Cable topic!

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fiveyearslater

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Hey guys.. I have currently a home studio setup of which I think the cables are my weakest link. I've got the cheapest cables possible and want to buy new ones. What cables do you recommend, and do you know some good sites where cables are compared to eachother?

And ehm my budget per cable would be like.. up to $20 per cable.

Thanx in advance!
 
Canare, Gepco, Belden, Mogami... all good stuff.

Stay away from stuff like Hosa unless you want to replace the cable again in a year or two (the Hosa stuff tends to have a very short shelf life before the wire oxidizes and degrades, causing more and more intermittent signal flow over time...)
 
Personally I would say, Learn to solder. This will ensure you get better connections than 90% of what you buy ready-made and will give you the capability of fixing them when they break. Much of the advantage of pricier cables is that the connectors are more robust and that they are "connected" better.
 
Later,

> I think the cables are my weakest link <

I'll bet you $100 your cables are among the strongest links.

Why do you think cables are more important than loudspeakers or room acoustics? Even crappy cables have a reasonable frequency response.

--Ethan
 
even hosa is decent if you never ever move it. especially when you compare it to everything else in the signal chain. as ethan points out above.

gigging with hosa i wouldnt recommend though, unless you want to play the "which cable is broken" game every few months.

dont play the cable game, unless you buy my cables. i'll charge you $1000 per foot of cable, and i swear they are a million times better than monster cable. i had a friend over and he agreed that after using my cable the soundstage was much improved. also there was a marked lack of harshness in the upper mids. smooth top, tighter bottom. warmer. warmer i tell you.

also i have $500 knobs i want to sell you.
 
And after you buy those $1000 cables, invest in a cable tester. Or maybe even before.
 
or just buy a DMM from radio shack...does the exact same thing a cable tester does plus can be used for other things than just mic cables.
 
You should definitely have a meter. It's good for so many things. Tho I gotta say a good cable tester is really convenient. I like (and have) this one. It does quite a few things that are a complete pain in the ass with a meter.

swizz army cable tester
 
I have both. One keeps my gear running, the other keeps Mr Electrocution at bay.
 
I have the Ebtech Swizz Army tester as well--absolutely essential gear for the studio. The test tones are a tremendous troubleshooting tool, and of course I test every cable before I connect it to my gear.

Unlike what other posters think, I believe you are doing the right thing by upgrading your cabling. In my experience, the difference cable makes is a cumulative thing. If you listen to one cable against one other cable, it's not necessarily easy to hear the difference (although in some cases it is). But when you have hundreds of cables, using the good stuff can improve the overall sound and at the very least, reliability.

Avoid any cable with the plastic molded ends. Even in studio situations, where they won't get moved around much, they have a high rate of failure. When I still had that stuff around, whenever there was a mystery missing sound it always seemed to be some equipment on the other end of one of those molded plastic cables. I now use Mogami, Canare, Horizon lo-z, and Connectronics cables throughout my studio. All with proper metal ends. Sounds good and literally no problems with cables dying so far.
 
if you do long runs, or have RF problems, yea, cabling can become an issue.

however, in terms of an investment in a home studio where runs are rarely over 20-30 feet from mic to pre, and 5-10 feet from pre to recorder, it just shouldnt be a priority.

if you are running a studio projects mic into a dmp3 into a delta 1010 monitored over event monitors (a perfectly good home recording setup by the way)... well, i would work the room, the monitors, the mic, the pre, and the converters before cables.

like WAY before. upgrading cables can cost a few hundred extra bucks. (a bit less if you solder, but factor in some serious time investment)

$100 on room prep with some corning 703 and $250 on a sennheiser 441 with the above theoretical setup is gonna make your records sound WAY better than simply upgrading your cable. i mean WAY WAY WAY better. i mean WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY better.
 
Hey guys!

Where would you get the parts to build your own cables such that the quality would be comparable to Mogami?

Also, where would I find resources that detail how to build the cables?

Thanks in advance,

Fraser
 
Places like Full Compass http://www.fullcompass.com/ carry lots of quality connectors, and I am sure others will chime in with other sources. As far as soldering, I confess I tried the other day to remember when I learned to solder and I couldn't remember ever not knowing how! But then I'm an old fart. One of the youngsters can give you advice on that.
 
redco.com is cheaper for some things...

fullcompass.com is also cheaper sometimes for some things.

i have used markertek a few times.

my current favorite is redco.
 
You should be able to get some high quality cable and Neutrik or Switchcraft ends and make cables as good as any you could buy at the store.

By the way, eeldip, where can I find a 441 for $250? Somewhere particular, or are you just referring to taking a chance on the used market?
 
Is their really that much of a difference between star quad and the canare 2t2 cable? I heard that for balanced cable that capacitance makes really no difference and therefore the 2 conductor with a shield is good as long as it is low resistance.

Also do the neutrik black with gold pins gonna make that much of a difference over the regular neutrik XLR's?
 
yea, that is a very good used price. if you obsess over ebay, especially ebay.de you can get it for that...

"take a chance on the used market"... the used market is where it is AT. no chances there in the long run. its smart investing.

your $250 441 say costs $300 with added "risk value". you can sell it for $300 almost right away. so your "risk value" comes free just by playing the market a bit. then after a few years you can probably sell it for $350 or so.

compare that with buying a $300 NEW mic, which has very little risk value, but is worth $225 or so straight away, and only after many years do you come close to breaking even...
 
I agree that the used market is a great place for stuff. I picked up an EV 635A for $40 a couple months ago. The "chance" I was referring to was mostly the chance of one showing up at that price. I haven't looked at ebay.de in a long time because that sort of thing always slips my mind.
 
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