@maplegrovemusic
+2 Fantastic article.
+2 Fantastic article.
Current recording engineers - what cables used?
Two sets of questions for currently active recording engineers participating on this forum:
1) what cables are you using for power supply and low level signals in your recording studio? What is the overriding factor in this decision - cost, durability/reliability or performance? If higher quality is desired in certain applications, where and why? If these are trade secrets, tell us anyway :-)
2) what cables are you using in your home system, if you have one, and do you consider yourself an “audiophile”? What is the overriding factor in this decision - cost, durability/reliability or performance?
Some aftermarket suppliers of audiophile cables boast that their products are used in pro studios. Others posting here have suggested that use has more to do with durability than exotic design and performance. This makes no sense to me because I have build bullet proof power cables with hardware store parts at low cost that could be dragged through hell and work for years, but did not come close to more exotic design in terms of audio performance in my systems.
I would assume this forum focused on audiophile home gear might select for recording professionals that are more informed on the audiophile cable “market” and have more developed opinions on this, and so do not represent a general crossection of the pro industry. But had to ask anyway.
1) what cables are you using for power supply and low level signals in your recording studio? What is the overriding factor in this decision - cost, durability/reliability or performance? If higher quality is desired in certain applications, where and why? If these are trade secrets, tell us anyway :-)
2) what cables are you using in your home system, if you have one, and do you consider yourself an “audiophile”? What is the overriding factor in this decision - cost, durability/reliability or performance?
Some aftermarket suppliers of audiophile cables boast that their products are used in pro studios. Others posting here have suggested that use has more to do with durability than exotic design and performance. This makes no sense to me because I have build bullet proof power cables with hardware store parts at low cost that could be dragged through hell and work for years, but did not come close to more exotic design in terms of audio performance in my systems.
I would assume this forum focused on audiophile home gear might select for recording professionals that are more informed on the audiophile cable “market” and have more developed opinions on this, and so do not represent a general crossection of the pro industry. But had to ask anyway.
Showing 7 responses by shadorne
@chrisr Here is a video of the setup https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UqP32CeQuUw It is a 100 foot Victorian houseboat. Van den hul make similar excellent microphone wires like Canare - in a starquad configuration for low noise. Of course they needed very long runs of high quality (low noise) cable to wire up all the rooms. A microphone has a very small output. These are not line level signals like you use in your home consumer stereo. Noise from power is a common problem in studios - often electrical is run above and drops down - this is to keep electrical away from microphone level cables. When they turned the houseboat into a studio no doubt they should have done the electrical wiring again... hundreds of feet and microphone level signals present challenges. |
With 60 meters of cable and every half meter making a difference it is wonder you ever get to listen to any music at all. Imagine you have 3 cable manufacturers and 3 possible lengths of each and 3 spots for each cable and EVERY cable, position and length makes a difference. 27 different possibilities to test... Now considering break-in of 200 hours for each change 5400 hours testing. This above is not the same as choosing a well engineered cable from van den hul and ordering 23 Km to outfit your entire setup. One is paranoia. One is just taking a cost effective practical approach. |
@nonoise Wire itself is NOT directional. Wires are designed to be non-directional. However, the choice of which end of a shield is grounded can make a difference in some cases. Recall that audio is using alternating current - so any directionality in wire would be totally detrimental to the sound and that detriment would apply equally whichever way round the wire is installed. Phil Taylor is a guitar tech - the interviewer works for a rag that advertises cables - so dont believe every detail you read.. |
Agreed. The advice here is excellent. In summary, component equipment is so much more important than cables. Not to say good cables are not important at all, as a good connection and good shielding can really help and low capacitance becomes important for long runs (studios have much longer runs than consumers). Mogami and Canare make excellent but expensive XLR cables. Of course microphone cables are orders of magnitude more important than line-level interconnects simply because the signal level is soooo small. XLR becomes critical for microphones. And just as Blue Jeans say - if your digital cable works well (no dropouts) then there is NOTHING you can do to improve a digital signal. No such thing as a rounder 0 or a sharper 1 with digital. |
@boxer12 In the case of a digital coax cable it is carrying the clock signal which is an analog signal. The reconstruction of the analog clock at the other end (in your DAC) is usually through some form of phase locked loop but these systems often fail to eliminate jitter. The best solution is to find a properly designed DAC that will reject all the audible incoming jitter on the coax, USB, Toslink or any cable. Unfortunately most DACs are terrible at rejecting jitter and this means that any tweaking of the clock signal through a cable change may audibly effect the DAC. The problem is not the cable. The problem is the DAC. |