In Reply to: Hi-End Headphone Cables posted by Duster on September 28, 2020 at 17:29:13:
Spectrum Cu is 28 AWG, which would be fine for the "normal" headphones, the types that can be powered from the small/medium headphone amplifiers or even from garden-variety op-amp headphone jack of receivers, e.g. Sennheiser HD6/7/8 series, AKG K7xx series, Audio Technicas, etc.
But IME, the hard-to-drive headphones that demand lots of power need heavier AWG cable to avoid sounding anemic and lean. Most of these will be planars, e.g. Audeze LCD4, Hifiman Susvara, Abyss Phi, etc. Current TOTL favorite Raal SR1a ribbon headphones, which represent a super-low 0.2 Ohm load requires headphone cables with very low resistance if driven from speaker amps via adapter box.
One of the better-sounding headphone cables I've tried with planars is the Norne Silvergarde series, which is OCC silver litz, 20 AWG x4 (x8 can be ordered). This sounds as good as one can reasonably expect given the pure-silver sound signatures, which is probably being balanced well by the heavier AWG. The cost is high. (See Link)
Double Helix is a crowd favorite, and one can draw some design inspirations from various designs on site, but their TOTL headphone cables are even more costly.
https://doublehelixcables.com/products/headphone-cables/
VH Audio no longer seems to be selling the Spectrum wire by itself, but the V-Quad Cu24 or Cu21 would make nice headphone cables terminated with 4-pin XLR cable on amp end, which is what headphone enthusiasts want these days for their balanced amps.
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Follow Ups
- 28 AWG would be OK for "normal" headphones, but - Jon L 10:47:07 10/15/20 (2)
- RE: 28 AWG would be OK for "normal" headphones, but - Duster 11:42:10 10/15/20 (1)
- RE: 28 AWG would be OK for "normal" headphones, but - Dawnrazor 19:09:24 11/06/20 (0)