You get oxygen free copper because you install it permanently and don’t want it to rust and fail and have to rip out your ceiling and walls
So get the good stuff it’s not sound quality it’s so it lasts
this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2026
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Yeah, but then again normal 230v or 115v electrical wires are not OFC and they outlive you too so even that is questionable.
Fun fact: this is where the "banana connector" came from. Before copper was discovered, early humans used bananas for all their audio connections. The name stuck, even though wires are made of metal today.
Additional trivia: The term "banana republic" originates from countries best known for exporting high-end audio equipment back in the day.
"banana split" stems from a failed experiment where scientists tried to split audio frequencies by sticking the connectors into ice cream and running the audio through it
And Bananarama was so named for their high-fidelity recordings which were performed, mixed, and recorded entirely on bananas.
Yup. Failed spectacularly, which is why they went for mixing boards as a backup solution instead.
TIL! It’s fucking bananas that I never knew this.
Bravo
This will now be a standard AI response. Well done.
O noes!
The way audiophiles tell sound quality is 99.99% subjectivity and 0.01% objectivity.
So wait, did they send analoge or digital signals through? Because digital means you could send it through anything and as long as it gets through its the same. The cable only matters when you ARENT using digital signals.
If I read it correctly, it was analog and they found that only the signal amplitude was meaningfully changed, not the quality
Makes sense. As long as the transfer medium isn't highly capacitive or inductive, it doesn't matter as long as you compensate for the loss in signal strength.
..and now I fell into a research rabbit hole regarding mud capacitance.
EDIT: Mud is actually slightly capacitive. Source: "Static Dielectric Constant of Water and Steam", a 1980 journal article by M. Uematsu and E. U. Franck* published in Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data
well obviously, all this proves is that copper wires are just as bad as wet mud. Every audiophile knows you need gold oxygen nitrogen purified wires blessed by a voodoo witch doctor.
I've got these cables. Yes, they are expensive but they are absolutely fantasti... wait, did you say voodoo witch doctor? Mine were blessed by just a witch doctor. Have I been ripped off?
Hoodoo is 3dB better than voodoo according to my tests.
Hoodoo? You do! Do what? Remind me of the babe!
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Just ask an audiophile what they think about blind tests. If they argue against them you've found a snake oil salesman.
"You can't trust blind tests for audio, that's the wrong sense bro. You need double deaf studies, obvs."
But what's the point of having your newly-purchased $3000 wooden volume knob and polyatomic copper ring bus lift yet another veil from the soundstage if you're blindfolded?
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I'm lightly active in the headphone enthusiast space. Even in the more light-hearted circles there is still an elevated amount of placebo bullshit and stubborn belief in things that verifiably make zero difference.
It's rather fascinating in a way. I've been in and out of various hobbies over the course of my life but there is just something about audio that attracts an atmosphere of wilful ignorance and bad actors that prey on it.
I'm a musician. I swear by Beyerdynamic DT700. Fucking great headphones for like an insanely reasonable price
Awesome headphones. If you don't mind the beyer peak. My favorites are my grado rs2. But I prefer music on speakers not headphones, so much space is lost on headphones. Hear a pair of magnepans in a room and you'll be blown away. Got some original SMGa's from 1989!
Real audio enthusiasts know the room is the most important, followed by the speaker itself, followed by the actual source. Then the amp etc.
And when you record and mix music you realize how much of it is bullshit in the end. The source is all that matters, really.
I buy headphone cables based on how nice the cable feels, if it transmits noise when it rubs against stuff, and how well the connectors fit into the devices I am using.
My favorite is when people get picky about cabling for digital transfer. The ones and zeroes either get there or they don't, nothing in-between. They work or they don't.
I think the best thing to do is to assess your ability to hear difference. I can absolutely hear the difference between my Bluetooth earbuds and a decent wired IEM, so I use wired headphones for listening to music. I CANNOT hear a significant qualitative difference between the $25 Chinese IEMs that I use and more expensive options that I have tried, so I use the cheap ones.
To be sure, there ARE perceptible differences between wired headphones, but those are more a matter of EQ and personal preference. I can achieve my maximum perceivable level of quality with pretty inexpensive hardware. It doesn't mean that other people cannot, that isn't my problem.
For IEMs, the price difference typically goes towards comfort rather than sound quality. As a professional audio technician, a custom-molded IEM will be infinitely more comfortable than a cheap set. But not everyone can justify spending $2000 for custom molds, because they don’t use them for work every day.
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