How important is microphone cable quality?

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Steve
How far are you likely to run your inherited mic cables to the input
interface?
Are these budget extension cables *already* fitted with good make 3-p male
and female XLRs?
Are you going to coil and uncoil them repeatedly (daily) for a long period?
Do you know what the type of cable used in their assembly is? - its ID may
be silk-screened along the jacket.
Jim

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steve <steve@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'm using a firepod for recording with a beta 52, three sm57's, an mxl603's
> and a sennheiser e835.. when i bought my firepod the site i bought it at had
> a promotion where they threw in the sennheiser e835 and 8 whirlwind emc20
> 20foot cables for 'free'. the whirlwind cables seem to go for anywhere from
> $9-15 each on most sites so i'm guessing they're pretty bottom of the barrel..

> anyhow i don't know anything about mic cables although i do know that i'm not
> interested in spending $500 for 8 cables.. how much does the quality of a mic
> cable influence the sound? ie, would i notice a difference in recording
> quality between these whirlwind cables and say a mid range $25 cable?

The influence on sound is likely quite minimal for most purposes. Based
on the types of mics you are using, I don't believe you are doing
highly critical minimalist recordings of acoustic music where in can
be more of a factor.

What may be more important is reliability/build quality. Really cheap
cables tend to fail sooner---either at the connector or occasionally
at some mystery place in the middle of the cable.

But I thought Whirlwind was of reasonable quality in the same range as
Digiflex. I still really like those old Whirlwind guitar cables with
the white plastic/brass connectors. I have to admit I never fully trusted
the fact that the brass housing does not fully enclose the signal with
a shield---but I always like the look and feel of them. And I have
ones that are 20 years old that have never failed.

Rob R.

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>Probably not unless the cable breaks....... then you will notice a big
>change.
>
>The cheaper cables may be more likely to break due to mechanical
>stress.

well now that they're setup they're probably not going to get moved much,
im not gigging or anything.. these were free so i'm only concerned with
the sound quality not durability. if they break i'll replace them but
i don't want to record with cables that are going to give me an inferior
sound quality compared to mid range reasonably priced cables..

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and by breaking they short and you get no signal or they allow emi and
rfi into your audio.
ussually right in the middle of something important!

dale

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"steve" <steve@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:muoSd.11740$Am3.333611@news20.bellglobal.com...
> I'm using a firepod for recording with a beta 52, three sm57's, an
> mxl603's
> and a sennheiser e835.. when i bought my firepod the site i bought it at
> had
> a promotion where they threw in the sennheiser e835 and 8 whirlwind emc20
> 20foot cables for 'free'. the whirlwind cables seem to go for anywhere
> from
> $9-15 each on most sites so i'm guessing they're pretty bottom of the
> barrel..
>
> anyhow i don't know anything about mic cables although i do know that i'm
> not
> interested in spending $500 for 8 cables.. how much does the quality of a
> mic
> cable influence the sound? ie, would i notice a difference in recording
> quality between these whirlwind cables and say a mid range $25 cable?

As far as "fidelity" is concerned, it doesn't make any difference. Mike
cable problems are all caused by poor shielding, triboelectricity or
problems caused by phantom power. Test for this by stepping on the cable
while recording. Run the cable next to AC line cords with current flowing.
If you have no audible problems--well, you have no problems.

Norm Strong

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"steve" wrote ...
> I'm using a firepod for recording with a beta 52, three sm57's,
> an mxl603's and a sennheiser e835.. when i bought my firepod
> the site i bought it at had a promotion where they threw in the
> sennheiser e835 and 8 whirlwind emc20 20foot cables for 'free'.
> the whirlwind cables seem to go for anywhere from $9-15 each
> on most sites so i'm guessing they're pretty bottom of the barrel..

They are actually pretty good value for the money. Don't buy into
the hype of "premium priced", "boutique", "snake-oil" overpriced
cables like "Monster" and such.

> anyhow i don't know anything about mic cables although i do
> know that i'm not interested in spending $500 for 8 cables..

Your common sense is in better working order than some people
who stumble through here. :-)

> how much does the quality of a mic cable influence the sound?

"Catastrophic failures" (i.e. opens and/or shorts) will make
drastic changes in the "quality" (and likely even *existence*)
of the mic signal. Quality mic cable is mechanically sound
enough for the treatment you will give it. And quality mic
cable will have something approaching 100% shielding
coverage.

> ie, would i notice a difference in recording quality between
> these whirlwind cables and say a mid range $25 cable?

Highly unlikely. You could be listening for a long, long time
to try to hear differences between decent cables. Assuming
you are comparing cables of some nominal quality (with decent
connectors, etc.) You likely have better things to do with your
time than to try to hear qualitative differences between cables.