pieman3141 t1_j9ee0s7 wrote on February 21, 2023 at 8:42 AM

Reply to comment by Designer-Edge-5394 in Headphone jack tier list, cuz why not by nopunterino

IIRC, he said they were clunky and he had difficulty wiring it all up. Also, most headphones don't need balanced outputs, and I think Tyll was kinda ambivalent about whether he preferred single-ended or balanced.

Designer-Edge-5394 t1_j9eibmq wrote on February 21, 2023 at 9:43 AM

Ah OK. Well, they might be a bit heftier than the rest of the options but tbh not much worse than, say, 4-pin XLR when it comes to wiring up and handling. Once you connect them they stay there, right? ;-) I use HartAudio's cables and interconnects. Recently ordered the dual 3-pin XLR interconnect just out of curiosity and they seem to help open up the sound(stage), at least on my system. I haven't A/B'ed them but suddenly all my headphones sound more open and wide without losing detail. My HD660S now sounds better that they ever did before, and surprisingly open. I might be wrong and it all may be placebo effect, but what I can say with absolute confidence is that the volume knob on my Pro iCAN Sig. very rarely needs to go further than 9 o'clock these days. I did some research but couldn't find anything useful to understand what may be going on in terms of power delivery, etc. as compared to regular 4-pin XLR connections.