Why Upgrade Cables? - Benefits and Advice for Upgrading Your Cables.

by Bear Chen

For What Purpose Shall We Consider Upgrading Cables?

1. For the Upgrade of Sound Qualities

Besides using the 3.5mm cables, there are cables with balanced plugs like the 2.5mm or the 4.4mm cables for IEM’s, there are also XLR cables for headphones. These balanced cables could provide you a better sound quality compared with the 3.5mm and the 6.35mm cables.

2. For Different Tunings

Different materials used on the cable’s conductor could provide different tunings. Different cables could either provide more bass, provide lighter vocals, or soften the tremble.

3. For Continued Use on IEM’s

Original cables are sometimes lack of quality; they might break very easily. In that case, upgrade cable is needed for better use of IEM’s.

What Differs Upgrade Cables

1. Type of Materials

Different materials form a different tuning. Knowing how each materials could influence the sound is one of the main method on choosing a cable. Here are the main materials that are used on the conductors.

Copper

It’s one of the most common materials used on most upgrade cables. It emphasizes on the bass, making it bouncy, plump, and punchy. Also, it’ll soften the tremble, and enrich the atmosphere.

Silver

The impedance of silver cable is much lower than copper cables, also it’s chemically stable, bringing stabled transfer. Most manufacturers use silver plated copper or mixed silver and copper conductors on its cables for stability. Silver focuses on the mids and the highs, the sound will sound more parsed, detailed, transparent and delicate.

Gold

Its impedance is quite high, so usually gold materials are used with silver or copper, such as gold-plated silver/copper or mixed gold and silver. With the help of silver or copper cables, it moist the sound and enlarge the soundstage, the sound will be charming and powerful.

2. Purity of Materials

We value a cable’s purity through the percentage of its material. Usually, we say that a cable that uses 99.99999% pure Copper is a 7N Copper cable. The number before the N stands for the number of the decimal point, 7N stands for 7 nines and 6N stands for 6 nines, which means 99.9999% pure. The more N’s it has, the higher the purity is.

How To Select a Cable That Suites you

Which weaving method should we choose? What shielding is it? How long should I choose? There are many factors that needs to be considered. But you can first think on what you want your sound to be like. If you prefer a greater amount of bass, you can consider on choosing copper cables, if you would like more details, silver cables could be a great choice, if you want an upgrade on the vocals, I’d prefer you choose an mixed gold and silver cable. The materials you choose determines what tuning it’ll do to your IEM. Remember that balanced plugs are highly recommended on your upgrade cable. Because compared to the 3.5mm or 6.35mm normal plugs, balanced plugs like the 2.5mm, 4.4mm and the XLR plugs provide an obvious upgrade on sound quality.