An excellent cable with Goldring DR150

Hi everyone,

fine day indeed, been enjoying my Piano Forte VIII throughout the whole week, amazed and relax.

Today I’m going to review a different product; a cable to be précised, the cable which make a headphone comes alive in no time.

They call it the Vero 150, match up with Goldring DR150 and Boom! Magic effect like david copperfield. How good are they? We shall see...


Thanks to the courtesy of Jaben Network, I’m able to get a review set from them, the cable itself is on DIY base, designed by a long time well respect audiophile player in Malaysia, they call him PCwork in Lowyat forum. I know him personally, he is a great guy will tons of knowledge in term of Speaker sound tuning, cable manufacturing and headphones off course. I put my faith on the product as I tried his masterpiece before which is the symphonic upgrade cable for Sennheiser HD650.

Here are the specs for Vero150 :

*Vero-150 made with 6N multicore cooper wire.
*Building Material were carefully selected to enhance the sound of goldring DR150 headphone.

*Length 1.5 meter with 6N multicore wire

*Cable quality enhanced with Cooper material to get the best combination

*Hand braided in "Quad" configuration
*Carefully hand terminated

*Each cable consist of 4 strain,
*Solder using high quality industrial grade soldering lead

*3.5mm Neutrik plug both end terminated.   

Pretty promising from the material and workmanship, it is currently retail at RM230 in Jaben Malaysia.

Build quality

It is solid and nice to hold, especially the outer cable sleeve material, I love the way how it’s designed and the quality, it feels rough on the surface but with firm and smooth touching feel, makes gripping and maintenance easy for life. The cable itself is much thinner and shorter compare with the stock QED cable from DR150, the flexibility of the cable offer a straight and durability to the cable design, while the stock cable provides a tedious long rubbery feel, which is a huge big plus for the Vero150.

3.5mm Neutrik plug ensured superior quality with affordable price range, there is no price gimmick in PCwork sound tuning product, he loves to keep everything simple, affordable and exclusive sound signature.

There is no glue or rubber sleeve on the 3.5mm jack, you’re feel free to twist out the jack and check for the clamping force and soldering workmanship, I guess he is confident to let you play with them thoroughly while most of the brands in the market insisting on keeping their secret by making the surrounding material a dead end.
I’m extremely satisfied with the build quality, for a one man show DIY cable, this actually can be a great competition for lots of brand, I’ve seen worse in the market.

Sound

Yes, so how’s the sound improvement? If you familiar with Goldring DR150 sound, be frank they are amazing in the prize range despite of the brand popularity. With the outlook close to Sennheiser HD5 series, DR150 goes for total opposite sound of HD5 series, which are detail, bright, transparent and balance in overall presentation.

So which part of the DR150 should improve?
My complain will be a few parts of DR150, the mid high, separation and mid bass, they tilted high and not easy for some ears.

The mid high to high transition is slope up and thin, so technically it boosts up the whole spectrum, making the range towards bright side, to some people it is sharp and piercey to the ears, however it makes the transparency of DR150 fair a great fight with high price headphone.
Mid low is close to non-existent, some certain song you get less mid bass hump than expected, which overall looks like a V-shape with high tilted. The open air design really does enhance the live and airy feeling, but with massive instruments came in, it tends to get messy.

So… here comes the Vero150, makes everything correct and improved, remarkable job by putting DR150 into a range of RM1000 headphone rank.

Don’t believe? Imagine you put all the flaws into correct stage…
The Vero150 focus more on transparency, so precise that it automatically helps improving on all the complains I mentioned above.

You get great progression on the mid high transition, everything went smooth and fill up the veil with rich texture, tone down the treble easy for everyone ears.
Mid bass more outstanding and better punch, you get the mid hump impact deep and sufficient, reduce the low bass extension, and enhance the fullness of bass presentation.
With better transparency improved, massive instruments won’t be creating a huge havoc to the headphone, everything become just the way they should be.

With these improvements, it makes the V-shape curve tilt towards a straight line frequency, offering a much balance sonic sound signature, suitable for all kinds of music genre as you get bass, mid, high equally great.

As I mentioned, how it fairs off against higher end headphone?

I did have a comparison up to RM1000 headphones such as Beyer DT770pro, Sennheiser HD558/HD598, Shure SRH840, it seem DR150 has the greatness of transparent detail compare with other headphones. Well I do believe DT770pro and HD5 do provide better in bass and smoothness, but DR150 able to outperform them in other way, and remember on the price of DR150 and the vero150, currently seem Jaben is offering a special of RM470 for DR150 + Vero150, it is totally a big steal!

*Perfect match, grey color for the headphone and cable