You're on to one of the bigger scams in the audio industry, the
ridiculous mark up of 'high end' audio cables. If you're ever in for a
laugh, go and search for Pear Cable Company, who at one time actually
made a set of interconnects for stereo equipment, that cost $75,000.00
I kid you not.
There IS however a difference between 'cheap' audio cable and 'good'
audio cable. A cheap cable will have a cheap rubber compound for the
sleeve, will crack and not hold up to the elements. The other thing is
that decent cable is well shielded. Whether or not you NEED shielded
cable, it's a smart idea to BUY shielded cable. It will help minimize
interference picked up through the cable. Each cable tends to want to
work as an antenna and pick up whatever is beaming itself across your
path. The longer the cable, the better antenna the cable becomes.
I think a lot of us here tend to buy Canare Star-Quad cable. It's a 2
conductor twisted pair cable, It's also shielded, very pliable and
durable, and reasonably priced. There are quite a few variations of
diameter outer shell, number of conductors, etc. But here is a pretty
standard one:
http://www.canare.com/index.cfm?objectid=3DC86D2270-3048-7098-AFFFB874C85CF=
D00
Mogami is another well respected cable company, both are professional
quality and fairly priced.
Good mic cable tends to run about $1.00 a foot, excluding connectors.
Note that this is for raw cable, unless you want to build your own
cables, you'd need to find a company to solder the XLR connectors.
I'm a big fan of the No Shorts Cable Company, that operates out of
Pacific Radio in California. I've had them make dozens of cables for
me, including some really custom jobs, and they've always done a great
job at a fair price. They can make just about any cable you want or
could ever need.
http://www.pacrad.com/noshorts.php
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