What cables are people using to keep good quality?

[gonglee]

Are mogamy cables enough to give me liquid and transparent sounds on recordings, or do I have to fork out more? I am using microphone similar to the Nuemann U87.

[JamesV]

Canare, Mogami, Gotham, and Monster(with the hype) all produce cable that should meet your specific application.

[where02190]

We make all our cables inhouse, using Belden and Canare cabling. Don't buy into the Monster hype, here's nothing magical about it except the extremely overinflated pricetag.

[Chris Cavell]

I typically use belden and canare for making my own cables too - neutrik connectors of course. I buy prebuilt mogami (also with neutrik connectors) for patchcables.

[Sugarnutz]

I wired my last commercial studio with West Penn (#291 if I remember correctly). This was a pre-wire job for a new Neve 8232 and MCI JH-24 machine I purchased in 1988. When the Neve tech came to commission the console and asked my what wire I used, he made no comments, nor raised any disapproving eyebrows at my choice of West Penn. The hype about wire is that, just hype. I imagine that if you had runs of several hundred feet, you could maybe look for something a little better, just stick with Belden as it's most readily available.

[Escape]

Hi
I use belden with neutrik connectors

[gonglee]

Several mentions of Belden cables - which model no. should I use to build cables?
Different ones for speaker and microphone cables?
Do you know an internet sight where I can order them?

Thanks all to those who posted here - they helped me for sure.

[dcarlson247]

It's not cheap but silver has a lower resistance than copper. Look at Zaolla cables: http://www.zaolla.com/

[Lalaman]

Thats´s not true. Although I don´t agree with the poster above who mentions hype about wire ( ever compared a Belden 8412 stage cable against a low impedance specimen for your patch?) the silver thing is black magic indeed.

Good copper conducts just as good as silver. Spare your money in this regard.

An inexpensive solution for good interconnects is e.g. Mogami 110 ohm cable ( yes, originally for digital. It has low impedance. Tip from Jim Williams.) Very good and not expensive is Gotham GAC and the others mentioned above are known for very good quality as well, Mogami, Canare and Belden.

The differences on short line connections are subtle, but for mic and instrument demands I wouldn´t skimp. The bigger the distance the less. Double shielding and such will shelter your signal from F-noises and good core alloys should help preserving the frequency range.

Lalaman

[Lalaman]

Disclaimer

A while ago a very experienced person wrote me that he never experienced a difference on cables. And he mentioned this to be common thought in the pro world. Big studios that could had afforded anything eqipped with cheap stuff like Klotz.

This made me think and I did not want to imply here that I was too sure about the topic. For instance in the comparance between the 110 ohm cable and the Gotham I finally decided for the Gotham, because it appeared like having slightly more bottom and LM. However what I am talking about was so subtle that it could have been psychological. I can´t certainly say. And I havn´t compared to the Klotz yet which I have here too.

Might even be the cheapo [ red ] copper cables to be just as good as a conductor, who knows. So far I only havn´t used my cheapo cables anymore for they came in presoldered and that very badly.
About the cable quality itself I can´t say.

Still, cable isn´t always the same for sure. The Belden 84 12 for instance is being manufactured under the criteria of sturdyness ( which it pretty much is ). You could drive with your car over it all day long and it wouldn´t care much. However its core and shielding for that are of a brighter, more rigid alloy ( more tin maybe?) and the lesser copper in there definitly changed sonics in so far as it appeared more bass heavy with less top. However could be the bass only appears bigger due to lacking blend with mids and hights. Possibly just a cut off.

Anyway, less copper makes a difference in sound for sure.

The usual copper alloy however and maybe even the one in the cheapos might be just fine already. One would need to take the time and compare cheap and expensive in a relatively HF free environment and both with same connector qualities, to make sure.

All meant towards line connex, though.
Pun intended.

Lalaman