I mostly agree, but I also want my stuff to be good so I’m always keeping an eye out for all the information I can get. I always start with stock cables, pads, tubes, etc. and change only if something is immediately bad to my ears or comfort is an issue. If my iem costs $35 the included cable is awful, I’d upgrade solely based on comfort and call it a day. I’d do a cursory check to see if there was a consensus recommendation and go with something less than the cost of the iem if I didn’t already have something on hand.
When you get into the $1k+ iem range, that’s where I’ve seen the biggest changes from copper to silver, 4 vs 8 vs 16 core, etc, but like others smarter than me above mentioned, I’m sure that’s explainable with science: impedence, sensitivities, noise floors etc. For iems specifically in the ~$2k range, I always look to see what other people are using for accessories. Headphones aren’t so stressful for me.
As for the measurement people, I automatically dismiss someone who wants a shortcut to “the best” who isn’t willing to spend the money to get there and just goes for the best numbers their hive mind tells them to. But the way I don’t let the rest annoy me is easy: goat cheese.
I fucking hate goat milk, goat cheese, (bad) barbacoa, and goat in general in the food world. I work in culinary and goat cheese is in everything. Part of my job is sampling something I have real distaste for. As much as some of them annoy me, the guy bitching about a 1db elevation in their sensitivity zone to me is equal to me biting into a cheesecake only to get that distinct goat milk aftertaste. I’m not going to like it no matter how much others tell me I will, how subtle it is, etc. No matter what the general opinion is, mine isn’t changing. We put up with other people’s stupid food rules all our lives, and sound is as personal as taste. I may not understand someone hating my favorite headphone, but I understand if they don’t eat shrimp or broccoli, and that’s a double standard. There should be no distinction since it just comes down to personal taste.
And how does the xhancedconducivity change the sound? Also, if as others are proposing in this thread that material is the main factor (silver vs coper vs etc) how does this accunt fr massv eswngs in impedence in identical bass material cables
I would be more than happy for someone to do this and shut up the entire debate. We have measured this as a factor on very sensitive many driver iems, but that case came purely down to inpedence and not material as keeps being proposed in this thread.
Also in every “measurements” thread we only talk about FR graphs and forget about CSD measurements (Cumulative Spectral Decay). For cables, the truth could be hidden there, too.
Here is the thing I dont get about this thread (and one of the reason I dont believe cables make a difference outside f the super specific cases i have already talked about). Well over 90% of the posts in this thread are proposing cables change things directly correlated with FR with some even going as far t call out the frequencies directly. Every time cables have been measured on single transducers unless they are crazy crazy long/high impedence/capacitance (ie, shit) there has not been a measurable change t FR.
Imo, if yoy want to claim cables change sound, it needs to either be something wr can’t measure or followed up by measurements confirming the change (tonality in this case) if we can measure it.
All the talk about copper cables being warm, imo, is like someone claiming they were abducted by aliens at 10pm on Tuesday the 5th when there is video of them down at sharkies at that exact time frame.
If yoy want to claim something like this at least be smart about the proposed mechanism and make it something we can’t verify (or, get someone y do measurements and actualy verify it)
I just use whatever feels nicest in my hand. I won’t claim to be a golden ear, but I’ve never been disappointed with a cables sound even switching to cheap ass linsoul 16-core specials (btw, the feel of that $20 linsoul cable realy is fucking magic. Them and kinera have the best feeling cheap cables imo)
The audio world “knows” (= think they understand) FR graphs. Running an FFT on some cable to see what frequencies (if any) get attenuated is easy (not that the results would be great, just easy to do).
LCR-measurements (= inductance, capacitance, resistance) are a lot less common as you would mainly use them to ensure your circuit board or antenna cable behaves correctly.
If the cable discussion suddenly had the data point (and this is a pulled from thin air example) 16-strand 28AWG copper dampens anything beyond 15kHz, then that would be more than the shouting matches the cable discussion devolves into all the time.
I dont think you are being realistic about our understandings of tonality here. Can you think of even a single example where reviewes generaly agree the heard tonality is not inline with the FR? There are lots of things to do with sound that we can’t well explain. Tonality happens to be one wr can. And more specificaly, a warm sound signature is very easy to spot on pure FR and confirmed by subjective reviews.
Again, if you want to claim cables effect sound, at least propose something we don’t understand (there are probabaly more options of what we don’t understand than what we do)
Fair enough lol. I personally don’t think copper is “warm”, I just think copper is… the standard.
I know we’re only talking about cables but there are a ton of headphones measuring exactly the same (frequency response) but definitely not sounding the same because the detail, soundstage, imaging, compression or dynamics are not the same… to name a few. FR graphs also don’t measure “ringing” problems, and CSD does, apparently.
And all this goes through a cable, so… yeah.
One google search only shows me one guy who measured two different cables and got similar frequency response results and that’s it. I believe we can just agree that there’s not enough science to back if a difference between cable materials makes a difference or not for audio, therefore we can just rely on our ears for now.
(Just don’t buy these goddamn 1000$ Audioquest 1ft RCAs to put between your Topping A30 and Topping D30, please.)
I think we can universally agree on that and I am pretty sure it has been the common advice and agreement on multiple threads.
Once again, the OP made reflective thoughts on cables is a personal journey on subjectivity and personal value. It also depends on your gear and its ability to resolve. Also yes, it remains a low priority and allocation of the total funds.
Pretty sure it’s OCC SPC litz from what I know, but apparently something else must be going on or something lol. I don’t know if they actually hide what type of cable they use any of their other cables outside the no 10, wonder why
