In this world of live recording, what defines the term 'quality' when it comes to cables?
How important is the quality of the cables to the sound of a recording?
Is the main issue one of ensuring sound quality or cables being field tough?
How much does a person reasonably need to spend? (I guess reasonable is a subjective term, but lets just assume 'real good quality' but not 'best ever made'...just trying to get a feel for what I NEED to spend to buy good cables that will get the job done.)
Of course, there's an entire forum devoted to making cables, so if you have some basic soldering ability, can 'quality' cables be made on the home workbench to save significantly?
BTW, I _KNOW_ these questions have been asked a million times, but dang I've spent at least a few hours looking and just can't seem to find a thread that asks the basic noob questions. Forgive me if I didn't end up in the right place.
Also, FWIW, I'm building my rig from the mics up...MBHO 603a actives to a modded UA-5 into a JB3 to start.
Thanks for any help.
what cables people use is a very subjective sort of thing, and you'll hear a lot of different opinion. a lot of people here like to use silver-coated copper cables. I've always been very happy with Canare star-quad cables. if you've got some soldering skills, it's not hard to make your own cables, and you'll definitely save yourself some money. (I always buy parts from markertek.com. they've got the cable and the XLR connectors). alternatively, there are several members here on the board who make fantastic custom cables, and if I weren't making them myself, I'd definitely buy from a member here. it's usually cheaper than buying cables from a large compnay, and you're supporting a member of our community.
in terms of cost, if you make your own star-quads... the cable is $0.42 a foot. (
http://tinyurl.com/2n9o2c) say 30 feet for a pair of 15 foot cables. that's $12.60 on the cable. and if you go with straight XLR connectors, that's $2.25 per female XLR and $2.19 per male (
http://tinyurl.com/2v9xzc). so for two of each that's $8.88. Total, that's just over $21 + shipping. and assumes that you already of a solder iron and solder, etc, etc. not bad for a quality cable
(if you want right-angle connectors, those are considerably more expensive. think $8 or $9 per connector).
I'm sure other people will chime in with other options. but if you're ready to DIY (and there are a couple of threads here that take you through making your own cables step by step), Canare star-quads is a great place to start.