Different cables do sound different

IEMs / Other In-Ear Monitors (IEM)
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Any „difference“ in sound people might connect to a Cable does not go beyond the placebo effect or personal biases.

It is astounding to me how some still believe this, given that even simple Physics and measurements can and already have disproven these claims.

And yes; a cable can change the sound given what Impedance it adds to the chain. However, the amount is so very low (both on headphones and IEMs) that something like the human ear would not be able to reliably discern between it. Wa are talking 0.1 Ohm for example.

You‘d be better off adding a separat resistor to your cable if someone really wants to change their sound that way.

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Can we please not do this again? Discounting another user’s findings isn’t all that constructive and when this debate about cables comes up it only spreads animosity between users, there is almost never any sort of conclusion that comes from it. Only splitting the community based on their beliefs.

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Totally agree, we should respect each others’ experience / hearing abilities; for me I could hear very clear differences between different cables - on portable DACs, such as from my Q5s or Q1 II on a sensitive IEM (such as 846 / 09).

For a sensitive IEM, on “lack of power” portable device the every fine resistance / material characteristics got “enlarged” due to sensitive IEM and limited power driving the IEMs. I had always A/B with my setup before buying an expensive cable - after all, your own ears hear what’s coming out of the IEM. The most expensive one I ever owned was a $1k titan which consequently I had to pass on as can’t justify the sound improvements vs the bucks I paid for it… settled with a single-crystal silver.

Ever since I’m on my K9 Pro (as mostly now wfh) - I have noticed that cables do not make much of a difference with it! The cables sounded very different in Q5s/Q1 II now sounded the same with K9 Pro - this is why I think some folks out there don’t believe the cable snake oil but others are firm believers (such as myself)

Hope my 2 cents help this controversial subject!

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You see, “simple” is already wrong here.
A lot of people have issues understanding DC circuits, and that is fine. Mixing up Volt, Watt, Ampere, Ohm, etc. can happen to the best, especially in the heat of an argument. Using a $30 Multimeter with accuracy somewhere between “feeling the resistance” and licking the wire to prove some arbitrary claim, is deception of the self.

I am yet to see a measurement of a cables impedance (because audio is AC, not DC) in a frequency span of 20Hz to 20kHz. Until someone corelates that to an effect (or lack there of) on the reproduced audio, I would argue for “to be decided”.

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I would be happy to be proven wrong! Just means I have learned something new and change my views accordingly.

I plan on getting a coupler myself and start doing measurements, just for the fun of it. Then I can also test the same IEM with different cables and see for myself if the FR changes. I doubt it and am sceptic, but will have to accept whatever the results may be.

Also, I want to say, I do not hate on anyone claiming to hear anything. Your experiences and takes are as valid as mine, and in the end, who am I to say what someone else likes? Whatever they enjoy is the most important.

It‘s simply that in this hobby, there is so much bs and Snake Oil being spread, with some manufacturers and sellers preying on those who they can exploit with products that are highly questionable or not proven to improve anything. Be it the „audiophile SSD“ that made its rounds recently, 2000$+ cables that promise to improve audio quality significantly, Network Switches or even Stones that supposedly improve sound.

Call me sceptic, cautious, or cynical. It‘s hard to figure out what is a scam and what has real benefits sometimes.

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I still say that in a hobby where we put tape over the holes on an IEM, or foam in them, to change the sound, then share the graphs to show how it impacted the sound, yet these discussions about cables never have a chart or graph, and there is a reason for that, there isn’t any difference, unlike the tape and foam.

I am going to make it simple until someone shows me that chart, I assume that they are selling the cable because it looks nice, or feels good in my hands, and any claim beyond that is false advertising.
I got sucked into one of these a couple months ago, and I am fine if fancy cables make people feel better about their gear.

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yeah, any differences a cable could make is due to a difference in resistance rather than the material (gold, copper, unobtanium or whatever) and that is only going to affect transucers with an uneven impedance response.

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Could be because measuring properly is not hitting “test all” on some expensive testing device. Or because those who live and die by numbers never bothered to test, better to have a strong opinion than a weak fact (or was it the other way round?).

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I’ve recently built a new chain with great transparency, so I’ve decided to deal with all of the controversy once and for all for myself. I didn’t care if I would hear any difference between cables or ddcs, because if I can hear decent difference, then great, I have a new tool for changing the sound to my preference, and if I can’t hear any difference, then great - I don’t have to spend the time and money for these tweaks

The main testing chain: PC ->(usb)SMSL D1SE (standard mode) → Soloist 3XP with charger (all vivids) → DT 880 600 ohm. I’m quite fond of this chain in general and I want to say a special thank you to @Pokrog, who helped with his experience and answered a ton of my questions

This is going to be a long post, sorry. Feel free to jump to conclusions chapter

People have always told me that I have golden ears, so I’ve decided that this setup is good enough and that I don’t need the mighty Susvara to hear the difference, if there is any. And if susvara-level transparency is necessary, then there is no point chasing that difference anyway, because for me transparency isn’t the most important thing in this hobby

I’m not going to stir up conflicts or convince you of anything; just take it as a part of my personal journey

DDCs. Ifi iSilencer+ has like 95% of positive reviews and I’ve seen only two really negative comments somewhere that said that it removed dynamics and sucked all emotions from the music. For me that would be the most unpleasant effect possible
In my main testing chain, the difference was obvious from the start. Just in case, I’ve played one of the most emotional tracks that I have, and after I’ve added iSilencer+ between my pc and usb cable, I’ve immediately stopped headbanging. Noise was slightly reduced indeed, but with that noise was also removed bass, dynamics, depth and any positive emotions. The sound became flat and soulless. So that two people were spot on. That was even more obvious on my SW51 tube amp. This kind of difference can provide the illusion of a much cleaner sound, but if you lower bass and mids with EQ, you’ll get a similar effect and it won’t ruin the sound as much.
But quite a lot of people use this device to improve the sound of budget dongle dacs, so additional testing chain was built: Samsung M31 → Avani → iSilencer+ with 2 adapters → Moondrop Kato and results were same, so I can confidently say that iSilencer+ is the most horrible product that I’ve purchased so far in my audiophile journey
Unfortunately, I was unable to test my reclocker, because it’s not compatible with my dac. I will get another reclocker at some point

So, usb cables. I expected to hear very little to no difference. I was very serious about testing them. I was ready to listen for 40-120 minutes before jumpung to any conclusions, but reality shocked me. I’ve heard an immediate difference and it took me only 3 minutes to figure out exactly how the sound changed. I’ve tested 4 shortest branded usb cables from aliexpress, one was silver coated OFC, others were OCC copper. Would you believe me if I told you that a $20-$30 usb cable can completely change the sound of the system? I sure know I wouldn’t take any claims like that seriously, until I’ve experienced it first hand. That difference was so big, that it was obvious even on my old budget $50 active 2.1 system with an official SNR of 70. Silver cable made the sound way more holographic, but increased the jitter a lot, bad cable. Another cable made the sound more liquid, added accurate room reverbations, added sweet unnaturalness, some vintage fun to the sound, and made it punchier; this cable is now my go-to cable for synthwave or pop music. Another cable made the sound ridiculously liquid and timbre-correct, this is now my go-to cable for acoustic music and vocals, it gives me goosebumbps with some soundtracks on some setups. Another cable added sometimes spooky 3d effects, sometimes really bad soundstage changes, this cable also made the sound very unnatural, very bad cable

XLR interconnects. Jumping from $7 OFC copper to $70 OCC copper cables made solid improvements in terms of liquidity and noise level. The faster the amp and headphone I’m using, the bigger is the liquidity impact. It even introduced a new problem for me - now I can’t EQ some systems as much as I could before this jump, because now I can hear it when some EQ’d range is out of phase - my friend, who is sound engineer, explained to me that when you EQ stuff up above 1.5-2db, it feels off even if you can’t hear it, because of that out of phase thing. Same happened after EQ-ing down, but to a lesser degree
I’m not going to stop here. Now, I want to try budget neotech interconnects, like Nei-3004. I need 2 pairs of 5m cables, so buying really expensive interconnects is out of the quesion for me. I really loved the way Zeos moved his pc to the closet in his house in one room, so I’ve decided to do the same to remove the pc noise. I’m also really curious about unshielded XLRs for uncapped soundstage, so if you can share some great options, I’d love to hear them, feel free to PM me

RCA interconnects. Pretty much the same jump, but the cables I’ve purchased drop dynamics, but make the sound more liquid - very bad cables

Power cables. I’ve yet only tried two cheap branded cables from aliexpress, but they both changed the sound for the worse - the effect was pretty dramatic, which I didn’t expect at all. Cable from OCC copper dropped dynamics, but improved liquidity, bass also became quite bloated and muddy. I’ve measured 2.5 db bass increase. Pure silver cable from thin wires improved spacious effects, but ruined the sound everywhere except treble. I’ve read that 300-500 hours of burn-in is ok for power cables. I don’t know how important it is, but this is ridiculous anyway. I don’t need a cable that requires so much burn in. I need to be able to return it within two weeks. So, I gave these cables 72 hours of non-stop burn-in. I heard zero difference before and after, so I’ve returned them both. I’ve seen a lot of great reviews of Yarbo, Neotech and Furutech power cables, so that is probably my next stop. I need some timbre accurate power cords for music and some 3D wow effects cables as well for my HT. I’m open to suggestions

Headphone cables. I had to use different headphones to test it. Changing the cable on my Hifiman EDXS… it was a moment of startling realization that the cable defined half of the sound experience for me. Stock cable is a joke. I didn’t like the silver-plated OCC copper cable from aliexpress, it sounded jittery in the highs. I’m using the HD Zeus cable with them for now, it is way better; it gives better depth, smoother highs and better liquidity. I will definitely explore multiple headphone cables in the future

Speaker cables. At this point I’ve already heard enough difference between other cables, so I’ve purchased good branded cables. I can’t compare them with anything for now, but I like the sound

Conclusions:

  1. If you have an open mind and are curious about cable differences, you don’t need to spend a fortune on a transparent setup to figure it out, although sometimes transparency is essential. You just need to know where to look for that difference - you need test-tracks for timbre, punch, dynamics, soundstage and bass, and you need to look for the difference in liquidity and smoothness. I’ve tried to pass a regular blind A/B test with different filters of a single dac and have failed miserably. My girlfriend was laughing at me when she showed me the results. But I can still hear minimal difference between them if I’m listening to one filter for a couple of hours and then switch to a different one. Or when I’m switching the filter while the music is playing. So the easiest way to hear a difference is not a fast multitest, but listening to one set of cables for a while, and then switching them for something else. Fast swapping will just confuse your mind at some point. If you can hear difference between different filters of one dac, then you will definitely hear difference between different cables, because the difference is like 20 times big
  2. You really can’t trust these reviews on aliexpress, I guess people prefer justifying their purchases more than hearing them “objectively”. People sing praises to ridiculous garbage there
  3. Jump from OFC to OCC copper is noticeable everywhere in the system and for me personally, it is worth spending money on cables made from better materials, provided they serve their purpose and don’t ruin essential aspects of the sound
  4. I don’t like the sound of silver, period. No pure silver cables, no silver plating or other metal mixing of the conductor anymore. It just doesn’t sound right to me no matter where I put it in the chain. And I don’t care how pure or expensive the silver has to be to sound good
  5. For me, the sound impact of upgrading the wire goes like this:
    Headphone cable > usb cable > power cable > interconnects. I know that it might sound ridiculous, but upgrading the usb cable has the biggest value in my opinion, if you are into usb audio. Buying a $20 cable can transform the sound as much as upgrading your dac from $150 to $700 one or buying a completely different dac
  6. I understand that the point of diminishing returns and hearing abilities of different people are different. But if a different cable can add goosebumps or headbanging, then for me it is well worth it, if it’s reasonably priced
  7. Connecting all gear to a dedicated breaker made a small, but solid improvement of both dynamics and noise level
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154

Width, depth, imaging, separation, timbre, liquidity, sweetness…

All of these terms are things that enthusiasts either know, or learn. We can hear them.

Can we measure them? Can a FR curve tell us anything about these? What about a multimeter? Maybe an oscilloscope? Maybe getting a super precise mass measurement, and cross reference it with exactingly precise physical measurements to see if there is a correlation to sound with different ratios of physical dimensions. Hell, while we’re at it, we could dissolve some cables in an aggressive caustic solvent and run the result through a spectrograph and see if that could tell us if minute element inclusions are responsible for changing the sound stage.

While I have a healthy dose of skepticism about any claims of performance (especially claims made by people with skin in the game), I am also similarly skeptical about the all-powerful “science” that can tell us “everything we need to know”. It wasn’t long at all in our past that “science” told us to put leeches on the body of the sick so they could draw out the ill humors.

Science is not a body of knowledge to bludgeon those with whom we disagree. It is a logical approach to learning. There is still quite a lot we do not understand and have no effective way of measuring. Hell, there is still plenty we don’t even know we should be trying to measure!

If we really want to know whether or not “cables make a difference” it wouldn’t be that hard to set up two systems to test this. Using identical dac, amp, and headphone, fed from the same digital source, but with entirely different cables. Wrap all the cables in electric shrink wrap or electrical tape to prevent test subjects from being able to identify differences in cables, and survey a few hundred people on which system they prefer. I bet the results would be interesting to say the least. More science-y would be to run lots of such A/B blind tests, with only one cable (usb, power, interconnect, headphone) different between each system.

If someone has neither tried on their own to see if they can hear a difference, nor run such a test, then I have a healthy dose of skepticism for any claims they may make about cables being “snake oil”. I presume they are happy with whatever cable they have, and are too intellectually lazy to try something different. We justify things to ourselves for lots of reasons, and money might have nothing whatever to do with it.

Personally, I am new enough to high quality audio that I am not sure my ears could detect a difference. I am quite agnostic about whether or not cables will help -my- setup. Maybe they would, but I’m not ready to test it out yet. I surely believe that poorly made cables could hurt a setup’s sound (bad products seem to be detrimental to anything’s performance once you hit a certain level). Whether or not “great” cables make a noticeable improvement over “normal” ones, well, I’ll probably have to find out for myself one day.

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ah yes, the old classic “scientific method” of letting people who probably have beats headphones and airplane earbuds evaluate cables on a system that has much bigger problems than cables. surely those results mean something.

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I am a chemist and for the first time I hear that caustic soda boils cables. And then when you “dissolve” them, what will you measure? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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I will put the resulting solution in a photo-spectrometer to analyze the elemental composition, so I can decode the resulting spectrograph for elemental inclusions, hoping to find a large, but statistically insignificant (say, on the order of 1% or thereabouts) inclusion of otherwise non conductive elements, Sodium, or Carbon, or such. The presence of accidental inclusions at just the right ratio should indicate a sonically superior “oops” factor, for which I can charge an extra $50,000!

Serious time, though. As I said, I am very much agnostic to the ultimate question being posed in this thread. I just find laughable the idea that “the science” has already told us that it’s all “snake oil”. Maybe it is, maybe not. There’s so much we can’t really measure effectively that I don’t think we have instruments to tell us all of the truth on this topic.

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Nice to see you back and I am curious is the difference based on cable material or construction

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Interesting to see how both parties are arguing. My take, just try it yourself. If you can’t hear the difference, then you’re in luck because you have one less thing to think about, but if you do, I’m telling you, it’s a really interesting place to explore.

You can check out Sonvs Apparatvs if you are interested in discussing the differences in cables even further.

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That’s exactly me :sweat_smile: And i’m too afraid of finding a difference to go there: that would be too much money for me.

Since I haven’t seen any proof and haven’t tried it by myself, I won’t argue with “cable-beleivers”: if they hear a difference and that makes them happy, fine.

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163

Nothing at all wrong with that! There’s no sin in being happy with what you have. I’m in much the same boat, quite satisfied with the stock cabling on everything but my headphones, and only then because the stiff, microphonic crap cables packed with Focal headphones is not worthy of the product they sell.

There is, however, a sneer in my tone for people who make definitive claims as a tool to deride the decisions of others without having actually investigated whether or not they are speaking truly.

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164

I never believed in cables. I usually buy $30 cables from Amazon.

I have a 64 audio and switched to the silver cable that came with it. Big sound difference. Better clarity, treble and bass.

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