Don't know about the PylePro stuff but I've just had to solder a couple Hosa snakes as part of a console install where budget was tight, install cable ran short and several of the Hosas and a bunch of other brands of line snakes had to be recycled. Since I had to strip and hard wire the Hosa snakes to new console connectors, I got have a look at their "guts" Boy oh boy...really wimpy jackets (which as pointed out are color coded rather than labeled with a channel number) and the conductors are tiiiny...copper, but surely not very high purity copper and not very much of it. Same goes for the braid. Going back to the color coding and lack of labeling, it's doubly annoying in that their color coding changed over time, so I had different Hosa snakes with different colors and had to sit and figure out what the different colors were, it was all silly, I just wanted numbered labels like all the other snakes had.
Not sure about the RCAs, but with the 1/4" jacks, they're molded end, meaning if they ever go wrong, you can't fix it, you just have to snip them off and put a mismatched replacement end on. As for their XLR connectors, they're as basic and cheap as it gets; poor strain relief with a brace that fell out easily, soft plastic between the solder cups and outer pins some of which were a bit melted from overheating, connection pins that oxidize easily, and the cables were soldered in the cups with big cloudy blobs of solder.
Since I was working with other brands of snakes in the same way--cutting off the ends and getting to see what was going inside the connectors and cable stock, I was able to compare Hosa to better stuff. They really were the lowest quality of lot inside and out, from jackets to conductors. I was also in CBIs, EWIs, and a few that I didn't check for markings but probably Whirlwind or similar.
Of the pre-made snake assemblies, my favorite of the lot are EWI, you can get them at
Audiopile Pro Audio* Welcome to Audiopile (great people to deal with BTW) or they pop up on eBay sometimes. Those were both labeled by number on really nice rugged heatshrink labels at the connectors (so the labels doubled as extra strain relief), but the conductor jackets were also color coded by group, so for example with the 16 channel snake, every four channels had color coded jackets (eg 1-4 blue, 5-8 yellow, etc). The cable stock itself was good, with heavier gauge conductors and a nice braided shield with strong yet flexible out jackets, and the channel cables were all houses in a good sturdy black outer jacket. Their connectors are all good, and they have Neutrik upgrade options as well which is worth it if you're gigging with the snakes but not necessary for studio installation. For pre-made snakes on a budget I do think highly of the EWI products, I also have one of their stake snakes and it's good stuff for the buck too. They're certainly not as cheap as Hosa, but less than their competition and worth every penny due to good quality, thoughtfully detailed execution.
Or, if you're handy with a soldering iron, making your own snakes or looms is a piece of cake and can be done fairly cost-competitive with Hosa and much higher quality.
I just priced out building your own snake with supplies from
Redco Audio - Redco Audio Home Page) and it's interesting...you have to solder the connectors on yourself but it's easy and good experience too, plus you have control over the quality of the job which is nice, and you can customize things to your spec--exactly the right length and so-on. Anyway, I just priced out a DIY 15' 8-channel RCA snake and it was $45, that's with Neutrik gold plated RCAs on both ends, and Gepco 8ch snake cable which AFAIK is both color coded and labeled by number. That would crush Hosa for close to the same price assuming you have a soldering iron as a couple hours to spare. Woot. BTW if you're not into soldering connectors, Redco will also build snakes or any type of cable to your spec, though you of course pay a premium for that.
Hosas are very cheaply priced but there's a reason for it. I think for a single user home studio they're probably OK so long as you keep the connectors clean but they're definitely disposable consumer level products.
Personally I'm in a pro setup and will be replacing my studiomate's Hosa snakes that I had to re-use with some custom DIY sankes (Gepco snake cable and I'll recycle some Neutrik connectors I already have) as budget allows.
