The question about which cable(s) reduces the Arya Organic's (or HE1000se's) treble peak has come up a couple of times. The answer to that a number of cables will. More of them will show up in Part 2 of this series. However, the Gladiator Argento does a really good job, IMO. It won't reduce the overall brightness, but will smooth out the upper tonality, making things sound more natural (to my ears, anyway). Otherwise pure copper-conductor cables *usually* take some of the bite off the treble.
Egg-shaped Hifimans are extremely sensitive to placement on the head. Even shifting the drivers back and forth by a couple of millimeters can affect the placement of peaks in the mid and upper treble. If you really wanted to be confident that what you're hearing is attributable to the cables, you'd need not only to measure them, but also to find a way to ensure that the headphones don't shift around on the rig between measurements.
Been looking foward to this series for a awhile, nice video. I woud love to see a video covering power cables and interconnects as well. Good work man.
Hello. This is an excellent, very welcome and useful video. I have been experimenting with cables for many years and also believe that the sound varies greatly depending on the conductor used and the coating on the connector contacts. Currently, in my system I use HE1000SE headphones and a Noir Hybrid HPC cable. After numerous comparisons, I sold all other cables. Your findings surprised and intrigued me. I'm looking forward to your review of the major league cables. I'll buy a couple of the best ones so I can listen to them and draw my own conclusions. If they are significantly better than Forza Audio Works, I will be eternally grateful to you. This will save me a lot of time and money. I'm looking forward to the second part of the review. Thank you
another great choice and good value for a headphone cable are the cables made and sold by Moondrop.... built very nice and priced well for what you get... copper or silver... get both
Because the cable resistance makes up a larger portion of the total circuit resistance it makes sense that a low impedance headphone is more affected. But, whether a high end $2000 multi-strand 24AWG cable or $5 single-strand 26AWG Wal-Mart cable, both will use conductors with total resistances in the milliohms. For a 4ft cable you would need a single strand of 34AWG to even reach the point where the resistance changes by 1 ohm. Even increasing a single 24AWG from 4ft to 20ft only changes it by 0.4 ohms. When running stranded conductors in a cable the resistance change is far less. Besides a less "microphonic" cable material, what you're mainly paying for are things that don't affect sound like thick insulation, pretty sheath, pretty connectors, hand soldering, etc. Look at how little the whopping 10 ohm adapter changed the sound for the Truthear Red, which is a 17.5 ohm load. EQ will ALWAYS be better than buying a cable.
I like the idea of Hart Audio with interconnects because it is exactly what I want, to connect my headphones sometimes to a 2.5mm TRRS BT dongle, sometimes to my amp with 4-pin XLR. Just wish that the base cable could be shorter. And that there was a company in the EU that offered this system so I don't have to pay import taxes on top of the cable prices...
I don't use I2S super often, usually only if a dac is in for review that has one on it. I grabbed a couple of Audioquest Cinnamon I2S cables and they seem pretty decent. I got 2 just to have for comps because it will happen at some point haha.
I just need a cable that can get rid of treble peak for my organics. If a cable helps with that, then I will not only believe that difference cables sound different, I’ll buy it too.
A cable won't do this. Anyone that says it will is drinking the coolaid. As long as your wire gauge is sufficient there won't be a sonic difference from one cable to the next. What amp do you have? If you are lacking power then the sub-bass and mid-bass will be lacking. This will lead to the highs getting brighter as you turn it up because the other sounds don't have the power to push them where the highs are easier to make. Also, those headphones need a LONG break-in period. Something like 500 hours... They settle down and get cleaner and less piercing. Download a pink noise track and play it on repeat when you aren't using them. Just saw you posted 4 months ago... well they should be broken in by now! Unless you shelved them. If so. Let me know!
Hi, I do not see myself as an Audiophile but as an consumer. Also I believe in MINT. I have 4 headphones in the 1000 to 2000 Bucks bracket (Audeze, Hifiman, Sennheiser) and own cables that came with headphones, cable for 80 bucks and cable for several hundred bucks. I just wanted to try it out. Interestingly the most expensive cable sounded (to me) more muddy than the others. Also the expensive cable - supposed to have best build quality - was the most sensible one for physical contact being heard easily. Strangely the Hifiman HE1000V2 cable (cheap tubing, worst usability) sounds the best and clearest (to me). So no wishful thinking here to justify me buying some expensive cable and no philsophy rants to justify my hobby obession. What interests me is: Why is this happening? Is it the same thing as with amplifiers, where the theoretically perfect signal from the DAC is being changed (modified, perfected, polluted, as less as possible changed, pick your poison) more or less to a kind of house sound? But what is the reasoning behind that with cables?
個人的な経験から言うと、ケーブルの線材、プラグ（REAN/NEUTRIKが悪いわけじゃないけど）のメッキ素材（ロジウム、金、銀、非メッキ…）で音質傾向や音場感が大きく変わるのは事実だけど、ヘッドホンのチューニングで劇的なゲームチャンジャーになり得るのはパッド交換と思うし、ケーブルに関して言えば、信号チェーンの最下流に位置するヘッドホンケーブルより、上流側、システム全体に支配力を及ぼしてる、ヘッドホンを接続する機材の電源ケーブルや電源タップの影響の方が大きいと思う。電源ケーブルとのカップリング次第でヘッドホンケーブルの音質傾向も変わっちゃうから。 結局のところ、システム全体の組み合わせの問題。組み合わせの数はほぼ無限で、獲られるベネフィットは読み切れないから、ケーブル遊びにのめり込むと、いつの間にか本末転倒の、強迫神経症の泥沼にハマって、バカバカしい金食い虫の消費主義の餌食になって奴隷化されるだけ。ケーブルは、シンプルで安い物を探すことが人間らしい生き方なんだよ。 ”Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” Nietzsche
@wavetheorysound The Gladiator silver cable looks cool, being silver I think the price is not too high, does it increase vocal sibilance in the HekSE, +1 for Audiophile NInja works great with the Radiance, though not a huge fan of Harts Audio cables in recent times, after using for couple of months found that the modular mini XLR connection is a possible point of failure, can loose sound on one channel intermittently, it can be that my unit is not great other can have better experiences. Also if you can include the Custom Cans ultra low capacitance litz cables in a future video will be great, I found it a very good cable wiith lot of details and nice aesthetics too for the price.
Hey Wave, what's your opinion on adapters? right now I have balanced 4.4mm cables for both my Elegia's and LCD2C's and I'm using a didiHIFI 4 pin xlr adapter to plug them to my amp, I also have a 4.4 to 1/4 in adapter from them to plug them into my single ended amps. Do you think it's better to just buy the right cable with the right plug type or is it A-OK to use an adapter as long as they're high quality like didHIFI's offerings?
How much difference does a cable make? Is it like switching to a different amp or dac? Or do you have to strain yourself to hear the smallest difference?
Like most things in audio...it depends! There are situations where there are big changes and others where there are small ones. Some headphones react more to cable changes than others as well. However, the differences you hear between them are not likely to be static either. Meaning, as you listen more and in time hear more, you'll be able to pick out differences with more and more ease.
Does the Audiophile Ninja manage to take the harsh edge off the treble specifically on the Focal Radiance? I know you said the Hart doesn't for whatever reason, but you didn't specify about the Ninja. Just got the Focal Radiance and need something that will work well for it!
Yes, Audiophile Ninja is the main cable for my Radiance, I also use a Cayin RU6 R2R dongle, which beats all my other higher end chains for synergy with the Radiance, very organic, smooth and holographic sound, just make sure to use a PC / Laptop as input, dynamics are not great with phones and tablets, @wavetheorysound you should try the Cayin RU6 (not the RU7) with the Radiance, the synergy is amazing.
I don't know if this will help you, but I bought a pair for my Atrium and they do smooth out the treble peak a tad..They are a really good company to deal with and would 100% recommend them...Their prices are also really good and they ship fast..I say give them a try I think you will like them.
Measurements aren't everything. Look in to DACs and Amplifiers, for example Schiit Audio have said some of the poorly measuring equipment they sell still sounds great and can sometimes sound better to the ear than equipment with good measurements. Everyone's ears and brain is different, something machines can't test.
They are FR terms and you're correct that in the vast majority of cases these differences don't show up in FR sweep graphs. It took me awhile to figure this out too. What it comes down to is that our community's standard test of mic-ing a speaker/Headphone and running a frequency sweep isn't equipped to catch the frequency changes cables cause. There's very solid science behind why and I'll unpack that in part 5 of my cable science series.
@@wavetheorysound No one who is serious is gonna listen to your "very solid science behind why" since compared to audio any serious science can prove efficacy of something quick and easily in a blind test like for example medicine. You have a placebo group and other medicated group and you know if something works or not... unlike a cable since despite decades passing there is still not a single good blind test published, curious. You are aware that the term frequency response predates audio by a lot and has a strict mathemtical definition based on... surprise physical laws of our universe? It's going to be a hard sell that audio cables change something in frequency response but we can't measure it cuz magic apparently, especially in 2023 when humans can measure stuff like gravitational waves passing through interferometers changing their wavelenght by 10^-22 of a metre. There is a reason why really smart poeple and top corpos of the world moved forward from audio in ~1980, it was considered a solved science.
Hey man, i don’t have good cables right now, i have the base cable that came with my headphone, i am going to buy a pair of forza audio noir hybrid, i’m really scientific in all my testing and research and i’ll do a blind test with a friend swapping cables while i have my eyes closed and music playing in my ears through ear buds. I’ll update my comment to let you know the results. Heck i might film it and post a video about it! Don’t know yet haha
The question about which cable(s) reduces the Arya Organic's (or HE1000se's) treble peak has come up a couple of times. The answer to that a number of cables will. More of them will show up in Part 2 of this series. However, the Gladiator Argento does a really good job, IMO. It won't reduce the overall brightness, but will smooth out the upper tonality, making things sound more natural (to my ears, anyway). Otherwise pure copper-conductor cables *usually* take some of the bite off the treble.
Egg-shaped Hifimans are extremely sensitive to placement on the head. Even shifting the drivers back and forth by a couple of millimeters can affect the placement of peaks in the mid and upper treble. If you really wanted to be confident that what you're hearing is attributable to the cables, you'd need not only to measure them, but also to find a way to ensure that the headphones don't shift around on the rig between measurements.
Awesome finally seeing someone who dare say they can hear differences in cables, love it
When I get cables I want them to sound Lively. My guess is the corpse cables will sound a bit dead.
😅
🤣 Well done. Maybe it's not a coincidence the Corpse is stiff.
@@wavetheorysound and probably a bit smelly.
Been looking foward to this series for a awhile, nice video. I woud love to see a video covering power cables and interconnects as well. Good work man.
Thank you for doing this. Not many doing cable reviews so this was really useful.
I recently received the modular standard cables from Hart audio. They are great!
Hello. This is an excellent, very welcome and useful video. I have been experimenting with cables for many years and also believe that the sound varies greatly depending on the conductor used and the coating on the connector contacts. Currently, in my system I use HE1000SE headphones and a Noir Hybrid HPC cable. After numerous comparisons, I sold all other cables. Your findings surprised and intrigued me. I'm looking forward to your review of the major league cables. I'll buy a couple of the best ones so I can listen to them and draw my own conclusions. If they are significantly better than Forza Audio Works, I will be eternally grateful to you. This will save me a lot of time and money. I'm looking forward to the second part of the review. Thank you
Darn of course I ordered an apos flow before this awesome comparison video. Great vid man
Glad you are doing this, thanks. Looking forward to that part 5!
So excited for this series, mate. Love your work!
I love hart audio's new HC-Split Cables
Another really good in depth video Wave
Made a choice in ordering the Audiophile Ninja over Hart Audio cable. This video helped me realized I made the right choice.
What about microphonic?
A HIFI store in Seoul [Scherazade] sells some high end cables, some as high as $6000. What are your thoughts on that?
another great choice and good value for a headphone cable are the cables made and sold by Moondrop.... built very nice and priced well for what you get... copper or silver... get both
Because the cable resistance makes up a larger portion of the total circuit resistance it makes sense that a low impedance headphone is more affected.
But, whether a high end $2000 multi-strand 24AWG cable or $5 single-strand 26AWG Wal-Mart cable, both will use conductors with total resistances in the milliohms. For a 4ft cable you would need a single strand of 34AWG to even reach the point where the resistance changes by 1 ohm. Even increasing a single 24AWG from 4ft to 20ft only changes it by 0.4 ohms. When running stranded conductors in a cable the resistance change is far less. Besides a less "microphonic" cable material, what you're mainly paying for are things that don't affect sound like thick insulation, pretty sheath, pretty connectors, hand soldering, etc. Look at how little the whopping 10 ohm adapter changed the sound for the Truthear Red, which is a 17.5 ohm load.
EQ will ALWAYS be better than buying a cable.
I like the idea of Hart Audio with interconnects because it is exactly what I want, to connect my headphones sometimes to a 2.5mm TRRS BT dongle, sometimes to my amp with 4-pin XLR.
Just wish that the base cable could be shorter.
And that there was a company in the EU that offered this system so I don't have to pay import taxes on top of the cable prices...
Nice idea these cable series!Thanks 👊
Best mid range 2 pin iem cable? Also best cable to tame treble on hifiman arya organic? Thanks in advance, great content as usual!
I don't have much experience with IEM cables. As for the Organic, I'll pin a comment responding to that shortly.
idk where would be the best place to ask but what I2S cable do you use or which one do you recommend?
I don't use I2S super often, usually only if a dac is in for review that has one on it. I grabbed a couple of Audioquest Cinnamon I2S cables and they seem pretty decent. I got 2 just to have for comps because it will happen at some point haha.
I just need a cable that can get rid of treble peak for my organics. If a cable helps with that, then I will not only believe that difference cables sound different, I’ll buy it too.
I've seen this question a couple times. I'll pin a comment shortly.
A cable won't do this. Anyone that says it will is drinking the coolaid. As long as your wire gauge is sufficient there won't be a sonic difference from one cable to the next. What amp do you have? If you are lacking power then the sub-bass and mid-bass will be lacking. This will lead to the highs getting brighter as you turn it up because the other sounds don't have the power to push them where the highs are easier to make. Also, those headphones need a LONG break-in period. Something like 500 hours... They settle down and get cleaner and less piercing. Download a pink noise track and play it on repeat when you aren't using them. Just saw you posted 4 months ago... well they should be broken in by now! Unless you shelved them. If so. Let me know!
Hi, I do not see myself as an Audiophile but as an consumer. Also I believe in MINT.
I have 4 headphones in the 1000 to 2000 Bucks bracket (Audeze, Hifiman, Sennheiser) and own cables that came with headphones, cable for 80 bucks and cable for several hundred bucks. I just wanted to try it out.
Interestingly the most expensive cable sounded (to me) more muddy than the others. Also the expensive cable - supposed to have best build quality - was the most sensible one for physical contact being heard easily. Strangely the Hifiman HE1000V2 cable (cheap tubing, worst usability) sounds the best and clearest (to me).
So no wishful thinking here to justify me buying some expensive cable and no philsophy rants to justify my hobby obession.
What interests me is: Why is this happening?
Is it the same thing as with amplifiers, where the theoretically perfect signal from the DAC is being changed (modified, perfected, polluted, as less as possible changed, pick your poison) more or less to a kind of house sound?
But what is the reasoning behind that with cables?
You should watch my cable science series. Link in the description.
個人的な経験から言うと、ケーブルの線材、プラグ（REAN/NEUTRIKが悪いわけじゃないけど）のメッキ素材（ロジウム、金、銀、非メッキ…）で音質傾向や音場感が大きく変わるのは事実だけど、ヘッドホンのチューニングで劇的なゲームチャンジャーになり得るのはパッド交換と思うし、ケーブルに関して言えば、信号チェーンの最下流に位置するヘッドホンケーブルより、上流側、システム全体に支配力を及ぼしてる、ヘッドホンを接続する機材の電源ケーブルや電源タップの影響の方が大きいと思う。電源ケーブルとのカップリング次第でヘッドホンケーブルの音質傾向も変わっちゃうから。
結局のところ、システム全体の組み合わせの問題。組み合わせの数はほぼ無限で、獲られるベネフィットは読み切れないから、ケーブル遊びにのめり込むと、いつの間にか本末転倒の、強迫神経症の泥沼にハマって、バカバカしい金食い虫の消費主義の餌食になって奴隷化されるだけ。ケーブルは、シンプルで安い物を探すことが人間らしい生き方なんだよ。
”Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
Nietzsche
Yes!! Spicy, yet so true
@wavetheorysound The Gladiator silver cable looks cool, being silver I think the price is not too high, does it increase vocal sibilance in the HekSE, +1 for Audiophile NInja works great with the Radiance, though not a huge fan of Harts Audio cables in recent times, after using for couple of months found that the modular mini XLR connection is a possible point of failure, can loose sound on one channel intermittently, it can be that my unit is not great other can have better experiences.
Also if you can include the Custom Cans ultra low capacitance litz cables in a future video will be great, I found it a very good cable wiith lot of details and nice aesthetics too for the price.
Hey Wave, what's your opinion on adapters? right now I have balanced 4.4mm cables for both my Elegia's and LCD2C's and I'm using a didiHIFI 4 pin xlr adapter to plug them to my amp, I also have a 4.4 to 1/4 in adapter from them to plug them into my single ended amps. Do you think it's better to just buy the right cable with the right plug type or is it A-OK to use an adapter as long as they're high quality like didHIFI's offerings?
when "xduoo ta-20 plus" head amp review? :)
How much difference does a cable make? Is it like switching to a different amp or dac? Or do you have to strain yourself to hear the smallest difference?
Like most things in audio...it depends! There are situations where there are big changes and others where there are small ones. Some headphones react more to cable changes than others as well. However, the differences you hear between them are not likely to be static either. Meaning, as you listen more and in time hear more, you'll be able to pick out differences with more and more ease.
"Warm the sound". Really . . . 😂
Does the Audiophile Ninja manage to take the harsh edge off the treble specifically on the Focal Radiance?
I know you said the Hart doesn't for whatever reason, but you didn't specify about the Ninja.
Just got the Focal Radiance and need something that will work well for it!
Yes, Audiophile Ninja is the main cable for my Radiance, I also use a Cayin RU6 R2R dongle, which beats all my other higher end chains for synergy with the Radiance, very organic, smooth and holographic sound, just make sure to use a PC / Laptop as input, dynamics are not great with phones and tablets, @wavetheorysound you should try the Cayin RU6 (not the RU7) with the Radiance, the synergy is amazing.
I don't know if this will help you, but I bought a pair for my Atrium and they do smooth out the treble peak a tad..They are a really good company to deal with and would 100% recommend them...Their prices are also really good and they ship fast..I say give them a try I think you will like them.
@@hdsarma Thank you I will check them out!!!
So Your Ears can Hear a Difference but the Most Expensive Headphones Measurement machines Cant ... Ooooook
Measurements aren't everything. Look in to DACs and Amplifiers, for example Schiit Audio have said some of the poorly measuring equipment they sell still sounds great and can sometimes sound better to the ear than equipment with good measurements. Everyone's ears and brain is different, something machines can't test.
You're describing different frequency responses in each cable so show us the frequency response to prove that it's not all in your head.
Especially, at the prices some of these cables command. For the price, is it much much more different from stock?
They are FR terms and you're correct that in the vast majority of cases these differences don't show up in FR sweep graphs. It took me awhile to figure this out too. What it comes down to is that our community's standard test of mic-ing a speaker/Headphone and running a frequency sweep isn't equipped to catch the frequency changes cables cause. There's very solid science behind why and I'll unpack that in part 5 of my cable science series.
@@wavetheorysound
No one who is serious is gonna listen to your "very solid science behind why" since compared to audio any serious science can prove efficacy of something quick and easily in a blind test like for example medicine. You have a placebo group and other medicated group and you know if something works or not... unlike a cable since despite decades passing there is still not a single good blind test published, curious.
You are aware that the term frequency response predates audio by a lot and has a strict mathemtical definition based on... surprise physical laws of our universe? It's going to be a hard sell that audio cables change something in frequency response but we can't measure it cuz magic apparently, especially in 2023 when humans can measure stuff like gravitational waves passing through interferometers changing their wavelenght by 10^-22 of a metre. There is a reason why really smart poeple and top corpos of the world moved forward from audio in ~1980, it was considered a solved science.
Hey man, i don’t have good cables right now, i have the base cable that came with my headphone, i am going to buy a pair of forza audio noir hybrid, i’m really scientific in all my testing and research and i’ll do a blind test with a friend swapping cables while i have my eyes closed and music playing in my ears through ear buds. I’ll update my comment to let you know the results. Heck i might film it and post a video about it! Don’t know yet haha
@@wavetheorysound if you can hear a difference you should be able to measure a difference.
idk why people keep saying theres no difference its the thing that makes iem better than tws
dat intro 😁
Are you as ready for the comments as I am?
Mostly. Some YT comments are so out-of-nowhere that there is no adequate preparation 😆
Cheaper chinese hi-fi cables ftw 😊
Mad crazy insane and so far down the money centric hifi rabbit hole it makes me want to vomit tbh....you people are special...
Next up, Earth is Flat ....
Embarrassing.