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
Almost all cables want low resistance/inductance/capacitance. For all connections, keep the contact surfaces clean. Typically, a larger contacting surface is better than a point contact. Avoid lateral stresses where possible as well simply to ease mechanical wear and tear. Digital cables is where things can get a little wobbly, and where elements of shielding and characteristic impedance are more important (the latter being flatly out of the realm of DIY and boutique manufacturers unless someone happens to have some *very* expensive equipment at home). Sadly, many digital cables don't even meet proper spec, although this may be moot for audio applications but that's another bucket of worms.
Although the signal being conveyed over the cable is digital, the actual signal being transported is of course analog. Well, unless we're talking optical. I'll keep optical out of this.
So what does this mean, well, the analog wave coming across the cable to the, presumably, external DAC, has to be interpreted by the DAC as a digital signal. If the signal doesn't have a perfect timing on the switches from low to high, or high to low, or the those changes does not happen quickly and cleanly enough there is room for the DAC to misinterpret the signal. And this certainly happens. Can a cable make a difference in this equation, to me logic seems to dictate yes. However, chances are that for a typical short run the difference between a quality $20 cable and a $300 cable is negligible. I don't have any serious research to reference where measurements have been done on this though.
Anyways, long story short, personally I prefer to spend a few dollars extra for a solid well built cable that is properly terminated, than just grab the cheapest thing I see at best buy....
But as you said, in a typical home situation with short runs, it's rather moot. $20 is certainly reasonable for a well built & spec'd cable. A cheapie $2 one might work, but if you're at thep point where you're even talking cables in the first place, then $20 shouldn't break the bank. Now if you're looking at $300 cables for a $200 system, then you've got your priorities mixed up.