Headphone cable: preferred electric properties

Posted by: Mulberry on 23 April 2018

Naim power amps like to see high(ish) inductance and low capacitance speaker cables for stability reasons. This is both known and a recurring theme around here. But what about headphone cables?

I have a 3m Cardas headphone cable and ask myself, if it would upset the headphone output of my SN2. Cardas speaker cables present pretty much the worst case scenario for a Naim amp. Is this true for this application, too? Any thoughts or experiences?

Posted on: 23 April 2018 by feeling_zen

There are no such restrictions on any reasonable headphone cable. Most headphones come with a 3m cable but short and (much) longer lengths are not unusual. Headphone amp design is so fundamentally different from power amp design that drawing a conclusion based on their speaker cable requirements is not meaningful.

The most you are likely to run into, is a cable that just doesn't sound that good with a given headphone amp. Case in point, I had a Furutec ADL cable for my Sennheiser HD600 which as a fantastic upgrade when driving them with a Rega Ear. Sounded awful via the built-in headphone amp on a UQ2. Went back to the stock lead and, while the UQ2 is not a good match for the HD600 at all, the situation was vastly improved. Use the HD600 on the end of a HeadLine2/HCDR and suddenly, the Furutec lead sounds superb again.

I'd not worry about the load on the headphone output if I were you. I would, however, simply swap the Cardas lead in and out and see which is better.