I’m not really interested in reviewing headphone cables. While I haven’t owned any super expensive headphone cables that people have said make a significant improvement, I have noticed that aftermarket cables can be the proverbial icing on the cake when a headphone manufacturer’s stock cables are rather basic.
A decade or so ago, I felt that there was a significant improvement to be had over the cables that both Audeze and Sennheiser include with their models. However, in more recent times, many manufacturers have upped their cable game, most noticeably Dan Clark Audio.
Dan himself didn’t believe aftermarket cables could make a difference, and was surprised by what he found. Thus, while he neither includes fancy-looking cables, nor makes a big deal about them, he does include a good set of cables with his headphones, such that I am happy even using his top-of-the-line Expanse and Stealth with their stock ones.
When Effect Audio contacted me about checking out their IEM cables, I replied that I no longer review IEMs. Effect Audio does, however, have a couple of different headphone cables, so as I was doing a lot of listening with DCA headphones, they have varying sound signatures, and I am using them to evaluate gear, I agreed to a CODE 23 copper cable, and the CODE 24 silver-plated copper version.
While most headphone cables usually consist of some form of braided wire, the CODE 23 and CODE 24 are unique in that they use coaxial wire for each channel. That is, a central core with an outer shield for the return.
The CODE 23 comes in a colour called “Dystopian Black” which, as the outer sheath is translucent, results in a cable that looks dark brown. The inner core is solid copper, and the outer core is stranded bundles. This results in a cable that is somewhat stiff.
On the amplifier end, Effect Audio has the option of their Term X system, which allows the plug to be swapped between 4.4mm Pentaconn, 3.5mm, and 2.5mm balanced. The swap is a little fiddly, as the pins on the back of the plug have to be aligned, and does make the plug a bit large if the cable is being considered for portable use (and for IEMs, it is excessively large).
The CODE24 comes with a solid blue outer sheath, 3-strand solid-wire core with stranded bundles on the outside — all silver-plated copper — and otherwise the same set-up.
In 1.5m headphone form, the CODE 23 comes to $799, and the CODE24 $999.
Starting with the CODE 23 and the Stealth, which I felt might be benefit from an all-copper cable, I listened to the entirety of Carmen Gomes’ Stones In My Passway, out of the TT2/MScaler stack with the stock cable, before swapping the cables with the headphones still on my head.
Between the stock cable and the CODE 23, the stock cable gives more of a feeling of a narrower, mid-range focus. In turn, the CODE 23 feels like it gives the soundstage more room, the bass extending out a touch more, and elements in the mid-range and treble being expressed better, with more of the subtleties of each note audible. It manages to do this without changing the overall tonality.
I liken the effect, at least on the DCA headphones I tried with it, to what happens when you change the temperature on an air conditioner a degree — it is only a small change, but can make the room feel just that bit more comfortable and relaxing to be in.
The CODE 23 is definitely a cable I’d like to try with, say, the Focal Utopias and the Sennheiser HD800S, as both of those have been criticised for the quality of their stock cables.
The CODE 24 on the other hand, has much the same effect, while highlighting the mid-range and treble more. I didn’t find it to be a good a match on the Stealth and E3, as they already are a bit too much of a good thing in those areas, but on the overall warmer (or darker) Expanse, this extra upper-mid and treble extension made for a great match.
My listening tastes are so eclectic that it makes more sense to me to listen with the Expanse than the Stealth, as the slightly stronger mid-bass suites more genres for my ears. However, there have been numerous times where I wished that the Expanse had just a touch more treble. While I could easily run an EQ (digital or physical) I don’t want to lose any detail from the music, and EQ of any kind means a loss, especially using higher-end Chord gear, where the perfectly rendered soundstage a lot of music is brutally truncated by the digital re-sampling of digital EQ software.
Patricia Barber’s latest two albums, Clique and Higher are simply magnificent. The best of the most unique jazz, and recorded and mastered extremely well, allowing you to hear every subtlety of not just her voice, but the decay of cymbal notes and the double-bass vibrating with each note.
Clique has a take on the famous jazz track by Thelonious Monk, Straight No Chaser, and the stock cable does very well with this, if the headphones are a touch on the warm side for jazz for preference (though this hasn’t stopped me listening to jazz with the Meze Elite or other warmly-tuned headphones). The CODE 24 shifts the piano, note flowing just a bit more smoothly, cymbals and double-bass just a bit more apart from each other, allowing just a bit more nuance and detail to come out from each, making the whole track just a bit more delicious than it already is.
I don’t feel that the CODE 24 is adding treble so much as it is allowing the higher notes to come out more clearly. Even where the double-bass dominates the second-half of the track, I can still very clearly hear the subtleties of the cymbals slightly better than with the stock cable.
Thus, for the perfectionist, who wants to get the most out of a $10k-plus headphone audio system, the $999 of the CODE 24 is a neat 1/10th of the cost, or even less, which makes it sound less insane than it is, and I get baulking at the idea of a $1k headphone cable… believe me, I get it!
So, overall, if the price doesn’t make you baulk, you don’t mind that the cables are a bit stiff, and you want that icing-on-the-cake improvement to a pair of top-of-the-line headphones, then the CODE 23 or CODE 24 may be for you.
