Microphone Cable Shootout

[brandondrury]

Thanks for posting this little shootout!

These voice type experiments are always tough because it's pretty much impossible to say the same word the exact same way each time. There is a tad less low mid boom in the #4, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that this is 99.999% the way you said it and not really the sound of the cable.

Of course, none of the cables listed were retartedly expensive. An "audiophile" friend of mine was looking at cables that cost $100 per foot for his home theater setup. No thank you!

As far as I'm concerned, the biggest factor in deciding what cables to buy is how well made they are, and how easily they coil.

Yeah, I'm with you. I wish they could charge by the number of years you would get out of them. I still Spectraflex guitar cables from 1996 that I use all the time.

Brandon

[TimmyR41]

I bought 6 of those live wire mic cables from guitar center for my youth groups sound system less than a year ago. I only have one left. Needless to say I will not be buying livewire again. The first one shorted within 2 weeks and the others followed shortly after. That may just be my experience. I plan to shell out the $30 for monsters lifetime warranty. As far as I'm concerned thats what I'm paying for. If my cable breaks. I take it back and get a new one.

[thesilentdrummer]

I am sorry for your bad experiences. You said 5 of them shorted out? Do you have any idea why or how? Out of curiosity, what Live Wire did you buy? I would guess its the $14.95 version? Because like I said, I feel like my nicer Live Wire cable could survive a nuclear blast.

[Retronut]

I have a couple of Live Wire cables I bought from my local banjo center and if I am not mistaken they have a lifetime warranty. Just take the cable in, they look you up in the computer, send you out with a new cable.

[TimmyR41]

yeah, they did that for me the first time but not the second time i came back in. They were the 14.95 livewires. i didn't know they made more expensive livewires. i've never liked buying from big bully companies but i also don't want to be having to exchange cables all the time. i'll take a look at the expensive livewires though.

[jdguitar]

Hey, I found this out a few years back. When it comes to mic cable, you don't get what you pay for. There is a pretty simple test that I go by. If, when you plug it into the board with mic attatched, and you move the cable, step on it etc, it makes noise? It doesn't matter how cheap it is. It's garbage.
If, on the other hand it makes no sound, what difference does the price make? There are some cheap connectors attatched to good cable but I haven't run across bad cable in quite a few years. I could just be a lucky guy I guess. You are absolutely right on. No difference between thes cables accept of course for the price!




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Cable 1: Shure Cable
Cable 2: Cheap Live Wire Cable
cable 3: Monster 100 Cable
Cable 4: Expensive Live Wire Cable.

So, could you tell a difference between the 4 clips??? I certainly couldn't. What this does for me is completely debunks the quality of cables myth. When I was buying my monster cable (at guitar Center), I really didn't want to buy it. I didn't feel like spending $30 on a 20 ft cable when I bought my longer "expensive livewire" for the same price. When I asked if he had any live wire cables, he said they didn't have any at the time, and further questioning yielded the response that going any cheaper would make the audio quality suffer. So I bought my first (and last) monster cable.

Also, the monster cable female connector is slightly larger than my other cable's female connectors. This made it a bitch to get in and out of the mic.

All of the them sound the same to me. So it comes down to durability. In the studio , I see no reason why any of them couldn't last a long time. They all could be stepped on (on a carpeted or wood floor) without a problem. On the road, the Shure and even the Monster cable might run into some problems with ware. I feel that the cheap live wire could take a good beating. I think that the cockroaches will be using my expensive live wire cable the world is nuked out. The connectors on the Monster do look most solidly built (and they look cooler too), but I don't think any of the other connectors are subject to durability issues.

The thing that frightens me is that I only have Monster Standard 100 cable. They sell the Performer Monster 500 (20' cable is $60, $3 a foot) and Studio Monster 1000 (20' cable will only set you back $130, $6.5 a foot).


Trust your ears and make your own decision. Feel free to comment and discuss.[/quote]

[adorian]

I heard a definite difference in quality in cable 4 opposed to everything else tested - all the others seemed a bit dull on the high freqs. Again - not a subjective test as the mic, preamp power source that flows in the cable and the speaker are all variables that have not been isolated. Still - cable 4 seems to have much better clarity in the upper register of the voice.

[Picksalot]

I didn't hear much difference in the cables. Maybe #4 had a little more clarity in the top end as adorian pointed out.

It's hard for me to imagine any of those cables ruining a performance or turning chaff into wheat.

[thesilentdrummer]

Originally Posted by Picksalot

It's hard for me to imagine any of those cables ruining a performance or turning chaff into wheat.

I think that was one of my main points. Though we certainly would love to record stuff perfectly everytime, how difficult would it be to EQ the others to sound like your preferred cable (I am still not convinced there is a best sounding cable), or to have someone sing the line one more time??? The changes made to correct the "shortcomings" are tiny.

[TheTool]

The only difference is shielding and durability. Especially durability.

I had a cable making business for a little while. Really no difference between cables. Except canare and neutric have much higher guage wire strands, but thats another story... (again mostly durability.)


But anyways, the best way to test it would to be..
1) record whatever you want. should be something that everyone can reference. A voice would be the best for it because everyone knows exactly what a voice sounds like and if two different ones are the same or different.
2) Put a good mic on a stand and make sure it doesnt move.
3) Record the first recording like they did with the old reverb chambers. Straight from the monitors!