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
If you're not going to go through the trouble to recable your headphones to balanced operation (or buy a pair that are) then just buy one amp, but typically you want headphones to cost more than your gear, not the other way around.
With audio, people have different definitions of breaking the bank so you may want to specify what's yours lol.
(I personally run a NAD C510+Schitt Mjolnir 2 at home, but I'm interested in picking up a pair of these for my work setup).
I have a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 on my desktop but I use it more for the recording properties than music listening because the detail retrieval is pretty low, my JDS Labs C5D sounds better than it by a long shot.
So are you talking in absolute terms and are 100% certain and positive that there is zero difference between a balanced DAC - balanced amp - balanced headphone cable compared to a single ended version of the same devices? Do you also believe power chords, USB/RCA/XLR and headphone cables (litz, OCC, copper, hybrid, pure silver) do not impact sound at all? Everyone going balanced in their home and buying after-market cables are wasting money?
I'm not trying to discredit you or anything like that, it's just an interesting topic to me!
I'm looking at getting either the Yulong D200 or Emotiva DC-1 to go along with the HA-200 pair.
For device interconnect going balanced is useful for noise rejection because it typically affords you around 6dB more SNR. For most non recording applications I'd agree it's not *needed* but I do it anyways because it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside and a decent XLR cable costs less than "audiophile" single ended cables (I'm not a huge believer in exotic cables. If you want to know why, I will be all to willing to give that rant).
However for headphone cabling it's less about noise rejection than other factors (a small amount of noise applied against a very large signal is going to get washed out, or if you leave your cell phone on top of the cable, you're going to hear it regardless since that's one hell of a noise source) but more about maximizing amplifier potential. It's not the end all solution since you're paying for twice the circuitry that could have been dedicated to making a better single ended amp. But some headphones, like orthos, tend to like the power and extra slew rate that going for a balanced connection can afford.
But yes in terms of cable material, I agree with your statements 100%. I've had the misfortune of accidentally destroying a oscilloscope probe that costs more than a brand new Camry, and lo and behold, it's just copper on the inside, so material isn't really all that important especially when the termination/connection is where most of the capacitance comes to play.
As an electrical engineer who's worked in both telecom and power industries, I also agree that there are very few cables in the world worth paying over $100 for (assuming short lengths anyway). As long as it's mechanically sound, wired and terminated properly, the cable will do its job.