greetings earthlings today I'm back with another edition of what the FAQ it's FAQ
FAQ frequently I'm answering a question today I'll be addressing the question of do those
expensive XLR cables really make a difference or can you buy an affordable eight dollar XLR
cable and be perfectly fine to quickly answer that question if you're concerned about the $8 cable
affecting the tone of your recording it really doesn't do that but if you are concerned about
electromagnetic interference or radio frequency interference there is a huge difference between
the affordable and the more expensive but if you want to know more and hear the actual tests that
I run on the cables feel free to keep watching but if not thanks for stopping by hope that
helped and for this video I will be comparing four different microphone cables at different
price points I'll discuss the build quality the shielding if they affect the tone of the recording
and V warranty so without further rambling let's go to the actual content first let's talk about
the build quality of these cables we have the amazonbasics which costs around eight dollars
we have the Xhosa which costs around thirteen dollars we have the Audio Technica which is
around $15 and the Mogami which is about fifty bucks when looking at the quality of the actual
cabling the amazonbasics and the audio technica feel very thin and flimsy and unreliable as if
you were to rip them a little bit too hard the cable would actually break I'm sure that's not
the case but that is how they feel when we look at the hosel on the other hand if that cable is
incredibly thick and durable and robust the Mogami cabling is a tiny bit thinner than the Xhosa but
it still feels very robust and durable and I would trust that in any gig that I have then
when we look at the connectors there is quite a big difference in my opinion between the more
affordable options and the NOI trick connector on the Mogami the release button on all of the more
affordable options is very sticky and it clicks a little bit and it mine's a little bit and it
doesn't feel very well designed the Mogami cable and the nitrate connector just has a smooth motion
and it feels incredibly reliable so just remember that when you're looking at the quality of cables
you shouldn't just be paying attention to the durability of the actual cabling you need to pay
attention to the connectors because that is what you're connecting to your really expensive gear
next let's go ahead and test how well these different cables perform at rejecting radio
frequency interference RFI and electromagnetic interference EMI okay so here I have all four
cables lined up directly next to each other and this is an absolute nightmare I have a wireless
charger here I have a wall wart for my preamp and I have a wall wart for my macbook and I will
go ahead and run these over those devices which all output EMI or electromagnetic interference to
see how it does at rejecting that kind of noise and just in case the phone needs to be on and
charging to get that EMI out of the wireless charger I have now done that all right so now
I have all of that nightmare fuel recorded in my DAW and we're going to analyze what
kind of noise is picked up by each of the cables we'll go ahead and start with the Amazon basics
so you can tell that there is a lot of electromagnetic interference being picked
up by the cable which tells us that the shielding on the amazonbasics isn't that
great let's go ahead and jump to the hose and see how that performed in comparison
so at the beginning of that test we heard a similar amount of EMI being picked up but
towards the end where we heard that consistent hum and Buzz on the amazonbasics we don't hear
that on the Xhosa so the hose that does a slightly better job at rejecting EMI than
the amazonbasics for double the price let's go ahead and jump to the Audio Technica
and it's the exact same story with the audio-technica at the beginning it sounds
as though it's going to perform similarly to the amazonbasics but then when we would
or should have heard that consistent hum and Buzz it's not there so the audio technica does
a better job than the amazonbasics as well now let's jump to the most expensive one the Mogami
so there you have it that was the Mogami at the exact same time and there is almost no EMI being
picked up the shielding on the Mogami just does a much better job at rejecting that EMI
and RFI compared to the more affordable options that I compared it against and
now I want to do a very quick comparison of the noise floor for all of the cables using
the exact same 150 ohm resistor with the exact same gain setting so let's see if there is any
difference or if the cable actually affects the noise floor we'll start with the amazon basics
okay so with the Amazon basics we're hovering around negative
58 to negative 59 dB let's jump to the Xhosa
same story there we're hovering around negative
58 to negative 59 DB no big difference there let's jump to the Audio Technica
the audio-technica also hovers around negative 58 to negative
59 DB and lastly let's listen to the Mogami
exact same story around negative 58 negative 59 dB so in my testing the more affordable
cables perform exactly the same as a more expensive Mogami next we're gonna go ahead
and see if the cable that we use has any effect on the tone of the recording the way I am going
to do this is I have my OC eight one eight and the box of doom I have a looper pedal I
will go ahead and record a riff loop it over and over and over again and switch the cable
between the microphone and the interface and see if there is any change in the tone and
just so you're able to listen without having a price tag attached to that sound I have it
blind at first and then after I conclude it I will tell you what cables were what
now to tell you what the cables were cable one was the Mogami cable two was the amazonbasics
cable three was the Xhosa and cable four was the audio technica he may also be wondering
why I didn't line up the tracks in my DAW and invert the phase to see what information is
missing I tried to do that but I wasn't able to get granular enough to get the last fraction of
a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a millisecond out so the information that it
was giving us was a false positive so instead I went ahead and measured the frequency response
of all the different cables and all of them are within one tenth of a decibel of each other so
there is no real noticeable difference in tone between any of them if we rely on that data and
one last thing that I want to make you aware of is the warranty of different priced cables make
sure you check that because when we look at the warranty of these cables they are very different
amazonbasics has a one-year warranty hoser has a lifetime of the original purchaser warranty
which is amazing Audio Technica is two years and Mogami is lifetime of the original purchaser so
when you're looking at the price of the cable make sure you're also checking the support that
you get for that cable are they going to replace it when it breaks or are they going to tell you
to buy a new one just keep that in mind when you're researching what you're gonna buy so in
conclusion in my testing with these four cables I found that there was no real noticeable tonal
difference when you go from an eight dollar cable to a $50 cable so what are you getting
for that additional price you're getting better build quality better durability better shielding
and in most cases a better warranty as well so what can you do with this information if
you are on a budget and you need to buy some new cables and you're in a room that isn't rich with
EMI or RFI and you don't plan on wrapping and unwrapping your cables non-stop I think that
you can get by with an affordable cable I used an Amazon basics cable for about four years just
to test it out every single time I was finished recording I wrapped it up when I needed it again I
unwrapped it it lasted me for for years before it failed the Mogami cable that I had the exact same
amount of time no issues whatsoever but with that being said if you are getting an XLR cable for a
more expensive piece of gear I think you would be much better off getting a higher quality cable the
reason I'm saying that is I've read some horror stories of people buying more affordable cables
they connect it to their higher-end piece of gear and the XLR connector gets stuck in it the cable
manufacturer does not cover that kind of issue so they have to send their higher-end piece of
gear back to the manufacturer to get that cable removed and repaired so if you're somebody used
maybe picking up a higher-end microphone or a new preamp it may be time to upgrade the cabling as
well because you don't want to damage the gear that you're buying with some cheap cabling also
if you're somebody who records in the field quite a lot I think that a higher-end cable
would be much better suited for you mainly due to the durability and the shielding because if you're
wrapping and unwrapping you don't want a cable to fail on you and if you don't know the environment
you're recording in and what the EMI and RFI are going to be like you don't want to have to worry
about the cable picking up all that extra noise and the last thing that I want to say is make
sure to check the availability of the cabling that you're buying for instance I believe that
Mogami and hose at cables are carried at Guitar Center what that means is if you're on tour and
your cable goes bad you can walk into Guitar Center and them the broken cable they give you
a replacement you get back to your show you have no issues with an amazonbasics cable on the other
hand if the cable breaks while you're on tour you can't go to Guitar Center and hand it to them and
say give me a new one you would have to go buy a new one or order one on Amazon have it shipped to
you so depending on the urgency of your recordings or your live shows it may be very beneficial to
get a cable that you can drive down the road and get a replacement for all right I think
that's going to wrap up for today I hope that sufficiently answered the question of is a $50
XLR cable really worth it or not let me know what you think in the comments down below do you think
that you will be buying a $50 cable or are you sticking with an Amazon basics for eight bucks if
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