Aftermarket Sennheiser Headphone Cables

[xerxes]

I see there are a good number of replacement cables for Sennheiser HD 600 and 650 headphones from Cardas, Russ Andrews, Moon Audio etc.

I wondered if anyone used them and whether you think they are a definite improvement on the original cable, for the HD 650 in particular?

[PinkFloyd]

xerxes said:

I see there are a good number of replacement cables for Sennheiser HD 600 and 650 headphones from Cardas, Russ Andrews, Moon Audio etc.

Good price too (read "costly") There are many people over at Head-Fi who claim these aftermarket cables make a bit of a "difference" to the Sennheisers and there are a few who claim they can't hear any difference at all, it may be worth your while searching the Head-Fi archives for "aftermarket cables" you'll have to register with Head-Fi before you can use the search database though.

I, personally, think these exotic looking cables are a licence to print money.. as long as they're good quality OFC copper, professionally terminated, spending anymore than £15 on interconnects is wasting money. That's my opinion, there are others who will spend £1,000 per metre and claim "miracles" if it does it for them then fine, it's their money, the power of placebo is very very influential with things like exotic "looking" highly priced interconnects... have you ever seen a £1000 interconnect that looks like a piece of string? NO, simple reason, nobody would buy it, they expect these things to look like audio jewelry and, boy, they pay through the nose for it.

I wondered if anyone used them and whether you think they are a definite improvement on the original cable, for the HD 650 in particular?

I auditioned Cardas cables with a pair of HD-600.... nice and thick, nice looking but I couldn't perceive any difference to the sound quality... admittedly, I only listened for about 10 minutes so I'm probably not the best person to ask especially with my attitude to aftermarket interconnects and the people who sell them.

[rickcr42]

If you are up to it you can make your own using either Mogami Neglex microphone cable or Canare Star Quad cable and see on the cheap if aftermarket or "improved" headphone cables are for you.

My opinion is there is a difference in cable sound but :

A-difference does not mean better,just different,though some cable are better than others for various reasons

B-only an idiot would spend $500 on ANY cable yet there are those who will spend five times that and try and convince others it is a bargain

What you are mostly paying for is a "look" where cables have become not something to keep hidden behind a rack but openly displayed as some kind of audio jewelry and for status

"look at me.Am I not cool ? I can spend $5K on cables and they look better than yours"

Heavy metal plugs=bad for audio but that is the norm

Heavy cable coverings=sometimes microphonic,bad for audio

Death Grip Plugs=destroyed jacks if the RCA type,again bad

common sense goes a long way and I personally have found simple and light to be best and in fact for interconnects beleive Kimber Cable PBJ's all the cable most will ever need (I would toss in some of the Beldon raw cables with good RCA plugs) and a quality microphone cable re-wired with TRS jacks/plugs and most will ever need for headphones.

Oh yeah.i use nickel plated RCA plugs and TRS plugs all the time and I can tell you gold is NOT a requirement for sound quality and is in fact worse if the gold plating is cheap and comes off through use

[xerxes]

B-only an idiot would spend $500 on ANY cable yet there are those who will spend five times that and try and convince others it is a bargain

Guilty - [sheepish grin] - I have some silly money cables in my system, although in my defence I would never try to convince others that they are good value. I also bought the cables used at a consderable saving on the new price.

I have a set of Townshend DCT300 interconnects and a pair of Isolda speaker cables. They are both very good, but I would never try to convince someone that they weren't ludicrously over priced.

I have tried a good few interconnects in my system including:

1. A pair on no-name, give-away, cheap and nasty interconnects. £0
2. Kimber - PBJ - 1m - £80.00
3. Van den Hul - The First Ultimate MkII 0.6m - £155.00
4. Cyrus interconnect - 1m - £85.00
5. Townshend DCT300 - 1m - an eye watering £300.00

I was able to connect up 2 cables at a time to both outputs on my CD player to two inputs on the amp, so that I could switch between them with the remote and do a quick A-B comparison.

All the branded, expensive interconnects were a significant improvement on the cheap, giveaway ones - gven the cost, you'd hope so really.

The difference between the more expensive, branded cables was more subtle. Of all of them I liked the Townshend the best, but we are talking a smidgeon here, not a night and day difference and I'm not sure I'd be able to spot it if I had to take the time to unplug one set of cables and plug another in. The Townshend cable certainly isn't two or three times better than the others in line with it's cost.

The Isolda speaker cables were a night and day difference when compared with my previous cables. I had a set of Chord Carnival cables that were fine with my old speakers, but were absolutely dreadful with my current set of speakers. The treble was screechy and nasty and the bass was thin, weedy and lightweigt. With the Isolda cables, the treble is clear as a bell and the bass is seismic by comparison. I think the Isolda cables are very good, but I won't claim that they are somehow magical. I think it's more a case of the Chord cables being a particularly bad match for my current speakers, as they were fine with my old ones.

[rickcr42]

I use solid conductors for everything audio and that in the smallest guages I can get away with and for me not a single multistrand after market coble has ever come close when it comes to timing and timbral accuracy.

stranded wire was invented for user freindly service and not because of a superior performance level so for me personally all are jusy variations of a bad theme,some better than others,all worse than solid wire.

It is also my personal beleif that ALL shielded wire sucks and is to be avoided if possible.
If RFI or EMI is a problem then I shoot straight to the "Pro" solution and use transformer isolated balanced lines.Expensive and not for everyone but as effective a solution as has ever been invented in the history of audio and actually dates back to the early days of telephone service to make the cross country connections hum and noise free at both ends .

again,a personal choice and take back the "only an idiot" part because many who are not idiots DO claim great perfomance with various high end cables.I just have not yet personally heard one as cohesive as the simple solid wire and if it costs more than $50-$100 am not interested anyway

[xerxes]

I use solid conductors for everything audio and that in the smallest guages I can get away with and for me not a single multistrand after market coble has ever come close when it comes to timing and timbral accuracy.

Interestingly, the two cables I favour of those i've tried, the Cyrus and the Townshend, are both unshielded, solid core designs. The Cyrus cable is basically a flat plastic ribbon about 10 mm wide with single copper strand running down each edge with low mass Eichman bullet phono plugs, similar to DNM Reson cables. The Townshend uses a flat copper strip about 3mm wide and 0.25 thick for each conductor. The flat conductors are in an oversized PTFE tube with only the narrow edges touching the inside of the tube, so that the dielectric is mainly air. The Townshend cables are also cryogenically treated, but not having heard this particular cable untreated I couldn't say whether this has any real effect. Whatever the technical mumbo jumbo, I think they sound pretty good.

[Stormy]

I was always taught that a number of smaller cores is better for things like power cables because electrical current is lazy and has a tendency to only use the outside edges of large bits of copper/aluminium etc. I suppose that's more about efficiency than anything else.
Has anyone seen the Cat5e speaker cable idea? Plaiting unshielded solid-conductor ethernet cable to make a big mess of twisted pairs. Apparently it's very good, as is using unplaited ethernet cable for audio distribution in houses - the twisted pairs and relatively high quality of copper in things like Cat6 cable seem to be suited to it.

www.venhaus1.com/diycatfivecables.html

I agree with the audio jewelry comment. My interconnects are Cambridge audio Atlantic and Pacific. I couldn't tell the difference between the two on my old headamp using MP3s as a source - I shall have to try again now I suppose. The main reasons i went for the Atlantic cables are: What Hi-Fi? gave them 5-stars (and they award stars to things based on value for money, not pure performance), £30 seemed like a sensible amount of money to pay for a cable that is considered "good value" by a down-to-earth Hi-Fi magazine, and most importantly they have a lifetime warranty. I suppose not looking like string helps, but I wouldn't have chosen banana yellow if there was an option.

I was considering buying a Cardas or Zu (very pretty) cable for my HD-600s at some point, but then I reasoned that the £150-200 would be better spent on building my ultimate source. If you've spent as much as you can on everything else, then I'd say consider it.

[szoze]

I tested Cardas cable with my Senn. HD650 a month ago and I really liked it. It opened up the sound significantly. Whether it is worth £85 or not it is discussable. I simply knew that I couldn't live without one knowing it existed

[manic]

I use a Cardas cable with my 650's and with the 565 Ovations before that and it did make a difference over the stock cable - almost approaching the same extent to changing the stock Jan Philip's valves in the V 3 with Russian tubes. However, I think the change does not warrant the full asking price but is well worth the £68 I paid for second hand pair on e-bay. (it took me three months of searching to find a pair) These comments are from a fellow traveler who is generally skeptical about the marketing hype used by some cable manufacturers. All makes of cable have different and not always better sound. In some instances the concept of burn-in is a ploy for your ears becoming used to the new sound. I have found this with speaker cable. I still use a standard Ixos cable with a good system and have not heard anything to better this. The biggest improvement I have made (apart from the PinkFloyd mod on the V3) was some basic work to filter the mains supply.

[manic]

And I forgot about the cool colour of the Cardas cable, almost as good as the noise!!!

[sometrolls]

Is there a guide on how to make Sennheiser headphone cables and source for the plugs?

[kittenyberk]

I don't think there's an aftermarket supplier for the plugs - i suspect it's a *very* small market.

I reckon your best way would be getting an old senn cable and cutting the plugs down to allow soldering onto the plugs, then heatshrinking.

Otherwise, you're probably looking at making your own plugs, which is getting silly.

[rickcr42]

I don't think there's an aftermarket supplier for the plugs - i suspect it's a *very* small market.

There should be a standard on this like there is for all otherareas of audio.imagine if say CD players from various manufacturers all had their own "company specific" connectors ? How long would the consumer tolerate THAT ! (about 0.0001 ms is my thought)

My personal vote goes to the AKG mini-XLR which makes so much sense it will never fly.Simple answers in audio don't have enough "elitism" attached separating the haves from the have nots so how in the hell could we prove how cool we are if we don't have something out of the reach of the average entry level/low budget audiophile ?



easy to swap out,readily available connectors,would allow ANY cable to be attached to ANY headphone for direct comparisons which with enough different headphones and cables would quickly sort out the pretenders from the serious players,probably the reason why it will never happen