Sennheiser PC37X randomly goes bad after disconnecting the cable ?
Greetings, Yesterday I was using my headset like normal with my macbook, just listening to music and on a call with people like usual, and the headset was perfectly fine. The stock wire that came with the headset is extremely long and yesterday it annoyed me very much that it kept getting tangled with itself, so I decided to see if the cable is replaceable. I pulled out the cable from the headset and saw the adapter, and looked online for a replacement. Upon plugging it back in, the audio sounded extremely muffled and washed out. Im not sure what I did wrong to make it mess up like that as I've always taken good care of it, ive had it for about 2 years and its always just been chilling on my desk, but anywho I thought the cable just went bad and ordered a replacement. The replacement came, and the issue is still persistant, so I am not sure what the issue is I've tried multiple different headsets and the issue is not with the port, and I also tried it with my windows laptop and...
Apr 23, 2024
I am very eagerly awaiting the delivery of these! Maybe the fact that the drop completed so quickly will mean they ship a little bit earlier than originally expected?
So, anyway, how many of you who have ordered these plan on getting a balanced cable for them? Are there any good options at a decent price out there? Most of the aftermarket balanced cables for the HD650's seem grossly overpriced to me.
Balanced cables are usually used in professional recording settings where really long cables are needed. When they are really long , they are more susceptible to interference, so the balanced cabling really helps. It is questionable whether or not it makes much of a difference in the 3-4ft between your head and your amp though.
Now, what do they do for you with your headphones. Well, firstly, unless you have a balanced amp, absolutely nothing. You need a balanced amp to drive balanced headphones.
Secondly, most amps that offer both balanced and single ended outputs, provide more power in balanced mode. I'm not sure why this is, but if you look through spec pages you'll usually find it to be the case. Since the HD650's are generally considered to scale well with higher power, and higher quality amps, this can't hurt.
Thirdly, Some people claim they get more clarity with balanced cables, especially if your entire analogue pipeline (DAC--->AMP--->Headphones/Speakers) is balanced. This is in the realm of the more subjective, and may not be true unless you are a member of the anointed golden eared audiophile elite.
One aspect that is objectively verifiable is that balanced cables result in less "crosstalk". That is less of what belongs in the right channel will blend over to the left channel and vice versa. This is probably only noticible if crosstalk is atrociously bad though.
At least this is my understanding from reading up on it.
Why am I interested? Because I just so happen to be get an amp that has balanced outputs, and I figured "why not, I've never heard it before and I'm curious".
I'm not suggesting that it is vastly superior or anything like that.
I'll fully admit, that while I'm an engineer, I am neither an audio, nor an electrical engineer, so the minute details of amplifier design are not that clear or even particularly interesting to me.
All that being said I feel you are exaggerating the impact of balanced cabling, just like how in many of the tube threads many people greatly exhaggerate the impact going from tube to tube.
It is no great secret that our hobby of audiophilia is one placebo effect, confirmation bias and pride in defending our expensive purchases subconsciously bias our opinions and even our experiences of what does and what doesn't sound good, that;'s why I always take the most exhaggerated reviews when people say things make a huge amount of difference, with a truckload of salt, and thus far it hasn't led me astray when I get to hear things for myself.
One big difficulty in comparing single ended and balanced outputs on the same amp/headphone is volume matching. Balanced will typically sound louder, and the human brain is biased to interpret louder as better in most cases, making it very difficult to make a good assessment.
Anyway, the reviews that I trust the most on the subject, that have used the same headphones on the same amp in balanced vs unbalanced and attempted to match the volume as much as possible have more ore less all concluded that there are small, subtle improvements, but not enough that it would be worthwhile to spend the money needed to replace a single ended amp and source if you already have a decent one.
Also does anyone know of a good balanced DAC as well? From what I can see the Jotunheim basically is the cheapest balanced DAC outputs (true balanced, with individual DACs per channel and not signal split >_>)
I tried tubes with the Lyr 2, but didn't care for the experience, so I returned it and am going back to solid state and ordered a Jotunheim. It reviews very nicely
Plan to have the cable ready by the time they arrive.
Really if you breakup enjoyment per song listening price and enjoyment plus all the movies you watch if you watch them through the dac then high priced gear could be considered fairly cheap when comparing to cheaper gear on a track by track basis(assuming you listen to thousands or 10s or thousands of tracks over the years or during the life of the gear).