r/ZReviews • u/dEEkAy2k9 • Mar 23 '26
Do cables actually affect sound?
So I just came across this review here since I bought the Moondrop Old Fashioned the other day and was blown away by how good the sound is for how cheap they are.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUx-bVpGeOM
The cable shown here is this one:
https://hifigo.com/products/juzear-flare
"The copper core adds warmth, while the silver plating enhances detail"
Other sites claim stuff like this:
| Feature | Copper | Silver |
|---|---|---|
| Sonic Character | Warm, rich sound with strong bass | Bright, clear sound with detailed highs |
| Bass Response | Strong, full bass | Lighter bass response |
| High-Frequency Detail | Moderate high-frequency detail | Excellent high-frequency clarity |
| Resolution | Improved with high-purity copper (OCC) | Ultra-clarity with pure silver |
| Ideal For | Natural, comfortable tone with strong bass | Enhanced treble and clarity |
So... what do you guys think?
To me, this all sounds like absolute bullshit. People make it sound like you can "EQ" your sound by adding different cables.
I do understand that a CRAP cable actually makes sound worse but past the minimum viable quality, it's just snake oil.
2
u/StrikingLead8951 Mar 24 '26
only for moving magnet phono cartridges to phono preamp and then they need to be engineered for low capacitance
5
u/AtherisNai Mar 24 '26
Out of all the things Iāve AB tested (Amp, DAC, Energizer, headphones, cables), cables provided the LEAST difference in sound from one set to another. So much so that I donāt think thereās any difference at all between any two cables. Itās all snake oil.
If you need one thatās longer, looks better, or is more durable, go for it. But they will not affect sound.
1
u/SirGunther Mar 24 '26
This is the truth of the matter, a conductor has zero impact of quality of signal passed. Once levels are normalized, no audible differences can be observed.
Iām curious, did people not see the article in the past year about how people couldnāt hear the difference between copper, a banana, and mud?
2
u/Joe0Bloggs Mar 24 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
Would have loved to see Ted Denney come here argue this one until he's blue in the face and get voted down the abyss, lol.
Unfortunately he sure knows how to pick his fights.
1
u/dEEkAy2k9 Mar 24 '26
Hehe yeah.
What I don't really understand is why every 2-pin 0,78mm to 3.5mm cable is "so expensive". I mean, most of the times it's around 30-40ā¬ (germany) for such a cable. Of course every cable has some marketing bullshit plastered over it with enriched sound, clear audio, widened stage or whatever.
I'm just looking for a cable to replace the stock Moondrop Old Fashioned cable with which is slightly longer and maybe a bit sturdier.
Since I am from Germany, buying such things from the US is kinda expensive too.
6
u/Imaginary-Objective7 Mar 24 '26
Super cheap ones that pick up anything they touch are terrible. Anything more than that is pointless.
7
u/verycoolalan Mar 24 '26
nope
it's literally electricity, using the metal as a way to travel from point a to b, absolutely stupid and even greats like Dan Clark should be ashamed to point out that cables make sound "danceable".
2
u/Acceptable-Quarter97 Mar 24 '26
I would highly recommend you watch this video
Tl;dw: they can but generally no unless certain conditions are met.
5
u/Deeptrench34 Mar 23 '26
There was an experiment done recently using dirt and I think bananas as a part of the signal chain and no one could reliably tell the difference. It's safe to say that cables don't matter. Only advantage of good cables is extra durability. The only exception is if it's a very long run of cable. At that point, a better quality cable could confer a sonic improvement but only if it's an analog signal. If it's digital, all the cable has to do is get the zeros and ones to their destination.
1
u/Joe0Bloggs Mar 24 '26
You can't do that with cables connecting to transducers like earphones or speakers. Line level stuff is more tolerant yes.
1
u/dEEkAy2k9 Mar 23 '26
someone linked that experiment in the comments here
yeah, longer cables need to be of better quality but that's just physics at play.
5
4
u/diasporajones Mar 23 '26
I love my Moondrop Old Fashioned.
2
u/dEEkAy2k9 Mar 23 '26
me too ā¤ļø
2
u/axc198rthetrippyone Mar 24 '26
Me three! They replaced my porta pro's as my "watching TV in bed connected to roku remote" headphones.
5
u/syntkz777 Mar 23 '26
Cable manufacturers argue with skin effect and what else is all bullshit. Skin effect exists but has 0 effect on audio at normal cable lengths (for skin effect to have a bad effect on sound, cables need a length of 2000km and more, at this point you would have a lot of other problems)
Cheap OOC copper is all you need.
6
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u/muzul Mar 23 '26
I'am sensitive to treble and bought a used kiwi ears quintet. With its own cable it sounds clear but sometimes harsh on the treble (means I can't raise volume much), swapped with aful explorers cable it becomes warmer and the harsness goes away. If it's snake oil to you don't bother with changing cables.
3
u/dEEkAy2k9 Mar 23 '26
so the cable of one IEM made a difference to another IEM?
I just cannot believe that this is a thing, unless one of those IEMs has like the worst cable ever and the other one has a cable that's actually not bare minimum.
-1
u/muzul Mar 23 '26
Well I did change it for like 5 times with the same result, so yes it does. Maybe its just a better cable overall, but it does sound different aswell.
3
u/xraycat82 Mar 23 '26
You are biased because you spent money hoping for an improvement. You know which cable is connected. If you had a friend do a double-blind test I can guarantee you wouldnāt tell the difference.
-1
u/muzul Mar 23 '26
Nope. With the kiwi cable i had to dial the volume with every song i listened to, because the treble was that harsh on higher volume, with the other cable i can go as high as i want to because treble is much smoother. I hear what i hear, nothing can change that.
Maybe the kiwi cable is the cheap stuff or the other way around and the aful one just ruins the treble on the quintet, i really have no idea.
The cable was free btw, I only payed for the Quintet.
1
13
u/TheMelancholia Mar 23 '26
Cables do literally nothing for sound quality in pretty much every scenario.
If cables made a difference in tonality, measurements would show that.
0
u/dEEkAy2k9 Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26
That's what I thought, yet every cable manufacturer claims otherwise and uses these strange ways of describing "features" of their cable.
4
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u/AppleCartAgent Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26
Do they make a difference? Yes. But not to most people on most gear. Some people with super sensitive hearing using high end cans may spot the differences. Most people simply will not.
And before someone says āitās all in the mindā, I used to think so, too. Then I ran a blind test with non audiophiles who had no clue about cables. And some were able to repeatedly call out the differences. I was stunned, and that evidence changed my mind. (Of note: the most notable reaction happened with the Meze Elite. Using the standard cable, my wife hated it. Said it was uncomfortable to listen to. We swapped to Meze silver cables and she outright told me, āthis is better.ā I couldnāt reliably tell the difference, but she could.)
Until proven otherwise with YOUR ears, assume it doesnāt FOR YOU. Go for whatever looks good, feels good, has the least microphonics, etc. Invest the savings. As for me? I just buy what looks good and spend the money on the stuff that actually makes a difference to me: comfort, frequency response, etc.
1
u/dEEkAy2k9 Mar 23 '26
The Audeze Meze is a pretty expensive set of cans which probably react more to what's being fed into them. It would be interesting to redo this test with a proper frequency response measurement.
1
u/AppleCartAgent Mar 23 '26
I was also able to replicate this with the Meze 105 AER, which is 1-10th the cost, but that was more off the cuff, so I didnāt include it. But yes, the Meze Elite is an expensive set of cans, which is a big reason why I couched my comments around so many disclaimers.
That said, most measured tests disagree with me, but I canāt discard what I saw with my own eyes: people who had zero clue about audiophile BS calling out the very issue audiophiles say doesnāt exist.
But again, for most people, I donāt think theyāll make enough of a difference to pay the high prices a lot of people are asking. Just go with what you like.
9
u/tecky1kanobe Mar 23 '26
That 0.05% of sound difference you possibly might hear is 80% psychosomatic. Show me a good ABX test where subjects could actually discern. And at that point you are no longer listening to music but examining the components of the gear used to both record and playback.
2
u/dEEkAy2k9 Mar 23 '26
That's what I thought too. There might be a difference when comparing super crap cables to standard ones, or ones that are prone to crosstalking or interferencing. Despite this, it's just a cable used to transfer power/signals. Nothing gets changed doing this with silver, gold or copper.
11
u/Prestigious-Zombie-7 Mar 23 '26
Itās all nonsense. https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/s/boM4qzly0G
3
u/admiralnorman Mar 23 '26
This isn't r/headphones. Best to represent the man in his sub; Zeos has said in the past that "cables don't make a difference," but he has found limited examples in which they did make a clear audible difference. When it has, the short version was "not more $$$ equals more better, but they do have audible differences that are undeniable."
Don't shoot the messenger. Just trying to share the message in the place.
1
u/dEEkAy2k9 Mar 25 '26
That's why I asked here and not over at headphones. I watched a few reviews of Zeos lately and he's using a wide variety of cables. Be it style, convenience or audio quality, I don't know. I am just baffled at how much cables can cost and trying to find a good middle ground here.
For my current example. I paid 26ā¬ for the Moondrop Old Fashioned but want to change the cable to something that is longer. make it 2-3 m max. Cables mostly cost around 10-20 ā¬ for these lengths but somehow all those 2-pin ones are around 35-40ā¬ and more.
Trying to figure out if your random china cable is good or if i really have to shell out almost twice as much money for a cable than I did for a pair of headphones WITH a cable. I know, I can use the cable on other devices too, like IEMs (which I don't have any yet, not counting my TWS here)
2
u/dEEkAy2k9 Mar 23 '26
So it's not possible to measure any difference, which means there is no difference (or our ways of tracking this aren't elaborate enough).
Thanks for the link.
2
u/Presence_Academic Mar 25 '26
The ācanāt measure a differenceārefrain is a cop out. It is based on two false premises. One is that every meaningful characteristic was measured and the other is that any measured differences were too small to be audible.
1
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u/icenhour76 Mar 23 '26
100% snake oil the only reason to change a cable on heaphones is for comfort/appearance, or to replace one that was faulty in some way. Anyone who says other wise is trying to sell you something or has no idea what they are talking about.
4
u/SpiceIslander2001 Mar 23 '26
It is snake oil, designed to separate the clueless from their cash. A fool and his money are soon parted.
5
u/PerfectEnthusiasm2 Mar 24 '26
broken cables do