Audio Video News

Wireworld Cable Technology announced plans to demonstrate a system designed to reveal how headphone cables affect sound quality.

The Headphone Cable Polygraph system uses a high-resolution music player adapted to drive headphones directly (without a cable) to provide “a lossless reference [for] listening comparisons [that] reveal the full effects of cables.” WireWorld will demonstrate the system at CES 2016, which kicks off January 6 in Las Vegas.

The system will team a PonoPlayer and a Questyle QP1R music player with Oppo’s PM-3 planar-magnetic headphone. Listeners will be able to compare the reference direct connection to Wireworld’s Nano Series headphone cables and the cables sold with the PM-3. Visitors will be able to test their own cables as well.

From WireWorld’s press release:

Tests made with the Headphone Cable Polygraph are much more revealing than a standard cable vs. cable comparison. Comparing one cable to another can reveal only the differences between those two cables, which is not the same as showing the full audible effect of either cable. The only way to hear a cable’s full effect is to compare it to a direct connection, as when the music player is connected directly to the headphones. We use custom-made, male-to-male adapters for the reference direct connection. This lets listeners identify cable effects much more easily than in normal listening.

The goal of any high-fidelity cable is to minimize the loss of music. However, these tests clearly show that cables color and compress the sound while losing delicate details. We’ve learned that those changes are mostly caused by electromagnetic losses. To avoid those losses, Wireworld’s patented DNA Helix design channels electromagnetic energy to improve definition, purity, and dynamics.