This is from ZMF’s site. Keep in mind this is someone trying to sell you cables:
Do cables really make a difference?
While we won’t claim that cables make all the difference in the world, subtle changes and timbre shifts can be heard when changing cables in and out. The change is more subtle than other components, and we suggest looking for the perfect cable when you find a headphone you love!
I think that’s probably a pretty honest statement. I would believe that a cable made of silver would possibly have a different tonality than a cable made of copper. But I mainly agree with statements that I have read elsewhere that cables are the jewelry of the headphone world. For example, the Hifiman 6se that’s on its way to me has a pretty terrible cable. For the money I spent on it, I would like something that didn’t feel like a cable I’d expect to see on a $60 headphone. I already have a replacement cable that works for it from Periapt, but if that was my endgame headphone I can understand spending extra to have a cable that matched the appearance of the quality of the headphone I have it connected to. I really like the stock cables Audeze sends out now and would be fine with that if I ever owned a $4k LCD4. But if it was the crappy old ribbon cable they used to include, I can see myself spending another $200 or so to get a cable that looked on par with the most expensive headphone I’d likely ever purchase. It would be mainly for looks though as I don’t believe it would change the sound in any appreciable way. It’s the same way that I would spend a little extra for a nicer headphone stand for a headphone I love vs using the totally practical yoga block or $30 wood stand from Amazon.
On a side note, I don’t remember ever seeing custom cables for Stax or other estat headphones. Not that I’ve been looking, but to me that style cable is most in need of a makeover.
…and then maybe some of us buy the cables, because they look and feel great and the stock cables often dont. I for one buy for that reason and not in hope of better sound. And yes some of them cost more than they should, but that can be said about a lot of things in the audiophile world.
Funny enough is it always around cables the term “snake oil” apears; but I couldn’t care less and people who are so f… happy about screaming “SNAAAAAKE OIIIIIIL” about cables should find a better use of their time: like finding out what happens when a lit match is dumped in a gas can.
I recently spent an entire sunday at a high end hi-fi store listening to Shindo and other really great systems. The guys spent over an hour giving me direct A/B comparisons between “cheap” thousand dollar +/- cables and “real expensive” multi thousand dollar high end cables. They kept pointing out the differences in the “air” or subtle differences in “brightness” and “darkness” of the systems directly attributed to the cables they were swapping in and out. Grown men stood around me pointing out they could hear these differences and falling over themselves to spend tens of thousands of dollars on these cables in hopes that their systems too would be “airier”. I smiled allot and rubbed my chin…i swear i couldn’t hear enough difference in anything if my life depended on it and i really really was trying to hear ANY of these subtle differences.
I’m sorry, the equipment was so high end it was beyond my knowledge range, i was well out of my comfort range with prices and knowledge and there were 2 custom set-ups they were using to do the music samplings with. I could hear induced noise, hiss etc with regular standard cables, but that to me was a no-brainer because when the system is cleaner to begin with you always need your connections to be the best possible. Its just when they started pulling thousand dollar cables off and dropping 10 thousand dollar cables in to show the differences in those that my eyes rolled back in my head and i was well beyond any critical listening differentiations i could make.
The truth is when the equipment is very good a cheap/bad/poor connector or connection can introduce system noise and anomalies that are immediately noticed. The guys sampled the systems initially with very inexpensive RCA’s and speaker wires.(think radio shack stuff) These sounded noticeably bad. Then they moved up to what I thought was the ‘Good stuff” but was standard grade for systems with speakers in excess of $10K ++ and other kit of a pricy nature. I THOUGHT a $500 - $1K wire was the expensive stuff. I was wrong, the real expensive stuff costs allot more… Either way, at that price level it was NOT about cleanliness in the sound, it was all about, air, warmth, brightness, darkness. All sound features that were completely lost to my untrained ears. Also, there was allot about the emotion and feelings the music was transferring. I can completely see when someone spends tens of thousands on equipment how they will spend another $50k to make sure the wires are the best they can be so that they can squeeze every ounce of whatever they are looking for out of that equipment. To each their own. It’s really a moot point to me. I’ll spend $100 bucks on a power cord for a $2k amp. That’s not unreasonable. Heck i can even see $250 for an outlet that supports $20k in amplifiers. When you tell me tho that 10ft of speaker cable costs $5k each i really lose intrest…
Yep.
For very electrically noisy environment or for high frequency signals, there are even shielded connectors. Then the shield from the cable attaches to the shielding on either end via a shielded connector.
The emperor’s new clothes. I’d bet that if any of those guys came to a system and didn’t know whether it was the $1000 dollar cable or the $13000 dollar cable hooked up in the system, they’d do no better than the statistical 50/50 at guessing.
FYI, not affiliated with this guy but I’ve actually bought every RCA interconnect that I’ve purchased for my system from him. I make my own HP cables and speaker cables but I draw the line at RCA, not sure why. Maybe it’s because my preference is for Belden connectors as I feel they have a fantastic clamping system that isn’t exposed and they also have a crimped collar.
Pretty much. They would most likely hear the difference between the different cables, but have no clue which is which. From my experience you can hear the difference between high end cables, but not really be able to say one is better or pick out the higher end one, they just sound different
BTW shielding power cables, now THAT makes quite a bit of a difference! I spent some time customizing the power cable to the wall wart my streamer came with, it was an iFi level wall wart so good quality but even on something already a cut above, I re did the power cable adding a layer of shielding and upgrading the connector with something that had a higher contact area to the power cable and it made a discernible difference. My cost for that upgrade was about 5 bucks.
I want to get a chance to try it some day. I’m with you, that it’s all about the level of equipment. It’s frustrating when they tell you that you should be able to hear something, but I can’t.
I’ve decided that I’m leaving my DAC upgrade for last and for when I have a good chunk of disposable cash floating around. DACs (very high end ones) seem to be the one thing that holds its value well in this crazy audiophile world we live in.
Either way, at that price level it was NOT about cleanliness in the sound, it was all about, air, warmth, brightness, darkness. All sound features that were completely lost to my untrained ears. Also, there was allot about the emotion and feelings the music was transferring. I can completely see when someone spends tens of thousands on equipment how they will spend another $50k to make sure the wires are the best they can be so that they can squeeze every ounce of whatever they are looking for out of that equipment. To each their own. It’s really a moot point to me. I’ll spend $100 bucks on a power cord for a $2k amp. That’s not unreasonable. Heck i can even see $250 for an outlet that supports $20k in amplifiers. When you tell me tho that 10ft of speaker cable costs $5k each i really lose intrest…
