Now it's high time to get out of the kitchen before I'm forced to rename this site. If your brain is still firing on two cylinders, you'll be perfectly crystal that to play today's game, your headphones of choice must (cough) come with a detachable wire harness. Whilst hardwired leashes can be replaced, that's no plug'n'play job. It's serious surgery best left to professionals. It also voids a headphone's warranty whereas replacing one detachable harness with another does not. It's why headphones from Meze to Sennheiser and Ultrasone, from Audeze to Final and Kennerton all terminate their cables with connectors in the first place. Like with speakers, what cables to use is really up to you. So noodle lovers, place yer bets, make yer picks then hit "play"!
"It would be best to build with XLR4 for your XLR3 applications since you already own top-line wired adapters. Dual XLR are rather bulky and we get very few calls for them. I'm already in touch with Raal Requisite about possibly representing their stuff. I'm sure that I can get all the details for pinouts. I just question whether this cable would need to meet certain other unusual specs. For us this would be a maiden voyage so could be a slippery slope if we need heavier gauge to get the 5A job done right. Our current HPX cable is a 28-gauge x 4 design so may need to scale up if Raal's ribbons need it. I'd like to start by sending you a few of our existing HPX-1SE cables so you have some variety to work with. Let me know the needed configurations."
Our resident amps include the Bakoon AMP-13R (6.3mm), Vinnie Rossi L2 (6.3mm, XLR4), COS Engineering H1 (XLR3, 6.3mm), Questyle CMA-800R monos (XLR3), Kinki Studio Vision THR-1 (6.3mm, XLR4) and Schiit Jotunheim R (XLR4 for Raal). Enleum's AMP-23R and Ferrum's Oor were slated for review to again take 6.3mm and/or XLR4. So I asked for 6.3mm and XLR4 leashes each for HifiMan (Susvara & HE-1000) and Final (Sonorous X & D8000). Rob knew about Raal so could dispatch their cable later if he came up with something he was happy with.
"HPX-1 SE features two parallel legs with dual 28AWG single-crystal OCC copper conductors in adjoining PVC jackets insulated with foamed polyethylene dielectric. This geometry is impervious to noise and cross talk. Its left and right legs shield independently with a braided silver-plated OFHC copper shield. The outer jacket is a Techflex no-noise multi-filament, connectors are high-performance Eidolic or Furutech, solder is Quad Eutectic Silver, custom assembly by Phil Martinez, former production manager at AudioQuest and Audience."
Rob's HPX-1 Classic employs more budget connectors and eliminates the brushed aluminium splitter. With the SE—my initials no less—I'd get the latter so fine dining with starched linen napkins. I'd best get out of my jumped-up suit and into proper tweed. The Irish do great tweed jackets. And yes, some of this stuff is about dress code. If you're all casual, go with the Classic equivalents and save yourself a few coins. Deep connoisseurs meanwhile hear differences with connectors. They prefer specific makes or metalurgy like rhodium plating. Rob Fritz finds the best connector to be no connector at all. That echos how I feel about signal-path capacitors. In lieu of absentee connectors being out of the picture, he thinks it best to have connectors be as sonically invisible as possible. His picks reflect that. If you have special wishes, speak up. With all their headfi leashes being built to order, Audio Art Cable can probably accommodate you.
As to what delta of difference to expect, the electronics preceding then driving our headphones will obviously be far more important so must get sorted first. Once we have our hard hardware locked in, the softer hardware of fine-tuning our system voicing with cables becomes a final polish of personalization. This will usually go well beyond digital filter settings on a DAC and often also eclipse whether we do 16/44.1 or 24/96 resolution files. Still, it's about accessorizing not basics. It covers looks, feel/drape and sonic subtleties. That order of importance will vary with individuals. For context, my resident aftermarket headfi noodles are predominantly from Poland's Forza Audioworks. One Alo and Moon mark the exceptions. I've rewired Sennheiser, MrSpeaker, Audeze, Final, Fostex, HifiMan and Raal models. On the topic I'm neither virgin nor inveterate roller.
My observation has been that in most cases, the 3rd-party leashes trumped the stock cables and in some instances profoundly so. Some of the annoying upper mid/lower treble emphasis of Sennheiser's HD800 can be mellowed with a strategic choice of replacement leash. I've also seen that in the last few years, companies like Kennerton and Meze began to pay a lot more attention to their cabling. We can thus credit the aftermarket with lighting the necessary fire to include it in the concept of complete headphone design. No speaker I reviewed across 20 years shipped with cables. Every single headphone did. Until their makers get properly serious about cables, enterprising folks like Rob Fritz will fill the gap. That's capitalism at its finest and the living dream of a better mousetrap. Now we'll proceed from trapped mice past wet noodles to… well, hifi as usual.
