"Best" XLR Cable

[scotchtape]

Hi All,

Do not know much about XLR cables at all, are there any high quality brands out there? Who makes the "best" or really good cables...

I'm using a Lava / Zaolla / Monster / Dimarzio for my normal guitar cables, might checkout a George L as well...

Don't know if there's a similar difference in quality for XLRs

Thanks!

[mckejoel]

There are a lot of good cables out there, but I have been using Monster Cables for my guitars, keyboards, speakers, and microphones (XLR) and I have never had a problem with them.

[ericcsong]

I've personally heard the difference with 1/4 inch cables. zaollas are my favorite and I can definitely hear a difference. as for XLRs, I have a couple Zaollas, but I can't hear the difference as much as the 1/4 one. maybe I need a better mic? I used them through house system with beta 58s. but they sure are pretty!
they are real thick too

[drive-south]

I've heard good things about Mogami cables, but I haven't tried them. I think the main advantage would be when using these for recording. In a live situation you won't notice the subtle differance in impedance/reflection. You want a durable road-worthy cable for use in PA systems. I believe the Mogami mic cables are very expensive and it would be hard to justify buying enough for an entire PA system with a typical setup of a dozen mics, direct boxes, etc. I think you would be looking at something like $60-$80 for a single cable.

drive-south

[Brian Hague]

I like Ernie Ball's.

[stargazer]

These are all I buy any more:

EWI Starline
EWI Starquad

These are superb cables, especially for the price. For live sound/project studio I wouldn't use anything else. I have about a dozen of these right now and Eventually I will replace all my XLR's with these.

[rmyAddison]

I am big time into home theater and have learned through the years about the many acoustic myths out there, cables is one of them, whether home theater or PA or studio.

Once you get past a quailty connector, proper guage and adequate shielding the rest is smoke and mirrors. We ALL want to hear differences in that $500 speaker wire over the $50 one, or make it XLR or HDMI or optical, doesn't matter.

I learned the hard way with my home theater and bought very expensive cables/connectors until a friend in the industry and a few double blind tests proved me wrong.

Decent cables, with good connectors and quality shielding, absolutely. Spend 5-10X that price, you get "fancy" not better. Take a double blind test yourself, so called audiophiles have chosen lamp cord over $2K cables, expounding how they heard clearer highs and better defined bass!

Don't mean to preach here, merely point out the uber expensive XLR or any other cable/connector, truly goes way past the point of diminishing returns. Get decent XLR's then spend your money on something else.

Followup - those EWI look fine as an example. $500 XLR will not sound any better.

[EverythingMusic]

I agree with rmyAddison. Most people spend way too much on cables because they think the 'special' cable is really special. But the truth is that there is so little loss on most short cabling that the difference is generally only measurable by professional equipment. Where you will find gains is in the quality of the shielding (to help keep other electrical devices from causing interferance) and in the quality of the connectors and how well they are bound to the cable.

[ericcsong]

XLRs, I couldn't tell the difference between a very expensive cable and a moderately expensive cable. but with 1/4, it was night and day

[ParleyDee]

Originally Posted by Blindreality

But the truth is that there is so little loss on most short cabling that the difference is generally only measurable by professional equipment. Where you will find gains is in the quality of the shielding (to help keep other electrical devices from causing interferance) and in the quality of the connectors and how well they are bound to the cable.

Physically-robust cable with well-constructed cable screen, pins and connector housings that will stand up to professional use, and proper assembly is where the value-for-money lies.

I'm away from it now but did spend years in an audio electronics design group where we started with a clean sheet of paper and a pencil and ended with telecommunications industry products. It convinced me that there is a lot of misinformation out there as to what the human ear can and can't detect (like, people who think they can hear differences smaller than the measurement tolerances on professional lab bench audio test equipment - not saying anyone here is saying that, just saying that I've met some).

If you end up convinced cable A sounds better than cable B, go for it, but if you can't hear a difference, don't beat yourself up, just go for good materials and construction.

[sdelsolray]

I agree with earlier posts. Quality cable and quality connectors (particularly the connectors) yield quality results. Esoteric cabling (e.g., silver core, extra windings, directional "flow", voiced wiring) is all interesting but I have rarely heard any actual difference, and I have tried.

Belden, Canare or Mogami wire with Neutrik or Switchcraft connectors are all good.