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
2.5mm TRRS cable: The cable allows you to connect to digital audio players such as the Astell&Kern or FiiO series, which feature fully balanced output jacks for additional power and control with even lower distortion on the signal.
3.5mm TRRS adapter: For balanced output jacks that use 3.5mm. (Please take care to use the correct plug if your device has two different 3.5mm jacks. TRS is for single-ended and TRRS is for balanced.)
Also, will it be sold individually or packaged with some other combo/set? I ask because I'd like to use it for my other headphones as well (e.g., HD6XX). :)
We want to make it easier for you to use your things together and encourage testing combos to find the right formulas. It's not easy to go to one spot and find all of these things, let alone with decent pricing. Hopefully this is helpful for some people now and for you in the future...thanks for looking!
Meanwhile, I thought I'd share some related thoughts from my own listening experiences....
Not long ago I finally received my K10 customs (thanks, Massdrop!), which I've been listening to extensively on an AK380 DAP (thanks, Massdrop!). I started out with the standard 3.5mm SE cable so I could try listening to a variety of sources, but after a couple weeks I switched to the 2.5mm balanced cable. The improvement was striking! Focus is better and everything just sounds cleaner through the balanced output.
I wasn't expecting such a dramatic difference, especially because I've also been listening to Focal Utopias (sorry, Massdrop!) on the AK380. Those came with a very long 1/4" SE cable, which I later swapped out for a shorter silver cable with a 2.5mm balanced connector. To be honest, the differences between SE and balanced from the AK380 to the Utopias is subtle at best. Both sound sublime; balanced didn't impart a sense of any drastic improvements.
I wonder if, because the K10s are so easy to drive and offer such an intimate listening experience, whether otherwise minor improvements in crosstalk elimination / noise reduction are simply more apparent with IEMs than with full size headphones? Might the same be true with other IEMs?
In any case, I'm sold on using balanced sources with my K10s whenever possible. I also pretty much need an adapter like the one above for the Utopias--beats yet another pricy cable to use those with a balanced headphone amp.
Just to clarify, by CTX do you mean Cavalli Liquid Carbon X? For the Liquid Carbon X, Alex explained to me that his reason for designing an IEM amplifier in balanced mode allowed him to use some specific parts that are very low noise, offering a higher level of clarity. And because it is designed to play so well with IEMs, the low gain is a unity gain and should give you the cleanest signal at a usable range of power...even with sensitive IEMs. I was also quite surprised the first time I went back and forth on the two jacks. As for the greater difference with IEMs, I think you may be onto something and that your theory might be correct. Such sensitive drivers so close to the eardrum with even less in the way. Size and number of drivers may have an impact as well.
I'll feed this up to the team to try and prioritize the adapter sooner. Oh, and congrats on the Utopias, glad you got and are enjoying them- fantastic. Of course, thanks for buying the K10 customs and the amp from us!
Thanks for the insights on Alex's design choices with the Liquid Carbon X. I'm looking forward to another run through my headphone and music collections with my LCX when it shows up. I hadn't put much thought into using a desktop amp for IEMs, but then I hadn't really expected to get so much out of the Utopias from a portable DAP, either. It's fun to experiment.
Thanks also for feeding my comments back to the team. The AK380 has been so much fun that I'm inclined to standardize on ~4' 2.5mm balanced cables for most of my cans and use adapters like those in this drop to connect to other sources. I didn't much care for the 2.5mm form factor at first (seemed a little too tiny to be sturdy), but then again it's much nicer to start at 2.5mm and use an adapter to go bigger than it is to have, say, an XLR-to-anything-else adapter hanging off my headphone cable like a fishing weight. :-)