Neumann's OEM mic cables are made with Gotham wire- you can get it from Mouser and other places. It costs about the same as Mogami, Canare, or any other quality wire- roughly 75 cents a foot, tops. It's not bad stuff at all.
We all want to do the best we can within our limited budgets in our home studios. The question is, where is the bang for the buck? I'm not a professional in the audio field any more. I used to be, but then I moved on to other professional interests (mostly, ones that actually paid me). Since getting back into this as a hobbyist, I've now built test cables with wire from most of the major players, and have done some testing of my own. I'm also in search of the Holy Grail just like everybody else, you see. A Magic Bullet that will make my rig sound better with no real effort on my part. What a cool, seductive idea...
Problem is, I bring an engineering cynicism to this exercise. And I can't hear the difference, once you're talking about any of the "good" wires: Canare StarQuad, Mogami quad, Gotham triple or quad. I've tried, folks, and I just can't hear it. Period. I admit it. My ears just can't make it out. I am hopelessly handicapped, compared to those who can actually hear the angels speaking to them through the high-zoot wires.
There are folks who say they can, and you know what? Some of them probably can. But I *can't*. And a lot of years of poking at this by people in the AES really hasn't led to any conclusions that will change the minds of anyone on either side, either: measurements of a lot of the super-zoot stuff made by independent folks just flat have not indicated any world-stopping advantages. There's just no support for this in the peer-reviewed literature. Which, I suspect, is why there is exactly *zero* actual technical information on the Monster "technical information" web page. Monster just buys pretty much run-of-the-mill wire from someone else, hypes the bejeezus out of it, and marks it up 500%.
The Monster Cables and other moonglow vendors of the world have volumes of glossy psuedoscience about how their gold plated thises and turbine-slotted thats are somehow better. But ultimately, I personally believe that it's all pure marketing hype, and nothing else. I work hard for my money, and unsupported hype ain't gonna get it done for me.
Don't get me wrong: Ed *has* done the testing, and he says he*can* hear it, and I do believe him. There are others who make the same claims, and I believe them as well. I don't understand how they can, but I still believe them. And then I go buy the stuff that makes sense for me, with my rig, and my ears.
You can make *excellent* cables for under a buck a foot. You can also buy excellent premade cables for under a buck a foot, if you don't like to solder. If *you* can actually hear the difference in a fair (ideally double-blind) test, then by all means buy the super high-zoot goldplated whatever stuff they're hyping this week. Hell, yes, do so with my blessing, and thanks for keeping the economy going. But if you honestly _can't_ hear it, then IMNSHO you'd have to be a little bit touched in the head to pay a hundred bucks for a mic cable, just because some marketer says that they are somehow better. Save that money for better monitors, or for acoustic treatment of your room: something that yields unquestionable, tangible, and *measurable* improvements.
PT Barnum is still alive and well, and I do believe he works for an audio cable manufacturer. How else could they justify selling $.75/foot wire for $5/foot? Caveat emptor: buy with your ears wide open, and your eyes completely closed to the slick marketing crap. Only *your* ears matter, and what you find may surprise you.
