I like you man, ur a generally nice guy but I question your opinions on cables a fair bit for comments like these lol. You say that cables won’t improve sound, and then you mention that you have a list of cables that are better in terms of objective measurements.
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Objective measurements = lower resistance
Essentially, are you paying for a bad wire that measures very high or are you paying for a lower resistance cable that would be more “pure” and higher quality. Thats it.
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I would typically say fair enough, but not this time. Because if you are insinuating that as a seller of expensive cables they have ulterior motives to lie in order to get you to buy their cables then that would leave me no choice but to automatically assume that as a buyer who wants to spend less money we too have innacurate opinions since we would do our best to discredit something like that. In which case it’s impossible to get an accurate opinion from anybody
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I’m sorry I dropped out of college so I’m not too smart. Please elaborate on this. On resistance, do cables that measure better have less noise or something? What’s so objectively better? And what’s the objective?
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The objective is to get a high quality cable, which includes comfort, visuals and resistance (to me).
Lower resistance is seens objectively better generally, because they dont affect the FR of the iem (BA iems). its basically the same reason why you want as low OI on amps as possible
That can happen, same way when an amp with a high OI hisses with more sensitive BA iems. If you have a high resistance cable, it should be the same thing.
Here is what can happen with different cable (if a cable measures over 1.5 ohm, I consider it it defective…) resistances:
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None short cable will have any audible noise, and its fixed by shielding and not from cable purity. and higher resistance cable can shift frequency response, you can look at etymotic er3xr with resistor vs er4xr measurements. But I believe it won’t happen with any decent cable <1ohm resistance in whatsoever. Whatever, its useless discussion and I hope it will be moved in some separate topic.
Another thing to consider is that I am focusing on the 0-300 usd range. Where it just isnt a good choice at all to spend that much money on a cable when they could use it to be upgrade the transducer itself, getting a good tip collection or get a better source than just a smartphone.
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Gotcha gotcha. So lower resistance means that it generally won’t affect the frequency response of the headphone. So you objectively believe it to be better because it puts out what is put in.
Here’s where the issue comes however, I’ve noticed in your reviews that some IEMs are better than others because they are tighter, puncher or more detailed etc. I’ve heard a cable that did that, it made an iem sound much more tighter while the other cable sounded a bit less cohesive, less tight and less controlled. So whether it changes the sound of the iem in any frequency response way or not I would call the first cable as an objectively better cable since it brings up the technical abilities that we as an audio community generally agree that make up the fundamentals of a better headphone etc.
Im sure you wouldn’t argue that the Blon03 for example is an objectively worse iem in comparison to the LZ A7 even if you remove frequency response or how close it is to a target curve correct? Haven’t heard the LZ but from what I’ve read it’s got bigger Soundstage, more detail, better treble and probably tighter too. So when cables do the same wouldn’t it be an objectively better cable?
Now then if you want to discredit someones ears when it comes to that, then you would also have to discredit their ears in terms of being able to objectively call a headphone better than another one correct?
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The entire reason for the existence of that cable list, is so that people dont make the same mistake I did a few years ago. Buying a 200 usd cable to put on a 300 usd iem…just plain stupid to do that, just go buy a 500 usd iem from the start if you will spend that amount of money…
Back then, I remember a lot of people saying to go buy these cables that are over 100 usd instead of the budget ones and while it is true that the budget cables back then really where shit. Its certainly not like that anymore with faaeal, tri, XINHS and all these other brands popping up with high quality cables at a very low price.
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This is generally the case. Although in some strange cases when the tuner decides to tune the iem with a cable that has high resistance, getting a lower resistance cable could make it worse by changing the fr…
(like this)
The only scenario when a cable can do something like this is with 2 different measuring cables and with a sensitive BA iem. Otherwise it is pure placebo and purchase justification bias.
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This is a troublesome statement. Because what I getting out of it is that the blon 03 is just as good as the LZ A7 because both objectively input sound like they are supposed to and you are only saying that the LZ is better to justify your purchase of an expensive iem
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They are different transducers thats why they sound different. Not because the cables have anything to do with them…
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The “don’t care about measurements, I trust my ears” idea totally makes sense to me, I just wonder why it’s often mentioned in the context of arguing against blind tests. Would’ve thought a blind test is the way to really trust your ears, i.e. to avoid confirmation bias, which I doubt any of us can rule out otherwise.
If I believed in cables making an audible difference I’d personally be interested in a blind test just to double-check my impression, not to convince others. Even more so before spending tons of money on cables 
But yes I get how proper tests are a PITA to set up.
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Amen to all of that, man! LOL
I think a lot of serious audiophiles actually do blind tests at home, just not for the purpose of proving it to others. The whole “I dare you” or “I challenge you” or “come change my mind” thing is what puts people off.
I suppose the intention is appreciated, but isn’t this moving the goal posts? I thought the subject of debate is whether cables make a audible difference or not, it then becomes whether it has different measurement, or whether it’s not advisable to spend crazy money on entry level IEMs
I already explained my thoughts about this.
And I thought you would stop replying to this subject now? It’s not really In the spirit of intellectual debate to both dodge some questions and say stuff like “oh sorry bro I shouldn’t have engaged”, “let’s respect each other’s opinion”, “I will stop” then keep claiming “I’m right and you’re wrong”, or “I’m more open minded and you’re not”, or “I have science and you don’t”. It makes one doubt whether you want to feel superior or want to discuss subject matters.
Just curious, how would it be possible to set up a proper blind test that people would be actually satisfied with if the results went either way?
I’d be very happy to be disproven and save myself a lot of money on cables in the process.
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This is what I got out of this conversation. You are an audio reviewer who is a college student. You say that you don’t have the money to get out of the 300 dollar price range and yet own 76 IEMs. Which is we assume are all worth maximum 8 dollars you can still get a solid 1k iem. You also receive free IEMs from companies so just like abyss tries to convince people that expensive cables make audio differences because they get money of of it you also recommend these cheap iems because I exchange companies see your influence and will give you more free IEMs. Cables don’t make a difference and if you think it does you are wrong because your opinion is simply incorrect. Transducers obviously can make something sound different but a cables other components obviously will have no impact on audio
Sorry for the rant but there are essentially two types of people I audio. Those who live by measurements and those who don’t. Just like you like to claim that people’s opinions are wrong because they are just trying to justify a purchase I think you are the same. You don’t want to save up for any higher end iem so you rely on graphs to justify staying in your price range. Because you don’t want to justify the cost and want to feel like you have the best thing without having to spend the money you turn to faulty logic like saying a measurement is the end all and be all of gear. A measurement that is measured by a person. Just like a human can lie to themselves when using their own ears to gauge if something is better or worse a person can easily measure something incorrectly, a person can try to measure something incorrectly like Soundstage, speed, detail, timbre, tonal balance by using lines Iines I a graph when these things are meant to create something more complex than lines I a graph. Gear tries to recreate a stage, a variety of instruments with different sonic characteristics, the soul of a singer etc.
Keep on justifying the 300 dollar price range that you choose to stay in
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