeed improve SQ can a cheap connector degrade it?

 

Simple answer is, Yes. They become the weakest link in the chain. But its not possible to quantify the difference. You don't need exotic plugs. Just a decent one should do. The plugs from most cable sellers these days are pretty good.

 

I have the ALO Audio Green Line cables for my full-size headphones that use this system as well. I'd think that this would make an IEM cable annoyingly stiff and heavy.

I am interested in the best solution to this problem though.

 

16 wire silver cable with jade splitter. Is this even portable anymore?
Is this what portable audio has become?..... I want it.
https://penon-official.com/product/penon-draco/

 

Looks can deceive. The most comfortable IEM cable I've ever had was a soft, thick braided copper Pentaconn terminated IEM cable made by @Forza AudioWorks. While it looked thick, this actually made it incredibly convenient, due to being virtually tangle-free. It was also incredibly comfortable in use. Oh, and it looked extremely cool, due to unnaturally neat and regular braiding. It was more comfy than a Superbax cable, to my mind.

Sometimes a hefty-looking cable can be a good thing.

 

On the plus side, it can double up as a short climbing rope.

 

ALO makes good solid reasonably priced IEM cables. WyWires and Norne make the best cables I have heard and own. I have not heard WyWires new IEM cable. I have two PlusSound IEM cables. I bought my son a HiBy R3 for Christmas along wirh a Norne IEM cable and my old CA Vegas.

 

I found a really nice OCC copper iem cable that I think everyone who uses iems on SBAF should buy if you like OCC copper cables. It's the Effect Audio Maestro cable. It was just discontinued by Effect Audio, and replaced with a thicker cable, but they are available in limited supply from Audio 46. the cable is almost as thin as the Campfire Audio regular Smokey Litz cable, but not as flexible though still flexible enough. But it's extremely thin and well made. When you put them on, they just disappear. The only cable I've found that is more flexible is the Lunashops 16 core 7N OCC copper cable, but it's much thicker and heavier.

Sound is really good too.

Audio46 has a limited supply and they're on sale or 100$ from I believe $175 originally.

https://audio46.com/products/effect-audio-maestro-in-ear-headphone-cable?variant=36282451427484

 

Balanced cable for $24.99 + $2 global shipping: https://oeaudio.shop/products/oeaudio-mcp-cable-with-plug-adapters

Plain-Jane molded-plastic over OFC, but with 4-pole 2.5mm plug and 4.4mm Pentacon & 3.5mm SE adapters, with a choice of 2-pin or MMCX connectors. Haven't tried it myself, but OEAudio stuff seems to have a good rep and for the price, well...

 

How do most iem cable makers create the earhook?

I'm asking because I'm trying to get Matt at Forza to make me one of his iem cables with an ear hook and I don't know exactly what to ask him to do. he says he can do memory wire, but I don't know what that is exactly, or if most iem cables have memory wire or heat shrink for the ear hook or both. I'm not sure what the thin extra layer is that most ear hooks are made of.

But I need a way to heat up the ear hook and change its shape. Because my iems use 2 pin connectors, so if the ear hook is straight, the cable runs right into my ear and then pulls the iems out of my ears. So I heat up the ear hook and bend it in towards my head as well as around my ears. It's the only way iems with 2 pin connectors work for me.

A cable order I really need from Forza is delayed because of confusion about this so I really need to just tell him exactly what I want. Memory wire and heat shrink? Or is it something else that cable makers use for that extra layer that creates the ear hook and which can be re shaped with heat?

Thanks!

I wasn't sure where to put this question, there's multiple cable threads, but this one seemed best.

 

I have three examples of twopin iem cables. Looks to me like putting the cable into a shape mold and hitting it with heatshrink would be the easiest solution.

 

This will primarily be for the purposes of entertainment with some hopefully useful information to others who also own Andromeda 2020s, but I did end up getting a Tripowin Perles cable on sale because: 1.) I thought it looked interesting, and 2.) the stock Campfire Smoky Litz cable is now getting so rigid as to be actually frustrating to store and put the IEMs on. Nearly poked my eye with the 3.5mm end, which was when I drew a line and decided to swap the cable out.

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The Campfire cable (black) was significantly narrower gauge than the new cable (silver and brown) which I DID suppose would lower inductance and allow for a more direct "line of sight" between the amplifier and the balanced armature array in the Andromeda 2020s, but honestly even with prior experiences with cables making significant differences with more sensitive transducers e.g. my now-rehomed Klipsch HP-3, I wasn't expecting for this to make a night-and-day difference in terms of sonics; what I was really hoping for was to, finally, get a decently-made MMCX cable that wouldn't act as if it'd overdosed on a certain name-brand Little Blue Pill after a few months in my climate.

Shortly after placing an order and a few days before the cable arrived, I do some digging into Tripowin since it's not a brand I'd heard of before. I look up some threads on head-fi and notice a couple things, namely that it bore no small amount of resemblance to a $620 IEM cable named the Lakable Master Series Takumi II and that both progenitor and clone sported a flat braid design.

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Literally never seen anything like it before, and it wasn't until after I fell down the rabbit hole of looking into these things that I realised that Campfire's own Time Stream cables were braided similarly, albeit in a less gaudy colourway.

"Well that's going to make for interesting ergonomics. Meh, as long as it's durable I can't complain for the $40 it cost."

The cable arrives and I unbox it, noting that the texture of the sheathing is very sticky and tacky. Unpleasantly so. Okay, you get what you pay for I suppose, hopefully that sense of ick diminishes with time. For anyone curious, here's an audio recording of myself rubbing fingers along the cable. Mind your volumes: https://on.soundcloud.com/4Xo4XuBiJeXvAqed9

All's well that ends well, aye? I got a decent deal on what looks to be a passable clone of a significantly more expensive cable. Should sound more or less the same, particularly since I only ever use the Andromedas portably out of a FiiO BTR7 which is far from being the last word in fidelity or performance. End of story... not.

So one reason I never got around to writing up on the BTR7 is that.... I simply forget to, because I just don't think it's all that grand. I got one blind after playing with the iFi GO blu on several occasions and coming to the conclusion that it just wasn't a pairing that worked. The two preloaded filters on the FiiO were fun to play with for a while, but other than that it's a reasonable sounding thing with MUCH better Bluetooth coverage than the GO blu, and higher OI besides which I did think would NEED to be a factor given how sleepy the Andromedas are out of low-z outputs. The FiiO ended up doing basically what I wanted, but while I appreciated how it presented an expansive headstage with the Andromedas and wasn't too much a downgrade in resolution going from wired, the treble was on the hashier and indistinct side for me. I'm far from being a super-hearer (I swear Bandcamp just really messed up their FLACs somehow), but the treble hashiness on the BTR7 made it so that I had a harder time sinking into music and really loving the Andromeda 2020s.

Those of you who've seen the thread where I complain about the very thin ADLC dynamic drivers in the Campfire Solaris while applauding their excellent aftersales may remember that my using the Andromedas are somewhat of a compromise; a concession to my ears apparently being inhospitable to Solaris drivers while keeping to a similar voicing, albeit with different sensibilities and timbre. After the third time an ADLC driver died on me, I just gave up and opted not to spend more on international shipping and repairs (a.k.a. replacements).

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Imagine my surprise when I realise that I end up rather abruptly liking the Andromeda 2020s following the cable swap. PLACEBO, I think at first, there is NO WAY that this is making that much of a difference! Somehow, the headstage feels more similarly "sculpted" to that of the OG Solaris; actual stage size may not have changed all that much, it remains hard for me to tell, but individual sonic images were suddenly much better-fleshed-out, and while the very low bass remains fartier by comparison, suddently there's quite a bit more impact that brings it closer to what I got out of the Solaris. Again, it doesn't come close to matching that sense of tectonic rumble that the OG Solaris had whenever recordings called for it, but it's nowhere near being as reticent as I'd heard it as being in the months I've had the Andro 2020s.

The treble of the Andromedas, especially when paired with the FiiO BTR7, was always something I'd found more fatiguing and unrefined vis-a-vis the original Solaris (n.b. I know that the Solaris only uses its DD driver for lower frequencies and uses BAs for the middle mids on up, including the mid-treble region, but I swear that the Solaris is somehow more refined-sounding. Magic, it is); following the cable swap, holy crap, the treble was nowhere near being as bothersome! There was a sense of some things being muffled, and I did find myself cranking the volume a couple notches more on the BTR7 to get to "I'm actually focused on listening to this" levels, but overall, I was suddenly pretty damned happy with the Andromeda 2020s. How the hell did a simple cable swap manage that?

This is something that I feel could matter for context: The Magni Piety which is my default amp still (the Unity is more technically proficient IMO, but the Piety's just more fun) has an output impedance of less than 0.6R at either gain setting; the FiiO BTR7 has an OI of 1.8R for its single-ended output and an OI of 2.8R for its balanced output. Here's how much of a difference going from the Piety (BLUE trace) to the BTR7's single-ended output (GREEN trace) ended up making, both measurements taken with the stock Campfire Smoky Litz 3.5mm cable:

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It's subtle, but that's a pretty wide shelf all things considered; no wonder I felt that the Andromeda 2020s were perhaps slightly too muted out of near-0 OI sources. Right, so here's how the Andromeda 2020 measures out of the Piety with the new cable (ORANGE trace):

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Ah. No wonder I felt it had a lot more bass impact and was a touch muted in the upper octaves by comparison. Kinda wish my cheapo old multimeter hadn't broken cuz I'd love to test both cables out.

There WERE some differences as well in distoriton levels and harmonic profiles that didn't simply mirror FR, but given how noisy my space is (even though I conducted these measurements with several thick jackets thrown over the MiniDSP rig to mitigate outside noise) I don't feel those are particularly trustworthy. Impulse response was also different between cables, but again: cheap rig and high possibility of human error from an unskilled operator. Either way, the looser IR of the Tripowin cable could be argued by the frequency response absolutists to be exhibited in the increased low end SPL.

If nothing else, this personally stands as another testament to how FR doesn't near enough explain everything. Normally I'd find that this to be too muddy to tolerate for very long. Heck, even with the Andromedas already having significantly more bass than the Solaris (there are enough images here now but FR traces using different tips are in the Campfire Customer Service thread) I still found them far more anemic and insubstantive in the very low end. FR also doesn't do anything to explain just how different the perceived timbre of BA drivers are from more conventional DDs, how the ADSR envelope between the two technologies are just disparate). Either way, I'm pretty happy with the Andromedas now following the cable swap and that icky tacky sticky feeling is already beginning to vanish. Hopefully the cable lasts a good long while and doesn't stiffen (too much?) over time.

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Have you tried measuring the resistances of the different cables with a multimeter? I've found different IEM cables to have surprisingly different resistances, which with the Andromeda's impedance profile and a low OI amp, could account for what you're seeing & hearing.

Edit: Apologies, only on re-reading did I see where you said your multimeter was broken...