Don't Get Scammed On XLR Cables!

Romeo Music Website
www.romeomusic.net/online-cat...
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Chapters
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0:00 Intro
0:45 What to look for in XLR Cables
1:39 Build Quality
2:03 Audio Quality
2:50 The Cables We'll Be Examing
3:56 Noise Floor Testing
4:42 EMI Testing
5:40 Talking Test
5:56 Cutting the Cables Open
10:11 Thoughts on the Insides of the Cables
10:46 Which Cables Should You Be Buying?
12:01 Conclusion
#CatherallAudio #JamesCatherall

[@ryanunangst4172]

Hey there! It's Ryan from Romeo Music! Great breakdown! It's cool to see the guts of the various cable types, and I love the environment testing.
Just a couple things worth clarifying - The string and paper inside the cable sheathing is a cushion for "Stage Cable." We all know not to step on cables where possible, but the increased cushion on the higher-end cables gives that extra bit of protection when it inevitably happens, so the stranded copper isn't being mashed and strained as much. The MBL cables are actually listed on Hosa's website as 'XLR Interconnect' cables rather than Microphone cables (Although they're branded "Economy Microphone" cables just to make things confusing), as they're much better suited for connecting gear together in a rack or cabinet, where there's no danger of 'Stage' demands.
As far as the cable gauge, you're not going to experience it at 5', but the issues compound as the cable gets longer. At 100', a 24 awg cable loses over 10% of the voltage over distance, whereas a 22 awg cable loses just over 6%, and a 20 awg cable loses just over 4%. By the time the signal hits the preamp, you'll need to boost the gain more, which means boosting the inadvertent artifacts introduced into the signal noise floor. Additionally, as higher frequencies convert to lower voltage transference, you would experience mild high-frequency attenuation (around 5KHz and up) over distance. Unless you have a mixer with spectacular preamps and pretty high end speakers, it probably wouldn't be noticeable, especially with an SM57, but a good condenser through good preamps and speakers would lose some of its sparkle.
Anyway, shameless plug - hit me up at Romeo Music for anything and everything performing arts technology!

[@CaseJackal]

i'm so glad you spelled all this out here. Honestly i feel like the true educational value of this channel for me has been scrolling through the comments to see people who actually know what they're talking about correct what this guy says.

[@EfigLoveTucson]

And here I thought you were only going to teach me MainStage stuff... I just got schooled again!!!!! Thank youuuuu :) :)

[@dizdawgjr34]

If you need to bulk buy a bunch of the same cable length, you can often get a solid discount on it. We did this for our daisy chained mallet instrument setup and the 10 foot sweetwater branded(longer than any of our mallet instruments but my thought process was that I can make the cable shorter but I can’t make it longer). Knocked about $50-$60 off the price. Also discovered Amazon Basics cables are suprisingly good build quality wise, we got a bunch of their 3 foot cables ($13 for a 2 pack) to jump between each keyboard so the connector for the main wire that’s zip tied on isn’t exposed in a way it could potentially get it caught on something or get crushed in transit.

[@jayem1826]

Wait. They’re all copper? No silver?

[@CatherallAudio]

Some will have silver or gold connectors because of their conductive properties.