Does the quality 6,35mm jack extension cable really matter?

[L. Kenter]

Recently I got a great deal on used iBasso SR2 headphones, condition as new and everything included, except the 3,5 - 6,35mm jack adaptor. The seller said he didn't have it anymore either. This meant it didn't fit in my Asus Essence STX ii, so I used another set of headphone cables I had lying around. I hit iBasso up and they sold the original adaptor separately for a very fair price, and today it finally arrived, so now I can use my headphones with it's original cable. The sound was amazing before but I swear its even better now. 

 

However, only today did I notice the original cable is rather short and doesn't comfortably fit around/underneath my desk to the back of my PC. 

 

Long story short, I'm looking for a 6,35mm extension cable and I'm wondering how much the quality of this extension cable matters. Any recommendations on brand, pricepoint, do I need a balanced cable or not, does gold plating really matter, etc?

Unfortunately iBasso themselves don't sell this type of cable.

[rice guru]

Yes and know for people that claim to or legitimately hear a difference between expensive cables it matters. But for most people as long as you have nice good quality cables that are well made you should be fine. For longer runs cable quality does matter but if for desktop use your fine. Balanced is truly only needed if your amplifier sounds better balanced or  if your doing really long cable run. 

[Heats with Nvidia]

You need a balanced cable or a stereo cable. Both are the same thing. The difference is only in the application and whe only used for headphones. The cable doesn`t need to be shielded. But it doesn`t hurt.

 

The quality of the cable itself matters when the cable gets really long. If its only a couple of meters, it doesn`t matter much from a sound perspective. What matters a lot more, is the mechanical quality of the cable and even more important, that of the connectors, because they will wear out over time and unreliable connectors really are worse than a cheap cable itself.

 

[L. Kenter]

Thanks for the replies! I will need about 3 meters max to route it nicely and it will remain plugged in pretty much permanently. So I'm not gonna cheap out but good to know there is really no point to buying an expensive cable, at least for my use case. 

[Psittac]

I just woke up after sleeping almost all day yesterday so I'm having a hard time understanding all of the comment's but I am coherent enough to give my thought's on the OP's post.

 

Balanced requires a balanced source which it is unclear to me if your sound card offers.  Typically balanced connections are XLR which your sound card does not offer.  In theory as I believe @lw88mentioned you could have two TRS connections that together would offer balanced.  You need 4 conductors to make balanced.  Look at the 4.4 pentacon, that's a non-xlr balanced connection.  It is TRRS.

 

I believe that the OP's quality improvement had nothing to do with the cable rather being able to use the dedicated audio solution.  In my experience unless a cable or adapter is so poorly built that it affects audio quality, the cable has no effect on the listening experience.  The one and only time I've heard an impact from a cable or adapter was a cheaply made xlr adapter I got from Amazon and it had left and right crossed over to boot.

 

I have this 1/4" extension and find no degradation in audio quality.  Also from my understanding all you really needed to begin with was a simple 1/4" to 3.5mm adapter and I literally have a dozen of them because they come with almost everything, so they should be very cheap.

 

With all of that said you can go the custom cable route and get the exact length you want.  The two companies I swear by are hart audio cables and periapt audio cables.  I have used both companies and they offer different solutions, both are excellent.  Hart offers a modular system that can be expanded or adapted to new headphones should you branch out down the road.  Periapt offers solutions that will fit only that pair of headphones or anything that uses the same cable, but their solution has some heft to it and if you like the thicker cable it feels more premium.  But some enjoy the thinner cable of hart.  With both companies don't hesitate to use the custom cable service they offer, the pricing is the same as a regular set, it just add's lead time.