This is an audiophile grade, ultra-low capacitance cable for the Audeze LCD-2 / LCD-3 / LCD-X to give a standard output to 3.5mm or 6.35mm TRS jack.
1. What material is the wire made of and why?
Our wire is made from OFC Litz
copper. Each core is made up of 84 individually insulated strands of 0.071mm
diameter copper. They
are held together by natural silk fibres and covered with an oversized nylon
outer cover to give a decent air gap between cores.
1.1 Why OFC copper rather than OCC or Silver.
For the same cross-sectional area, silver is about 7% more conductive than copper
- but if you double the cross sectional area, you can roughly halve the
impedance. It is therefore much cheaper to use more copper to get the same
improvements. By using a thicker copper wire, we can get better impedance
figures than a thinner silver cable. OCC has some definite advantages, being
more flexible, but as our strands are so thin the wire is very flexible
already.
2. What is the advantage of Litz vs stranded copper in terms of skin
effect?
With a standard stranded copper wire, as charge can move from one strand to
another, they act as one thick solid conductor.
Skin effect pushes higher frequencies out to the edges of the wire, meaning
they are traveling through less of the area of the cable. The skin depth
reduces as the frequency increases, so on thin cables it’s not a problem for
audio frequencies.
In our Litz wire, each strand is individually insulated from each other - they
act like 84 individual thin very wires, rather than one large one. This ensures
that despite the increased thickness of our wire, there is no skin effect until
the frequency gets over 700khz and even the highest res audio will not get
rolled off at the top.
3. What is the capacitance and impedance of your cable? How does it
affect things?
Our cables have some of the lowest capacitance of any that we have tested. This
was one of the main goals we had when designing it, as capacitance is most
likely to give an audible effect. Typically, one of our cables will have around
20pF – 40 pF for a 2m cable, depending on the connectors used. As a comparison,
a standard HD600 cable has a capacitance of 600pF.
The impedance of a capacitor changes with frequency, which is why we try to
keep it as low as possible.
Our wire has a DC resistance of 0.05 ohms per meter, which is very low; we also
keep the capacitance and skin effect incredibly low, so it gives a pretty much
perfectly flat impedance across all audio frequencies, from 1hz right up to
100+KHz.
4. How does your cable sound?
As mentioned above, our cables are designed to keep the signal as pure as
possible with a perfectly flat response. We believe you should not use a cable
as “tone control”, and the sound is as good as it is going to get as it leaves
the amp – the cable’s job is to get the signal to the headphones without adding
or removing anything from the sound.
5. What are the ergonomics like?
Ergonomics are almost as important as the electrical performance – you could
have a great sounding cable, but if it is stiff or heavy, it can be distracting
and spoil your listening experience.
Despite our cables being “thick boys”, as they are mostly air inside to give an
air dielectric, they are actually quite light and very flexible. As the cable
has a bit of spring to it, it can also reduce the pressure on your equipment if
you accidentally yank the cable.
6. What sort of warranty do you offer and what If I change my setup in
the future?
We offer a 2 year warranty on all of our cables, so if you get any problems
please message us! We can repair or replace it for you for free any time in the
first 2 years.
We are keen for our cables to stay
in use for as long as possible to help prevent waste and save the environment.
If your cable breaks outside the warranty period, we offer cost price repairs.
If you should buy a different amplifier or headphones in the future, you can
send the cable back to us to be altered or adapted for a reasonable price.
EU Customers
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When your parcel has arrived in your country, we recommend contacting your local postal service with your tracking details so you can pay the fees.
Your local postal service will hold the package until you have paid any taxes and import fees.
US Customers
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Import fees may apply.
When your parcel has arrived in your country, we recommend contacting your local postal service with your tracking details so you can pay any fees.
Your local postal service may hold your package if there is a fee.
Rest Of World
When your parcel has arrived in your country, we recommend contacting your local postal service with your tracking details to pay the fees.
Your local postal service may hold your package if there is a fee.
Items valued over €150 (euros) on eBay with have UK tax removed and this will need to be paid by yourself when your item arrives at your local customs office.
Tax is removed from the cost of items over €150 (euros) EU on eBay, as this will be collected by your local customs office.