Moon Audio Headphone Modification Explanations 101

MOON AUDIO STAFF | MOON AUDIO STAFF/

In a better effort to help explain what is involved in modifying headphones for re-cabling with Moon Audio Headphone cables, Drew thought a section with pictures and details would help guide our customers with their purchasing decisions.

First of all, why re-cable?

Headphone manufacturers put all of their Research and Development into driver design and ergonomic features.  Therefore, the headphone cables become somewhat of an afterthought in the process. Cheap cables with poor quality materials, small conductors, and bad geometries can deteriorate the signal transfer. This can be best described as a bottleneck issue.

It has been known for quite some time in the audiophile market for example that the stock cable for the Sennheiser HD650, HD600, and HD580 veils the sound. Once aftermarket upgrade cables became available for these phones, consumers were amazed at what a difference higher grade cables made with these headphones. It was "like listening to a pair of speakers that were behind a blanket" were what most people said about the difference in sound they experienced. This is an exaggerated statement but I think you get my point.

Moon Audio swapped out the Sennheiser stock cable with our Moon Audio Headphone Cables that have larger conductors, higher grade metals and geometries that influenced the signal fields less.  Please look here for a recent review of Moon Audio's Black Dragon Headphone Cable paired with the Sennheiser HD650 mentioned above.

Another simple analogy for swapping out the stock headphone cable with an aftermarket custom headphone cable is to compare this to changing your car’s air filter.

Once your air filter becomes dirty, the dirt impedes the gas performance and power to the engine.  However, once you replace the car's dirty air filter with a clean air filter your car feels more responsive and gets better gas mileage. Well, the same can be said for upgrading your headphone cable.  Better Headphone Cables improve the performance of the driver by letting it perform better and the sound is unveiled.