Is high quality microphone cable preferred for short run?

[aznwonderboy]

I want a 5' cable (XLR female to TRS balanced male) from Echo Mia soundcard to VTB-1 preamp .

Also, I want a 25' (XLR male to XLR female) from the VTB-1 preamp to the condenser microphone.

I have read many threads that praise the quality of Mogami and Canare. I also read some posts that say the quality from most cables (despite brand names or not) are all similar over short run. (What is the length of it to be considered "short"?)

I also read that XLR to XLR cable are balanced, therefore it is good already (despite of brand name or not.)

Should I get both cables from Canare/or Mogami to be on the safe side? Or should I save myself some money and get something cheaper since the quality won't be different?

And no, I only need two cables, so I don't want to buy the parts and make my own cable.

Thanks.

 

[bleyrad]

5' is a short run. you'll be just fine with anything decent at that length. some people even prefer unbalanced cables for very short runs like that.

at 25' you might want to start looking into Mogami or Canare. in my experience i think cable-affecting-sound-quality is mostly a load of garbage as long as you don't have total junk, but others swear by it as a necessity. at least if you get either of those brands you'll feel better about yourself and have no guilt in wanting something better, even if you can't hear any difference.

 

[bleyrad]

oh, and as far as XLR automagically being good, that's total bunk.

all XLR does is cancel out external noise from being picked up. the internal characteristics of the cable is what we're talking about here.

(whether or not it actually noticeably effects the sound is another matter... and whether or not that change is automatically BAD is another again...)

 

[billisa]

CBC makes some pretty nice quad cables for not a great deal of money. The prices for short run Monster Cables seem pretty high. Why not just get some nice ones at reasonable prices? They may last longer and they certainly can't hurt your sound quality.

 

[rushfan33]

If you only need two cables,
Why not just buy the best you can buy and call it a day? It won't be an issue after that.
RF

 

[tdukex]

If you only need two cables,
Why not just buy the best you can buy and call it a day? It won't be an issue after that.
RF

No shit. I couldn't agree more. This is the one area you can afford to buy the best quality for only a few dollars.

 

[photoresistor]

Why don't you make your own cables? Then you can get top quality cables (mogami/canare) for cheaper than what they'd sell to you at the music store down the block.

I have 4 Canare w/ Neutrik connector XLR cables... i wanted to get top quality stuff so i wouldnt have to upgrade in the future.

 

[Garak]

Will you be able to hear the difference between a cheap XLR cable and an expensive one? Not likely, provided that its the proper type of cable(Low C, Shielded twisted pair).

On really long runs(100'+) you will start to lose low frequenceys because the total capictance of the cable will go up and create a high pass filter(low cut). You will also start to lose some of the signal level because of the resistance of the cable. At audio frequencey the Inductance of a cable has no effect on the quailty.(I've run 1500' using 2 channel industrial control cable at sporting events with no problems, even with 5 pin XLR connectors every 125')

-- OOPS -- I think I got that wrong, the capactors would be in parallel which creates a low pass filter(Hi cut), I'm thinking of the serise capacitors used to decouple DC on amplifiers.

The main factor in buying cables is how long is it going to last. For live audio I use only neutrik connectors and digiflex cable. They are pretty much impossible to break and very rarely fail(usually the cable gets cut clean though for it to fail). Digiflex cable also coils very nicely and dosn't tangle with other cables in the trunk.

In the studio the cables don't see as much abuse but I will still go with neutriks because they last forever!