Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

No.

Well it depends on a few factors from the quality of your equipment, source, length of cable, to what you pay attention to when listening. The differences can be as subtle as adjusting the tracking force on your turntable to as obvious as upgrading an amplifier.

Our cables are designed to impress, not just in sound but in aesthetics, build quality and after-sales customer service. We do not use sound as a price determinant but they do oftentimes correlate.

Yes! The best dielectric we can achieve for a cable is air. We do not seal the terminations on purpose in order to avoid unwanted capacitance buildup around the solder joints. We will only seal them when we have to on more fragile connections to prevent shorting or to improve durability. The connections are adequately reinforced in other ways that do not negatively impact the sound or build quality.

The biggest factor to microphonics on a straight cable are the headphones themselves. Some headphones are more prone to microphonics due to the way sockets are secured on to the frame of the headphone. When a cable is properly fastened to a connector, the cable becomes anchored to the connector. This results in mechanical vibrations a.k.a. microphonics being transferred from the cable to the connector and on to the driver. Headphones that require connectors with less components tends to pickup more mechanical noise from the cable, and when plugged in directly to a headphone made with minimal components, you get a highly unpleasant microphonic experience. The more individual components, twists, or coils there are between a cable and a driver, the less likely noise will be picked up by your headphones.

There are many ways to reduce noise from vibrations transferring from cable to headphone without compromising on aesthetics. One of which is by creating what we call an "unrestrained filler gap" between the connector and the rest of the cable. This method partially isolates the rest of the cable from the connectors by loosely suspending the filler material and outer sleeve of the cable whilst only securing the wires to the connector.

Another effective method of reducing microphonics is by lowering or removing entirely the filler material in the cable. This will result in a lighter cable with less vibrational mass but will be more prone to accidental damage due to its fragile nature. Braided cables are a good example of this, the twisting of the wires and the lack of filler material allows it to be less microphonic but they are fully exposed to your dog or cat with a hobby of chewing cables.

Both of these methods ultimately result in cables being weaker and more prone to damage from heavy use. Because of this, we have decided to compromise on microphonics and focus on build quality instead. Focusing on build quality allows us to properly and securely bind the ends of the cable by glueing, crimping, and waterproof wrapping the wires, filler, solder joint, and outer cable sleeve on to the connector.

However, we know microphonics can be extremely annoying and unpleasant to deal with especially in portable applications, hence the introduction of our Elemental collection. The Elemental cables are designed with minimal filler material, a 3D printed vibration absorbant polyolefin splitter to reduce excess noise below the split, and properly secured connections allowing for the perfect compromise between microphonics and build quality. The Elemental cables are the least microphonic and affordable cables we offer.

The simplest way to reduce microphonics on your cable is by anchoring the cable on to something else. Anchoring the cable transfers the mechanical vibrations away from the headphones. This can be clipping the cable tightly onto your desk or resting the cable on a surface with a weighted object directly placed on top of it. Coiling part of the cable and tying them tightly together is another effective method if you do not wish to anchor the cable onto a surface. The more coils the better.