HiFiMAN - 3.5mm to 4.4mm Balanced Cable

Nothing amazing about this cable. Same cheap plastic shield like the original Hifiman Ananda cable, just that this is balanced is an advantage. It does the job, but it is way too expensive. Could have bought another headphone or amplifier at the price of 10k.

The product quality is average. It has not improved the sound quality of my Focal Celestee Headphone coupled with IFI Hip DAC in any way.

WORTH UPGRADE FOR PLANAR HEADPHONE OR POWER HUNGRY HEADPHONES WHEN PAIRED WITH HIGHER POWER 4.4mm OUTPUT AMP.
FROM STOCK 3.5mm CABLE TO 4.4mm BALANCE CABLE ON HIFIMAN ANANDA NANO WITH FIIO K7 DAC AMP SMALL BUT NOTICEABLE DIFFERENCE IN DYNAMICS AND CLARITY AND SUBTLE REDUCTION IN TREBLE SHARPNESS.

Lo & Behold!

I had been listening to HifiMan Sundara using their stock cable. After speaking with Raghav, he understood my preference for music and advised me to try using the balanced HifiMan cable. I usually don't jump the gun; but in this case made an exception and went for it. And oh Boy! Am I glad!

The change is subliminal but does get apparent and sweeter over period. In my experience - It added a tinge of sibilance in vocals and some spatial soundstage making it a little wider and open. You do notice how the sound gets a little louder on the same volume settings as earlier.

This experience may vary from person to person; so please do treat this review as my personal opinion about the product.

An essential add-on for enjoying Hifiman Sundara with the ifi Hip Dac. Being balanced makes a hell of a difference! And not just to the volume...

This cable has a soft sound signature, all the details are delicately and subtly presented rather than a piercing way. The downside is slight lack of dynamics. This is good for vocals and similar sort of music, but not the best for rock/metal.

Comes with a translucent outer cover wherein the internal wires can be seen through. Conductor seems to be only copper, whereas the stock cable that comes with Ananda has a combination of Copper and Silver.

I am enjoying and exploring the new beats which I didn't found earlier. It was possible to hear all the rhythm and naunce of the artist performances with sundara. No one can forget the 90's era of melodious tracks. I felt something was missing with the 3.5 mm cable and with the help of IFI hip dac and 4.4 mm balanced cable the music which I was experiencing cannot be described in words. Cable is durable, strong and the length was also pretty good it was around 3 meter. The soundstage was vast and the beats were crisp. I am on cloud nine with heavenly composition by ARR, YSR, Harris Jayraj and many wonderful musicians. It is not easy to find the balanced cable for sundara in indian retail market. Thanks to headphone zone for their support and made this product available in the market with reasonable price and it was a dream come true moment for each sundara owners to explore the balanced connection. I am able to see the sundara full potential now with the balanced connection. I still need to explore more and I have to burn those cans more to get more juice out of it.

I bought this balanced cable to use with the Hifiman Edition XS powered with the Cayin Ru7 and Topping A50 III. Now you can see from the data below that there is a huge difference between the single ended and balanced output of both these amplifiers, and planar headphones benefit from more power.

Cayin - RU7
3.5mm (SE): 160mW @32Ω
4.4mm (Bal): 400mW @32Ω

Topping - A50 III

1400mW x 2 @32 Ohms
3500mW x 2 @32 Ohms

So in short, on both the amps the balanced cable made a very noticeable difference. In that past I have also tried a balanced cable with Sennheiser HD 650, but the difference was not so much.

Thus I would conclude that it is the higher power of the balanced output that makes the real difference.

So while this cable is is quite expensive, it lets me access 2x the power from my amps and is so well worth the expenditure.

Excellent