Today&#;s super-awesome home-recording topic: Microphone Cables.
Here&#;s a few of the insanely useful secrets we&#;re about to reveal:
Best Part: Just a few minutes from now, you&#;ll know this topic inside-n-out &#; and find exactly what you need for your setup&#; Guaranteed.
First up&#;
So&#;are all microphone cables basically the same? Or do some really sound better than others?
Ask any audio pro engineer and you probably WON&#;T get a straight answer.
On one hand they might say: A cable is a cable. It doesn&#;t really matter.
But add up the price of their cables, and they&#;ll most likely cost more than your entire studio.
Ask them why they bought those cables instead of cheaper ones, and many can&#;t tell you because they don&#;t really know.
Because truth is&#;microphone cables (aka XLR cables) are a topic that musicians at all levels know surprisingly little about.
So up next, I&#;m going to show you the real differences.
The typical design of an XLR cable has 5 important parts.
two copper wire conductors
(+/-), each one wrapped in its owninsulation
.filler
to smooth-out warping, and preserve the cable&#;s roundness.shielding
(usually copper), which protects the conductors from various sources of interference.outer jacket
, to protect it from handling damage.And that&#;s pretty much it. Now the difference between cheap and expensive microphone cables is determined by the quality of these components.
Here&#;s the first example:
The two copper conductors at the core of the cable are actually made of many fine strands, rather than just a single wire.
This is done because multiple strands increase both flexibility and durability of the wire. The higher the strand count, the better the performance.
As you might expect, this makes the manufacturing process more expensive as well, which you ultimately pay for.
When you look at the twisting of the copper wires, you&#;ll notice that expensive cables have tighter twists than cheap ones.
Known simply as the the lay, cable manufacturers determine this stat by measuring the distance between each twist.
Shortening the lay on high-end cables improves:
But the downside is:
Up next&#;
The 3 common types of microphone cable shielding are:
Foil Shielding (basic)
&#; which uses a combination of a foil wrapping and a copper drain wire. It&#;s less-effective as a shield, and far less-durable, but it&#;s the standard option for budget cables, permanent installations and snakes.Serve Shielding (better)
&#; which uses flat copper strands wrapped in a single direction. It&#;s somewhat less-effective at shielding than braided, but offers greater flexibility.Braided Shielding (best)
&#; which uses strands of braided copper for superior strength and durability. Due to its high conductivity, it also has excellent hi-frequency and RFI shielding.As you might expect, the most expensive microphone cables will almost always use some version of braided shielding.
When a cable hits the stage or gets stepped on, it momentarily compresses, causing a distinct slapping sound, known as the triboelectric effect.
With cables that see lots of handling, such as those used on-stage, this noise can pontentially be a huge issue.
To solve this problem, high-end stage cables use various specialty materials for the insulation, filler, and outer jacket to improve impact absorption.
Studio cables on the other hand, which see far less abuse, can work just fine with less-expensive casing.
Typically XLR connectors may be coated with any number of different metals, the two most popular being either silver, or gold.
Some people say silver is better, because it has a higher conductivity than gold (when clean). However, silver also tarnishes faster than gold, and must be cleaned often to maintain performance.
If you are looking for more details, kindly visit yiyuan.
So ulitimately, most people prefer gold, despite the fact that it&#;s more expensive.
A relatively-new technology is getting more attention these days, as engineers begin to see its advantages.
Known in product descriptions either as star-quad or quad cabling, this design uses 4 smaller conductors (2+/2-) compared to the standard 2-conductor design of traditional cables.
By minimizing the loop area, it cuts electromagnetic interference by an impressive 20db. Which makes them especially useful in environments with heavy interference from surrounding equipment (such as in clubs).
Quad-cabling offers better overall sound quality as well, due to technical factors we won&#;t go into, such as:
phase shift
intermodulation distortion
While average musicians may not hear the difference, many top audio professionals can confirm that is in fact real.
Up next&#;
When shopping for microphone cables at the lowest price ranges, you can find cables sometimes as cheap as $5-10 from China.
I would suggest avoiding these, since they&#;ll typicall break within weeks, if they work at all. And they&#;re a huge hassle to return.
So here are 3 almost-as-cheap models I recommend instead:
Up next&#;
For most musicians reading this post, I&#;d ideally recommend using mid-range cables between $25-$50.
Because in this range, you get an excellent combination of quality and affordability.
Here are several of the top options I&#;d recommend:
Up next&#;
At a certain price point, you start seeing large increases in cost, for only minimal increases in noticeable quality.
For many professionals with large budgets, any minimal increase is well-worth whatever it costs. So if that&#;s you&#;go for it. For everyone else though, I&#;ll refer you to the previous section of this post.
Now&#;far and away, Mogami is the cable brand best known for making high-end pro cables. So if you&#;re interested here are the ones I recommend:
Up next&#;
Many musicians will go their entire lives without ever using or even seeing an angled XLR cable.
And not everyone really even needs them.
However&#;there are certain situations where that right angle in the connector makes an otherwise impossible fit&#;suddenly become simple.
With these cables you can have either the male or female side angled, or both.
If you need one, here&#;s a good mix of options to choose from:
Up next&#;
At some point, when your pile of unused cables grows large enough&#;it feels like a waste of money to buy more. And it is.
Because simply by taking the time to learn how to cut and solder your old cables, they can be re-purposed over-and-over-again to meet your ever-changing needs.
Once you&#;ve learned this skill, you can:
With as little as a few hours practice, you can save yourself hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars over the next few years.
If you&#;re interested, here&#;s a good video explaining how it&#;s done:
By the way, if you found this post useful, I highly recommend joining our free Home Recording Secrets newsletter where you&#;ll discover&#;.
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