I have yet to believe that I can hear a difference, but I am told that really nice cables do good things for recordings. I am really curious if anyone has a strong opinion on the best affordable xlr's, and maybe the best expensive. I know Mogami costs an arm and a leg.

Is there a quality difference between Whirlwind, Livewire, the cheaper Monster cables? I have all the above but can't tell.

I'm not sure it's that they do good things so much as they don't do bad things.

I think any sonic difference is really negligible. When you pay good money for cables, what you're paying for are cables that don't break. I battled with my work to start spending money on decent cables and connectors. At one point we had about 600m of this awful 'Skytronic' brand stuff, pretty much the cheapest you can get. It was horrible to work, and inevitably the leads died in a matter of months. Eventually they bought a ton of Van Damme cable, which was probably three times the price, but took about half the time to turn into cables, and has lasted with no problems for a year and counting. I use Van Damme or Canford myself, and I think I've had one cable failure in about 4 years.

yeah I think it's a lot more about the durability than anything sonic or electrical that might interfere w/ a recording

Anybody use the ones with the universal joint at the end? I think they're by Planet Waves and the connector is hinged for flexibility and long life, supposedly.

Boombats wrote:Anybody use the ones with the universal joint at the end? I think they're by Planet Waves and the connector is hinged for flexibility and long life, supposedly.

I have one of these, and I like it. It's lasted a couple years with no problems. Seems rugged, although I wouldn't know how to fix it if it broke.

mogami isn't that expensive if you build it yourself (as long as you aren't getting "hi def" stuff). They have a budget line that's like 35 cents a foot and a more expensive one that's like 70 or something, I can't remember. Neutrik connectors are like 5 bucks a cable. Even at 1 buck a foot that gives you 25 feet for 30 bucks, which is how much a cheap cable will cost you at guitar center.

Preferred: Canare cable with Neutrik connectors.

Redco makes their own cable which is just as good as the Mogami and a good deal cheaper.
They also have good prices on just about everything.