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So I have these B&W P5 Series 2, and while I like them very much - I don't like the way the cable itself looks, and I was looking online to see if someone made custom replacement cables, and some of the options I've seen are $300 USD (before tax and shipping!) Surely cables cant be that expensive! I'm even tempted to buy paracord and heatshrink to modify my own cable if it's going to be that expensive! Do you know of any reasonably priced alternatives? Or should I always expect that price range for audio cables?

Any time you're dealing with high-end audio you will encounter ridiculously priced "audiophile grade" gear that is being marketed to people with more money than common sense.

It looks like the P5 S2 takes a cable with a standard 3.5mm plug. Just go on Amazon and find something reasonably priced with gold plated connectors and shielded cable that has a lot of positive reviews. You should be able to find something decent for 1/10th the price of that one you found.

Or go the DIY route.

If you're paying much more than $10-$15 for a quality cable, you're probably being scammed.

Expensive cables do not, in fact, have unicorn farts in the copper core.

If your P5 Series 2 takes standard 3.5mm headphone cables, you may want to look here: https://zapcables.com/audio-cables/. They offer both DIY and prebuilt cables, at least when they aren't at full capacity. Their DIY kits in particular are reasonably priced. They seem to have a great reputation, especially in the custom keyboard community. I've been tempted to use one of their TRRS kits to complete one of my projects but I have not used any of their products yet.

The P5 S2 have a stereo/mic (TRRS?) 2.5mm jack that connects to the headphones (inside one of the cups) and a 3.5mm (TRRS) jack in the other end, so it's not quite standard ones: https://www.bowerswilkins.com/en-ca/acc ... ith-remote. And their cable is only $20-$30!

Yeah thinking probably will sleeve the cable myself.

just brew it! wrote:

Any time you're dealing with high-end audio you will encounter ridiculously priced "audiophile grade" gear that is being marketed to people with more money than common sense.

Ah, the unenlightened. My new cryo-treated, vacuum-isolated, platinum-plated conductors extruded from a single piece of 99.9999999999999999999999999999999% pure oxygen free copper audiophile ethernet jack contacts really made a night and day improvement when streaming my Spotify.


There are a few reasonably priced offerings on Amazon that you might give a try if you like the aesthetics. Though if you want one with the in line mic, you probably won't do any better than the OEM. It's pretty cheap here, shipped from the UK

Obligatory rant that if "audiophiles" stopped for a second and went to Youtube to find videos about recording and studio engineering, they'd probably have a heart attack. The notion that nobody in even the highest-end recording studios gives a flying f*** about cabling other than "makes good contact; well-shielded; won't break" would mess with their pretty little heads.

morphine wrote:

Obligatory rant that if "audiophiles" stopped for a second and went to Youtube to find videos about recording and studio engineering, they'd probably have a heart attack. The notion that nobody in even the highest-end recording studios gives a flying f*** about cabling other than "makes good contact; well-shielded; won't break" would mess with their pretty little heads.

https://www.musicdirect.com/equipment/s ... ion-system

Need I say more?

Captain Ned wrote:

morphine wrote:

Obligatory rant that if "audiophiles" stopped for a second and went to Youtube to find videos about recording and studio engineering, they'd probably have a heart attack. The notion that nobody in even the highest-end recording studios gives a flying f*** about cabling other than "makes good contact; well-shielded; won't break" would mess with their pretty little heads.

https://www.musicdirect.com/equipment/s ... ion-system

Need I say more?

Whoever came up with high end audio as a business venture was/is a genius. There's so much money to be made on nonsense like this! (And I'm a little jealous that I'm not in that business.)

Captain Ned wrote:

morphine wrote:

Obligatory rant that if "audiophiles" stopped for a second and went to Youtube to find videos about recording and studio engineering, they'd probably have a heart attack. The notion that nobody in even the highest-end recording studios gives a flying f*** about cabling other than "makes good contact; well-shielded; won't break" would mess with their pretty little heads.

https://www.musicdirect.com/equipment/s ... ion-system

Need I say more?

Believe it or not, I was actually born with a built-in dark energy dissipator. It's an older model though (well over 30 years now), so I have to be careful that it doesn't dissipate "dark energy" at inopportune times. The polyphonic signature can be a bit unpredictable as well. Most of the time I just sit on top of it, as the few people I've shown it to didn't really seem to appreciate it much.

superjawes wrote:

Captain Ned wrote:

morphine wrote:

Obligatory rant that if "audiophiles" stopped for a second and went to Youtube to find videos about recording and studio engineering, they'd probably have a heart attack. The notion that nobody in even the highest-end recording studios gives a flying f*** about cabling other than "makes good contact; well-shielded; won't break" would mess with their pretty little heads.

https://www.musicdirect.com/equipment/s ... ion-system

Need I say more?

Whoever came up with high end audio as a business venture was/is a genius. There's so much money to be made on nonsense like this! (And I'm a little jealous that I'm not in that business.)

I'm more amused by this (same website). That is obviously modeled after a distribution-class post insulator (i.e. those things that keep high voltage wires from touching the poles), if not actually using a commercial offering and rebadging it.

Apparently some people never outgrow "the floor is lava" and merely find more exotic ways to play the game.

just brew it! wrote:

Or go the DIY route.

Depending on the cable you want DIY isn't much cheaper, esp if you want cotton sleeving etc.

When I was looking for a longer cable for my Clear professional, DIY would cost me around 70€ + the soldering equipment necessary.
Custom made cables were around 200€.

Ultimately I went for a 5m 9.99€ mini jack extension cord from Amazon. Can't hear any difference to the original cable solo.

Captain Ned wrote:

morphine wrote:

Obligatory rant that if "audiophiles" stopped for a second and went to Youtube to find videos about recording and studio engineering, they'd probably have a heart attack. The notion that nobody in even the highest-end recording studios gives a flying f*** about cabling other than "makes good contact; well-shielded; won't break" would mess with their pretty little heads.

https://www.musicdirect.com/equipment/s ... ion-system

Need I say more?

Nope. But I still have a soft spot for those audiophile ethernet cables that I recall have been "discussed" here previously. While the starting length is a bit restrictive at 0.75m, fear not. An upgrade to double that length is a mere $600 extra.

ludi wrote:

I'm more amused by this (same website). That is obviously modeled after a distribution-class post insulator (i.e. those things that keep high voltage wires from touching the poles), if not actually using a commercial offering and rebadging it.

Hey, at least those are only $20 each. A bargain!

morphine wrote:

Obligatory rant that if "audiophiles" stopped for a second and went to Youtube to find videos about recording and studio engineering, they'd probably have a heart attack. The notion that nobody in even the highest-end recording studios gives a flying f*** about cabling other than "makes good contact; well-shielded; won't break" would mess with their pretty little heads.

A modern recording studio will use balanced cable for the analog side of things with everything digital quickly going CAT6 for Dante/AVB etc. The remaining holdouts are a bit of coax for the world clock which is probably going to linger.

I will add that cable direction does matter. I've paid the premium to get custom lengths with right angle heads for some gear because it simplified the rack so much.

Also, just wanted to add another comment on how annoying cables can be: custom wire coloring. I had to try many combinations to figure out which wires were, left, left ground, right and right ground. Took me longer than it should have tbh.

morphine wrote:

Obligatory rant that if "audiophiles" stopped for a second and went to Youtube to find videos about recording and studio engineering, they'd probably have a heart attack. The notion that nobody in even the highest-end recording studios gives a flying f*** about cabling other than "makes good contact; well-shielded; won't break" would mess with their pretty little heads.

A couple of years ago I took a visiting relative over to Prince Nelson's recording studio, which they've turned into a Graceland style "it was like this when he was still alive" museum. One of the things I noticed was a large number of mid-range Sony headphones lying around the recording areas. Can't remember if it was MDR-7506 or a slightly fancier model, but it was not the $500+ audiophile stuff. It's no secret that pros like Sony cans but I found it really interesting that such a notorious musical perfectionist was satisfied with relatively pedestrian equipment.

I had a good laugh at a similar reddit thread a few years ago where someone working at a particle accelerator linked the superconducting cables they were using and it was significantly cheaper per meter than the audiophile stuff.

cynan wrote:

Nope. But I still have a soft spot for those audiophile ethernet cables that I recall have been "discussed" here previously. While the starting length is a bit restrictive at 0.75m, fear not. An upgrade to double that length is a mere $600 extra.

That whole page is quality

cynan wrote:

Captain Ned wrote:

morphine wrote:

Obligatory rant that if "audiophiles" stopped for a second and went to Youtube to find videos about recording and studio engineering, they'd probably have a heart attack. The notion that nobody in even the highest-end recording studios gives a flying f*** about cabling other than "makes good contact; well-shielded; won't break" would mess with their pretty little heads.

https://www.musicdirect.com/equipment/s ... ion-system

Need I say more?

Nope. But I still have a soft spot for those audiophile ethernet cables that I recall have been "discussed" here previously. While the starting length is a bit restrictive at 0.75m, fear not. An upgrade to double that length is a mere $600 extra.

Well, sure if you wanna go for that cheap AudioQuest garbage... real audiophiles use the good stuff:
https://sightandsoundgallery.com/products/nordost-odin-2-supreme-reference-speaker-cable?

cphite wrote:

Well, sure if you wanna go for that cheap AudioQuest garbage... real audiophiles use the good stuff:
https://sightandsoundgallery.com/products/nordost-odin-2-supreme-reference-speaker-cable?

what the effing efffffffffffff?

Hyuck hyuck hyuck. I need to open one of those stores. All I need to do is sell a cable every couple months and I'm set.

https://indico.cern.ch/event/438866/con ... ors-v2.pdf

For comparison, the superconducting cables used at CERN cost around $100/kA/m, and most runs were rated for 5-6kA. $500-$600/m is an order of magnitude cheaper than Nordost!

qmacpoint wrote:

cphite wrote:

Well, sure if you wanna go for that cheap AudioQuest garbage... real audiophiles use the good stuff:
https://sightandsoundgallery.com/products/nordost-odin-2-supreme-reference-speaker-cable?

what the effing efffffffffffff?

It begs the question how in the world are people stupid enough to buy this crap making enough money to buy this crap?

cphite wrote:

It begs the question how in the world are people stupid enough to buy this crap making enough money to buy this crap?

Eh, it's like any other hobby. There's always a few obsessives who do Just This and are willing to spend any amount of money chasing the last 1%.

cphite wrote:

Well, sure if you wanna go for that cheap AudioQuest garbage... real audiophiles use the good stuff:
https://sightandsoundgallery.com/products/nordost-odin-2-supreme-reference-speaker-cable?

Sexy!

I want a dozen. Should make for pretty laundry lines!

cphite wrote:

It begs the question how in the world are people stupid enough to buy this crap making enough money to buy this crap?

There's a lot of money to be made without a science or engineering degree/background (trust funds, stock market, executive bonuses). And keep in mind that these are probably very low volume. Like single units per month (if that). I wouldn't be surprised if the manufacturers make some products just to see if anyone will buy them.