humidifiers can help with ESD in a room. I use one for workw and works pretty ok during the winter as my building get s stupid dry and makes my job difficult. I work at a lab where a part of my job is weighing samples into plastic tubes. and out scales are stupid sensitive to static. one thing we also use is dryer cheets inside our scales as well as a spray called staticide.
I would love to know more about the cable and if you dont have any problems with it some pictures would be cool as well.
Hello Cupcake,
Congratulations on finding the cause.
It’s all thanks to your meticulous search and tips from some of the users here who were able to help you.
Of course I am happy for you.
The question now is where the cable is coming from.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be broken, however, and it may be possible to repair it by replacing the plugs if they are fitted carefully.
It is certainly a problem if the cable comes from Hifiman. It may be a one-off or a major issue.
I hope that when the Ify is repaired and the cable is replaced, everything will be better than before and there will be no more problems.
based on my own research, i would also assume, that Hifiman doens’t provide a balanced cable for the Sundara. If OP has bought it from someone who claimed it being from Hifiman, this thread has turned into a crime investigaton lol
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This is the only balanced cable I could find on their site that would work with a Sundara, and you’re not plugging this directly into a Zen…
Also, if you’re paying this much for a Hifiman cable you need help 
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Lol the cable would’ve been as expensive as the Sundaras. 
And yeah, welcome to the club ( Apparently, I’m a static electricity generator ). Touch something to “ground” yourself before touching your headphones, or after removing your headphones, or, especially, when you have planars on your head and you stand up.
TL,DR for the link: I had T50RPs on my head, stood up, heard “interferences” in em, touched the RCA cables of my JDS Atom amp to unplug it… and burned the left channel.
Image saved, might need it later. 
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Also, related:
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lul
Obviously also caused by the Sundara.
Or maybe Jay is also using a bootleg Hifiman balanced cable?
Or OP is gay errrm sorry i mean Jay?
I mean, people here are all defending Hifiman but this is very well known that Hifiman has basically zero quality control. They even sold a he400i with two left cups, FFS.
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oh my god … i hadn’t seen that one yet. Sadly, it matches my first and only experience with Hifiman, where the Sundaras i bought had a severe channel imbalance. I gave them back to the seller and got a refund.
Now that sounds like i want to bash again, but, it’s just the truth. What makes it really sad imo, is that their headphones are so goddamn good. I was really impressed with the Sundara, especially for the price. And you just know how good the higher-tier stuff like Ananda, Arya, HE1000, HE6SE and the almighty Susvara is. The engineering is top-notch and i really appreciate every brand that plays a significant role in headphone development. Hifiman sure is one of the MVPs in the headphone world and they can be really proud about that.
Yes, that is bad and also annoying when something like that happens. You are right about that.
That’s not possible at all.
It seems that the Pentacon cable did not come from Hifiman but was bought separately and on top of that it had disassembled the amplifier several times.
This is of course bad but has nothing to do with Hifiman itself or Ify, without misunderstanding.
This can happen to the best manufacturers, most of them do something about it, but others do not.
We all don’t want to know what poor conditions are like in countries, but we buy it anyway.
That’s the irony of it, we always want to have it cheap and in the end it punishes us just because we had to spend 5$/€ more for peace of mind or to save money and in the end it destroys the product.
In Germany we say:
If you buy cheap, you buy twice.
There is often some truth to this when it comes to such things.
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There is so much truth in that.
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To everyone asking about the cable, it’s this one -
On the retailer’s website, it is listed as manufactured by HiFiMan. They even sell “balanced” cables the retailer themselves make. Although the cable that is shown in the image is significantly different from what I received.
After checking on HiFiMan’s website as per the suggestion of @l0rdm0rd and @Blackscreen I did not find any balanced cables for Sundara either. Which makes me wonder why the retailer listed this cable the way they did. They are a very well reputed retailer here in India, who specialize in everything audio related.
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Hello,
The Pentacon plug does not look trustworthy.
If you hold the golden part with a pair of pliers and with another pair of pliers on the housing, it can be unscrewed.
I once had something similar, soldered it cleanly and when I turned it, the cables twisted inside and a driver failed because of that.
So bad plugs are often unfavourable for such things.
Personally, when I build one myself, I often use the Furutech connectors as the connection.
Because there is enough space, even if they are a bit expensive, and they are easy to handle.
I wouldn’t use the cable any more, even though it’s a pity for the money.
It really is very different from what is pictured and what you have.
That is just marketing. 
Some one will buy the stuff no matter what is in the description.
But oh my… those bends in the cable, that joint plastic piece and those connectors again!
My blood boils right away.
That looks more shitty than normal china cables… did not know it’s even possible? lol
I actually found another that looks like that.
The connectors clearly are the “cheapest china” (shit) you can get, they sell those everywhere, different names, different companies but the shitty cables and connectors remain.
I had one for the Hifiman 400i and it was also a “Hifiman” made cable… yea right! Nope. Was exactly with the same connectors but not with a bendy cable.
I even saved it to remind myself. Never again.
Compared to something like Neutrik ones, they are like the great example what they should be and those bad cables… should not even be allowed to sell.
soo… a couple of interesting information i found about that:
-
i actually found the store you mentioned myself. The reviews there show pictures of exactly the same cable you have. So you definitely are not the only one who got on of those:
-
if you filter in the shop for Hifiman branded stuff, the cable shows up. There are also 3rd party cables for the sundara that won’t show up with the filter. Also, the site advertises with an authenticity certificate to be an autorised online seller for Hifiman products, also in the product view of said cable. All this clearly suggests, that this is a cable by Hifiman.
-
the cable looks exactly like this " HE1000 V2 Stock Cable-3.5mm-to-XLR 4 Pin Balanced Cable" one on the Hifiman shop, just with a pentacon plug instead of XLR:
https://store.hifiman.com/index.php/crystalline-copper-silver-xlr-4-pin-balanced-cable-for-he1000.html -
i even found another store that sells a cable nearly the same as yours, it’s a shop registeres in italy. The cable even has the same bends like yours:
HiFiMAN 4.4mm Balanced Headphone Cable 3.5mm - PlayStereo
BUT: this cable also has a different pentacon plug! This looks like the plug that’s also used on the pictured black cable from the indian store.
Now all of that smells a bit fishy, but might still be completely normal. The question remains, if this is an authentic cable by Hifiman, just with a different connector attached by Hifiman - or has the store, or some middlemen, cut off the XLR plug from the Hifiman cable and has made a terrible job attaching the pentacon plug…?
I am very curious.
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Anyone contacted HiFiMan about these “shady” cables?
I’ll be doing that in a few hours, got some work to do right now.
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Man that’s some detailed findings. Thanks a bunch, I think I’ll share all this information with the retailer and ask them about what’s going on with the shady looking cable.
@Cupcake would be the best to do that since he made the purchase and has purchase information that will be helpful assuming this cable is being modified/misrepresented.
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