Several years ago I purchased my first (and only so far) pair of quality headphones - the Audioquest Nighthawk Carbons. These along with my Dragonfly Red DAC were good enough for me to try and maximize the sound I was able to get out of my source iPhone.
Nowadays I have a few more gadgets, including a Chord Mojo w/Poly streamer, and a new Fiio Q5S (with the THX amp).
I’ve always hated the stock cable that comes with the Nighthawk Carbons. It’s a little short and just not flexible enough. The sound quality is fine, but the form factor is simply annoying.
It’s time to find a suitable replacement, so here’s where I could use some help…
I want to continue using both my Mojo and Q5S amps, so I guess that means I need to stick with a 3.5mm connector. I’m a little confused as to whether I can look at balanced or need to stay with single ended? Also, I’m not exactly sure what type/size connectors fit into each of the ear cups?
I could use a recommendation from you. I see that Moon Audio advertises their “Blue Dragon and Silver Dragon” cables, but they’re also $200+. Not sure if that’s just snake oil or if in fact it might be a good option. I’m hoping there might be a good ChiFi choice out there…
Help a brother out and let me know your thoughts. Links to any recommendations would be appreciated.
So regarding the balanced vs unbalanced, you would want to get balanced cable and then a female balanced to 3.5 unbalanced male, that would let you take advantage of the balanced on the fiio and still use the mojo just fine
The q5s supports 4.4mm balanced and 2.5mm balanced
You would be looking for a cable with 2.5mm jacks that connect into the headphones and a balanced end either being 2.5mm balanced or 4.4mm balanced. You would then get either a female 4.4 mm or 2.5mm depending on what you go well to a unbalanced 3.5mm
So there are custom cables you can have made from people like brux at hart audio and other makers like that, but for here I will recommend something readily available
What length are you looking for? The stock cable you have is 4 ft
Just a little longer would be fine… maybe 5’ or 6’? I don’t have a good sense for what is sort of a standard length. Anything that’s just a bit longer than the stock 4’ cable is what I’m after I guess.
