Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t this only true for AC?
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You are correct. Since audio signals are AC I didn’t worry with the distinction. This is an AC effect because the movement of charges back and forth creates magnetic fields that push free electrons to the outer layer of a conductor.
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The boys come through at HF Guides and show theoretical is not the same as practical. I’ve read in previously and seen a couple of trusted sources state the same that the AC fed to speakers is so small that that designers consider it DC and therefore “skin effect” when being sold as an issue to be solved in speaker cables is in fact BS.
I know the words you used, but not what you try to say.
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I’ve been thinking about all of this for days and have some conclusions for everyone that might be helpful takeaways…
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If you don’t care about squeezing all the quality out of your audio possible, never worry about your cable. To hear the differences cables can make, you need high quality sources, a dac/amp capable of pushing that level of fidelity and power through the cable and an IEM capable of enough detail to hear the differences. If you’re listening to YouTube or MP3 files, stop reading now.
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If you are an audiophile trying to get as much from your audio as possible, everything matters. So before you even think about upgrading your cable, you should make sure you already have quality gear and sources that will allow a higher quality cable to make any difference.
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Some cables can actually sound poor. Some might not even be a good match for your IEM. You might be able to get away with the cable that came with your IEM, but it is possible that your cable might be holding your IEM back from its full potential.
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Any audiophile should have a great standard cable around just to understand what a good cable the majority have agreed upon is “good” quality and reliable to compare other cables to.
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If anyone is interested in what a different cable might be able to bring to the table, a good bet would be to get a great quality copper, and silver cable to compare. The biggest differences in sound characteristics come from these two different metal types.
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No one needs to spend a fortune for a cable to attain high quality sound. It is important to have a quality cable that delivers the best audio rich signal to your IEMs but that is attainable without spending $1,000.00 on a cable.
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The difference different high quality cables make in the grand scheme of everything is incredibly minute. It should probably be one of (if not the very last thing) anyone even thinks about when trying to squeeze ever drip of quality out of their music enjoyment.
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Different cable materials aren’t necessarily better. They sound different. It is subjective to the listener as to which they prefer.
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You may not even care about how a cable sounds. The comfort, weight, connection type/simplicity and appearance might be all you care about. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a cable for reasons other than its audio quality. Those reasons alone are probably more important to most when they will possibly make a larger impact on the enjoyment of your gear than the minute sound differences different cables might make.
Feel free to argue any of these points or add your own. It benefits us all in our audiophile journeys. 
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Those are some well-reasoned and well-presented thoughts!
I think I agree that the cable is probably the last piece to fuss over for sound reasons. Ergonomics are another factor to consider with cables, though. Adding to the discussion above about multi-core IEM cables (or headphone cables or speaker cables or even interconnects) between @MazeFrame, @db_Cooper, @Joeses01, and myself, another thing multi-core wires do is increase the flexbility of the cable. For iems this is even more important than with headphones as iems are so light and only stay in the ear by friction. A too-stiff cable will decrease the fit quality.
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@WaveTheory the piece of gear that would solve the scientist in you for measurements is a 2 port network analyzer. Those devices are are amazing at characterizing anything. We had to use a 2 port network analyzer for testing out different soldering techniques in the past when dealing with amplifiers and oscillators in circuits.
And yes… We had to look at at interconnects and apply transmission line theory for less than 5 mm of trace. Granted most of those tests are done to measure the parasitics at high frequencies. If you are really curious and as an engineer, transmission line theory is your friend.
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I totally agree! I’m not a hardcore audiophile, more of a wacky stereophile and just want decent audio with equipment that I can live with.
Take Blon 03. Due to the DD, I don’t think there’s much of a difference with cables for it, but the Yinyoo cable for them lays perfectly on my ear and I much prefer the feel of the cable over stock. If someone had bigger ears, I wouldn’t recommend the same cable as the stem is rather short.
For some IEMs with shitty stock cables, I’d see the worth of grabbing a $15 cable. That’s the joy of the IEM world that’s there’s cheap options available; no need to blow your budget on good cables. But if the cable that comes with them is good and fits someone well, I wouldn’t recommend an “upgrade” cable for a sliver of audio performance.
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My priorities are comfort and the appropriate termination. If it looks nice too, that’s a bonus. Like with tubes, I will get acclimated to any sonic changes pretty quickly so I’m usually ok with it as long as the change isn’t dramatically worse
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Thanks for the replies guys and insights.
I agree completely, for the little bit of significance that cables might make, I don’t think it’s worth going nuts over especially when the end result is slightly different and not even necessarily “better”. Especially if you just want to enjoy music casually. There’s unfortunately no need to go down the rabbit hole unless you’re willing to invest a serious amount of money and time into this hobby.
The one thing I will say after being in this hobby for some time, is that eventually you will end up with a decent amount of headphones that all share a similar termination. For example, all ZMF, Audeze and Empyrean headphones all take mini XLR. If, like me, you own and plan to keep many of these headphones, suddenly a $500 cable that will be useful on multiple sets is a lot more justifiable. I have similarly upgraded iem cables that I can use across a few pairs too. My only recommendation would be to wait until you’re sure you plan to keep the headphone/iem before you start worrying about replacing the cable
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I cannot understate though how much bad cables can ruin a good system. I think overall if people have a system with a good quality conductor (even if it is good quality house wiring copper) sounds better than some aluminum mashed combo that is poorly constructed. When shopping for cables, if the quality of the conductor is suspect just avoid.
Agreed. I as well have so many headphones and have spent good money for quality upgrade cables, but I’ve never been able to hear an audible difference with headphones.
With IEMs, especially MMCX, the connections are delicate. It makes no sense to spend a lot of money on an IEM and change the cable constantly because you will eventually damage the IEM or cable. Get a good cable for your IEM and don’t remove it for the life of the IEM.
Agree. Takeaways 3 & 4 from above.
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+1 on this. I’ll add that also be wary of a cable that has a poor weave/braid to the 3 or 4 conductors in it. A shoddy braid will leave space between conductors and drive up the capacitance of the cable. Capacitance attenuates lower frequencies. Conversely, a too-tight weave can function as a coil of wire which is an inductor. Inductance attenuates high frequencies.
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Only time I replaced cables is when they broke, not gonna fall for that snake oil bs (just like hdmi and speaker/audio cables).
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When I got my gl2000s and plugged them in using their cables and swapped to my he6se using the gl2000s cables there was a very noticeable drop in slam and I still don’t know why.
I don’t know how your post really contributed to anything in this discussion. Have you tried for yourself? Better yet, have you even read the earlier posts in this thread? It was universally mentioned that cables is not something you should invest a lot of your allocation for and there are occurrences that they make a difference, based on use case.
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I don’t have the GL2000 or HE6SE so I don’t know much about their respective cables. However, the issue you raise can be a general cable issue. If the cables have multiple strands of wire for each conductor then the quality of the braid/weave of those conductors matters a lot. If the braid isn’t tight enough and there is space between wire strands then there will be some capacitance in the wire. Capacitors are reactive circuit elements and tend to look like open or broken circuits to low frequencies. If the wire has some capacitance in it you will notice some attenuation and/or lack of speed/punch in the low end.
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This is bullshit. There is lots of stuff we cant measure in science. Hell, a large part of higher level science is knowing what is unquantifiable. Even Amir wont claim there is no such thing as stage and imaging, but how do you measure size of staging or accuracy of imaging?
I am very heavily in the camp of cables just cant make a difference unless you have impedance matching issues like with andromeda (where the change is literally measurable in FR), so I agree with your conclusion (and I doubt ill change my mind until I hear a difference myself), but your logic is just flat out bad.
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I mean… This aint a great argument either… If conductivity of a wire changes how something sounds in a way that cannot be objectively measured, a mechanism must at least be proposed for what is happening.
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