it is overpriced xD

Personal preference is the ever present factor to be aware of on all subjective audio reviews (among other things). It is also often gets used in a hand-wavy manner to gloss over real problems. Enjoying the bright presentation of the 109 Pro is a matter of personal preference. The harshness, sibilance, and lack of separation caused by the stock cable is an actual problem. I tried cables that retain the brightness, but do it in a much smoother, cleaner way that is rather enjoyable. The stock cable is an actual problem here. The Radiance is actually another example of how a stock cable can really harm the experience of a headphone. The stock cable on that one injects a peak in the upper mids that gives the headphone a lot of shout and honk that it doesn't have on some other cables, and also brings in a lot of sharp sibilance as well. Unfortunately the bad stock cables issue is not rare. I have a couple of Radiance videos out where I discuss this issue in more detail. Thanks for watching and commenting. Cheers.

@@wavetheorysoundAfter reading your reply, I think I need to give both headphones a try with a different better quality set of cables to hear the difference it can make for myself to understand and appreciate what a difference it can actually make. I know some also doubt the effect the “burn in time” can have on headphones, but I’m also curious to hear for myself if there is a tangible difference once you log a good amount of hours on any given headphones, as I haven’t used either set for very long yet. What is a good quality brand to consider buying cables from that’s reasonably priced with good performance, and won’t break the bank? I know you shared a few brand names somewhere in the video, but I forgot what they were. EDIT: Nevermind, I just found the links you left to the different cables you talked about as options to consider. Thank you!

Lol. I don't think my voice is sexy enough for that 😆

Plz don’t spend half hour taking about cables

i added too many zeros

Have you considered older HifiMan? I took my HE400S to a headphone show and to my ears they sounded better than anything in the room. A $3k metal and wood headphone is better built of course but they did not sound any better than my $250 HE400S! And I was seriously looking for a better sounding headphone that day, if it even existed.

@@thomosburn8740 Thanks for your insight! I have been considering several different older and newer HiFiMan models. Researching them has shown that they seem to vary widely in build, fit, and performance quality (some models are nearly distortion-free while others behave less well in this regard). Unfortunately, the HE400S appears to be discontinued (and the current HE400SE has a non-suspension headband that isn't a good fit on my small, narrow, & angular head). The Edition XS has gotten great reviews but has the same non-suspension headband. So, my search continues. I'm giving the less pricey Audeze models a serious look. I appreciate your thoughtful help!

@@thomosburn8740 Those are good headphones but to be fair, it's easy for "brain burn-in" to set your daily headphone as its "reference", then anything sounding different will sound "off" for a while until you re-equilibrate. I had this problem when I replaced my bargain-amp with a high-end amplifier. I actually thought "oh no, I bought a piece of trash, it's not even as good as my $200 amp!" Well, two days later I realized the new amp was annihilating it in every category and sending it to ER to be put on life support. But it took two days. Just sayin'...

I also got my as an open box. Have you received your new cable yet? I'm althinking of buying a hart cable too.

As a matter of fact I got the Hart Audio cable (Standard) today.... I cant listen on my main system because I had the carpets cleaned this am and I had to disassemble the rig to clear the room, but I plugged them into my ifi GoBar (1/4" adapted to 3.5mm with a good adapter), fed by MacBook Pro though Audirvana and listened to two tracks that were bright and edgy with conspicuous sibilance in the vocals using the Meze stock cable. Ava Vegas - Desert Songs # Falling, & Prince - The Vault/Old Friends 4 Sale #When the Lights Go Down. From the first bar the difference was immediately noticeable and the change remarkable! Edginess was replaced with clarity and resolution, there was a richness of tone and definition and weight in the bass, I have not heard from the 109's and the sibilance reduced to pretty much nothing! I listened to tracks I had been enjoying next and found the transformation in those too. The shouty-ness is gone, clarity is there in spades, upper register piano particularly is transformed and the richness in tone is most welcome. Best $90 I ever spent on hifi! The Meze stock cables, as Wave Theory says, are destroying the great sound of the 109 Pro headphones, absolute junk!

@@gregorydavid5894 Thanks for taking the time to respond to me. I also appreciate the two songs for examples. It sounds like this cable might work for me too.

@SeanLiu4 I auditioned the Ananda, LCD2C and LCDX also, my question is - how on earth did you end up with the LCD2C over the LCDX? The LCDX was far superior in my opinion, across pretty much every genre.

@@B2Rockin I thought so too. I suppose my brother influenced my decision to an extent at the time. Plus, I wasn't sure if the X was $300 usd extra for the increase in performance... 😅 Although the 2C is still a good headphone, not buying the X remains one of my biggest regrets / buyers temorse

@@SeanLiu4 Aw I’m sorry man, not trying to rub it in. You still ended up with a great headline. The law of diminishing returns is real for sure, if you caught a deal on the LCD2C it could be almost half the price for the X, so totally understand that. I honestly ended letting them all go because they were too much money for me at the time lol. It is one of my regrets also, but one day, could always get it! 🤙🏻

@@B2Rockin it took me 4 years before I bought another headphone after my HD 660s. I *never* let hype, reviewers or influencers dictate how many headphones I buy or the rate at which I buy. Still, wish you luck in your future purchases! 👍

The bass is a bit too strong? The bass is virtually nonexistent. I know everyone’s taste is different, but that just sounds crazy to me

Na don't listen to this guy... if you think the treble is peaky, just put a little piece of foam in front of the driver. or.... EQ it down. free.

How does it do with bass on rap or trap? If you listen to that. Thanks a bunch

He mentioned a few. Also the HE-6SEv2 and HE-560v4 are in the elite group of rare exceptions, who punch above their weight. Add to that the used Arya Stealth v3 going for $750 now, absolute giant killer cleaning that's cleaning the floor in used market value.

He mentioned a few. Also the HE-6SEv2 is in the rare exceptions who punch above their weight. Notice he said the 109 Pro is priced right at $800, but the HE-6SEv2 for $450 smokes it. If you were more thoughtful you'd realize that means the HE-6SEv2 is indeed a giant killer. The HE-560v4 at $230 is its junior brother and takes no prisoners on any headphone up to $500 (with the exception of its big brother.) And to round this list off, the Arya Stealth v3 going for $750 used right now, cleans the floor and leaves no survivors in the $1100 and under used market.

Arya Stealth were good to me, but the HE6SEV2 did indeed wipe the floor with them and many others. One headphone that is new-ish that is definitely a giant killer is the JM Audio XTC. You choose the tuning, you choose your pads, you choose the look of the headphones, not to mention John's sound guarantee. For the life of the cans, he will retune them for the cost of shipping. Even without all of those amazing options, the sound really does leave you wanting for nothing, unless you need an HD800S sized soundstage. They are simply value godzillas!

For the attenuation due to the DC resistance of the cable this is true. For the phase shifts due to different AC frequencies traveling through/along/around (however you want to describe it) conductors at different speeds the driver impedance becomes less of a factor.

🤣

I would argue that physicists have the best chance of understanding why an FR plot derived from a sine-wave sweep is the wrong tool for the job. If you're as interested in the relevant science as your comment implies, please consider watching my cable science series: kzfaq.info/sun/PLAXqplOP0XrZcDFbzFqC-cFDBdMzwf_Zh - new parts are coming soon! I will address this question of FR plots directly in one of the upcoming parts. But, short of that, a general word of caution is it's wise to avoid assuming what anyone in a given field should or shouldn't know. Most fields are very diverse with lots of subfields in them which will often lead experts within the subfields to have different outlooks on and skills/knowledge within the broader field. And the further one gets from expertise within the field of question, the wiser this counsel becomes. Thanks for watching and commenting. And please join me on an earnest pursuit of this cable science business - wherever it may lead.

He can't because is complete bs. The reviewer is gaslighting himself and others. The only way the cable is bad is poor construction and there's a short somewhere. That doesn't mean you're gonna have higher treble or better bass or more buttery smooth mid range (another stupid term audiophiles invented)

I upgraded from Arya Stealth to HEK SE. I'm still smiling ear to ear every time I listen to them! They are simply stunning and completely wiped the floor with the Arya. Some people said I would miss them in their characteristics but nope. These are the best headphones I have ever owned or heard. Now my brain keeps wondering how much better are the Susvara 😁

Hart Audio Cables

Clear is way better but also have some flaws, nothing is perfect thats why most of us own many pairs of headphones

@@soulfulfool That's why I EQ so the ultimately always a compromise tuning issues become almost irrelevant.

@@hartyewh1 well I dont EQ either I enjoy tuning of person who made them or not

@@soulfulfool That's the point. Essentially no headphone has the tuning they wanted, but compromises between tuning and overall material design.

@@hartyewh1 oh there are well tuned pieces but most likely price tag is high

very sarcasm much wow

When the wind is calm using open backs outdoors is fine. I live in a windier than average area so it's something salient to me. I agree with your predicament though. Open backs are usually much better sounding. My favorite closed is the Focal Radiance, fwiw. Otherwise you might want to go down the IEM rabbit hole. Best of luck!

@@wavetheorysound Oh thank you for the reply and advice, I really do appreciate it, I'll look into IEM's as I'm not too familiar with them, I use to use wired neckband headphones for almost 20 years but recently wanted to upgrade my sound quality and have gone deep in the rabbit hole of purchasing mid-range headphones like the Focal Clear, Elegia, Celestee, Sennheiser HD 660's, HD 599 and a couple of others but am never happy as when listening to music indoors on my desktop PC which has an SB Audigy sound card which sound rich, dynamic and punchy even with cheap wired neckband headphones compared to my higher end headphones when listening portably on mid-range DAPS and an Iphone XS with some dongle Dac/amps and I don't know why and which has been quite frustrating for me as I've spent quite a bit of money and feel like I'm not getting audiophile sound quality for my music portably but it could be due to the wind or outside noises.

@@robertobuatti7226 If you can go to a shop that sells IEMs and try out different tips, imo dongle DACs are meant to be used with IEMs, they just sound livelier than running full sized HPs where the soundstage shrinks dramatically, the dynamics are blunted, bass gets mushy etc. Senn IE series has excellent small build that should fit lots of ppl, stock tips sound a little congested and too bassy though. Better isolation with IEMs, more portability, less instances of potentially hitting something with your HPs due to not being used to the "bigger size of your head" while wearing them. Oh, and you look less like an extraterrestrial with IEMs too (e.g. when I saw WaveTheory's review of the HE1000v2)

I wouldn't worry about it. The only differences people hear are as a result of the placebo effect - there's a reason you can't find double blind tests in which cables are reliably distinguished.

As others mentioned. Whenever someone tries to prove this exits scientifically it comes off looking a like a complete joke. Just ignore these reviewers and move on.

Unfortunately bad stock cables aren't rare. Hifiman and Focal also harm several of their own products with bad cabling. They make it easier to plug in a wide variety of aftermarket cables, though.

I'm working on finishing up my cable science series...hopefully that's done soon. The teaser answer for why FR graphs aren't catching cable differences is simply because they're the wrong tool for the job. It makes sense to try them given that many comments about how cables effect sound use frequency descriptors...ie. warmer, brighter, more/less sibilant, etc. Most measuring devices that create the FR plots we most commonly see present the DUT with a constant amount of electromagnetic energy and then vary the frequency from 20Hz-20KHz, but only presenting the DUT with a pure sine wave at a single frequency at any given instant in time. For headphone/IEM/speaker FR plots then, what we really get is a readout that is a "map" of how efficiently the speaker/IEM/headphone converts that given amount of electromagnetic energy into mechanical energy at each frequency. The disconnect is that any real-world sound wave or music signal is a superposition of multiple sine waves of many frequencies all traveling through space and time stacked up on each other. Different conductive materials, conductor geometries, and wire weaves all slow the propagation of those electromagnetic sine waves at rates that are different for each of those physical properties AND - and this is the part that gets overlooked too much - at rates that vary with frequency. So what happens is that different frequencies get time-shifted by different amounts, messing up their original time-alignments and putting the energies of each wave in different spots relative to each other. The FR sweep measurements you describe have no way to detect this. All they tell you is how much EM energy gets converted to mechanical energy. They cannot tell you how much EM energy was supposed to be in a given spot in the wave in the first place. I have video series explaining this more and am getting close to finishing the next parts. Stay tuned!

@@wavetheorysound that is a very interesting topic, looking forward to it as I do hear the differences between my stock ADX5000 cable and the Forza Audio Cable I ordered for it. People say the stock audio technica cable is just a very bad cable, not that the Forza is extremely good.

​@@wavetheorysoundfinally, an answer that makes sense and seems plausible. I'll have to watch your cable video later.