Hi again,

I am looking a buying a few hundred meters of mic cable for my pa system. I will be using them with Sennheriser E845s's. It will be for on stage and will be coiled ad transported for every use, so it will have to be pretty tough. I am at the Minuit looking at 2 different cables, with a substantial price difference. The Van Damme mic cable, and the canford FST. The van damme cable costs over twice as much as the canford cable. I have always been a van damme man, but for this I'm not sure I can justify the price. They will be used for some incredible bands, but they are mainly under 20's. They will not be used for any massive systems, the most being about 1.5kw.

What do you guys think? Obviously the van damme is going to be better, but I don't think I need that quality for what I'm going to be doing with it. Oh and the bands will mainly be rock bands with some indie rock style as well (I.e coldplay)

Cheers
Rich

Hi Rich

FST is not meant for mics, to quote the Canford datasheet...



If you flex it too much the foil bunches up and makes a nasty kink in the cable and stops being an effective screen.

As an alternative to VDC have a look at Kelsey's ATM Mic cable.

Having taken on board what Brian has written, for a fair comparison, look at Canford HST. (Helically screened Twin, as opposed to Foil Screened Twin)

Rich,

I'd heartily support Andrew's suggestion. Whereas I do use VDC's standard mic cable, it isn't quite as "coilable" as Canford's HST. Also, HST is easier to prepare and there isn't much shrinkback when you tin and solder the two cores. Also, HST is cheaper than the VDC equivalent. I made up ~ 30 or 40 mic leads out of of HST back in 1985, and they are still going strong!

Two caveats though:

1) I am not a great subscriber to the "ultra pure copper hand plated by nubile virgins in silver offered to obscure deities and blessed by the goddess of esoteric hifi". What I will accept is that the copper needs to be of good quality, and that I have observed the effect of some impurities (predominantly in the insulation?) that have caused copper to form what appeared to be a non conducting copper sulphide layer. I didn't have a short wavelength laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer to check it with;-)
I believe that the Canford cable is fine for your application. However, if you are sold on oxygen free copper, you may wish to purchase accordingly.

2) Most of the cables I purchase now are ready made by VDC using Van Damme mic cable. Much as I'd like to, I don't have time to sit down and make them anymore :-(

Hope this helps,

Simon

Hi Rich

I have been using Canford HST for a while now & its fine. Available in plenty of colours & easy to work with & coil. One factor you may want to think about is that canford offer free P&P over £25 which all helps especially if buying heavy cable.

HST brown & HST violet are currently on offer as well so you could save a bit more.

Have fun soldering & don't breath too many flux fumes!!

Studiospares bog standard mic cable, product code 543001 is perfectly ok for most applications and would be a good choice if price is an issue. It's moderately flexible and has a copper lapped screen (better longevity than foil if the cable is to be repeatedly coiled). Don't feel the need to buy 'top name cable' if you're not planning to use it with a Cadac console, Neumann mics, Lab Gruppen amps and EAW boxes! I doubt very much that your first car will be an Aston! Keep things in perspective.

By the way, I see you're still having problems with the spelling checker.....

Always worth a gander at the ready made cables from theloudest.com. Done me proud so far.

Slightly OT, but has anyone tried the ready-made XLR leads from CPC? They're cheap, cheap, cheap - but are they nasty too? Are the connectors any good?

I have used the CPC cheapies, in an environment where XLRs frequently get nicked. You get what you pay for - the connectors and cable are all very low-end.

But they work.

Might be useful in an environment where things were being connected once and never touched again...


I tend to use the CPC own-brand mic cable, which if I remember correctly is around 20 pounds per 100m drum. Surprisingly good for the price.

HST is my favourite - really tough, comes in loads of colours, is easy to put on. It seems to have really good rejection to interference - I regularly use it on stage with some quite spiky dimmers and it is great. I also use musiflex - with the conductive plastic jacket - which is so easy to put on, and is great with the Neutrik IDC XLRs. (Mind you, this is not so easy to get now)

Not the Viper stuff where the inner insulation disappears if you even get the iron out of the drawer? If you are good, and patient, it can be soldered, but it's not easy!

No - not the viper stuff - the Pro-Power one. and not the cheap variant, which has a rubbish screen.

Something like CBBR4168/69/70



Flexible, fairly substantial screen, plenty of "string" buffer. It's not in the Canford class, but is perfectly serviceable, and at list price 22 pounds per roll (or 26 for red/blue) it's good value. If it was a touch heavier, it would be even better...

Hi guys and thanks for the help. I am sold on the HST now, and will enjoy using my beautiful Weller WD1000 Solder station! I am planning on making my own for 1 main reason, the connectors. I am going to use the Neutrik NC3MXX-B and the NC3FXX-B as these with red cable will be pretty recognisable in a bunch of cables, even without the markers!

Cheers
Rich

I know this is an old thread...I was searching and stumbled upon it. But....I am surprised no-one mentioned that the Canford HST comes in ready made up cables of various lengths and colours intended for mics and uses Neutrik XLRs.

Rich; the other advantage for you is that Canford are based only about 5 miles as the crow flies from Gosforth.

They must want rid of that brown HST though....it is STILL on offer

I was about to post a review of those cheap CPC cables before I realised this thread was over three years old. If anyone still cares, they are okay, I bought a load for use on really 'demanding' local venue stages; nowadays I pretty much only use them for intercom cables if we run out of the primary grade XLR. The connectors look like Neutrik but the strain relief isn't anywhere near as good.

I note someone told Rich to take care with his new iron and the fumes. He's never been back since, so perhaps didn't read that!

For the record, I note I suggested HST too, and I've still not changed my mind - and the violet colour is rather nice, and unusual enough that spotting my cables amongst others is easy.

Aaaaaaah it takes me back. We miss Rich really. Honest.

Apparently, the BBC use quite a lot of brown coloured mic cable. Canford had a major supply contract with them, so perhaps they stocked up well!

Another vote for musiflex mic cable. Have a search on ebay for it, last time I bought some I got 100m of brown pretty cheap.

That's interesting Simon, the places I used to buy it from stopped doing it, I'll have a look. It's the quickest to put on I've ever used, and if you use the neutric IDC XLRs it's a perfect match!

EDIT
It seems the ebay supplier is the firm who own connectronics, and the ebay price is cheaper at £69+9.50 postage inc VAT than Canford's price of £71 +VAT, free postage on their HST. Oddly, buying direct from Connectronics is more expensive than either? Odd.

Some people used to say conductive plastic was a poor screen, compared to conventional materials, but I always found it fine around dimmers - certainly never causing any problems, and even when soldering, a drain is far easier to terminate than un-twisting and re-twisting normal screens.

Last time I bought from the ebay supplier they were offering a "best offer" on most of their cables and they knocked off £15 I think I paid around £45 for 100m of brown cable which looks fine on stage! And yes paul you are correct its definately the best cable to terminate, very easy! I also have had no problems with interferance and have used this cable around some very old buzzy dimmers!

Canford's HST is still my favourite cable, although I'll admit the last few drums have been VDC mic cable - mainly due to a better deal - but it's a good cable nevertheless. VDC is just a little stiffer and doesn't strip quite so nicely.

I have had mixed experiences with musiflex, and the various jacket formualtions they've used over the past 25 years (the early ones were horribly stiff, and the cores were like springs). The mic cable (for some reason) seems to be OK from an interference viewpoint but long lengths of the carbon impregnated plastic screened multiple pair stuff has given me problems in both live gigs and installed systems. Electromagnetic screening was reasonable ( but this comes mainly from twisted pairs anyway) but electrostatic screening was poor.

Consequently, I've avoided musiflex for anything more than standard mic leads. Some of my HST mic leads are now over 25 years old and work just fine!

Simon

I dunno how you can beat the 33p per metre on that brown HST since by my admittedly crude calc that's £33+ VAT for 100 metres...

My collection of XLRs is pretty "mongrel" in nature, reflecting the fact that I've been making them for about 35 years on 3 continents--and even my very first efforts are still very much in service.

However, I have to agree that, of all the types I have, the ones made from HST are the easiest to handle in terms of coiling and have a very satisfying "feel".

I have to say I've never tried Musiflex so can't compare--but I've also never tried IDC XLRs so that may be the reason. I'm one of those strange bods who finds sitting down for a few hours of soldering to be therapeutic, a bit like knitting. This is especially true now that I do most of this on the patio!

Bob

Recently I've been using a lot of Neutrik Swissflex cable, got given a drum of it by one of the guys who used to work at Neutrik round here, said that it was in a bin for some reason or another. Seems fine to me though - allbeit a bit thin.

Other than that, can't go wrong with Piranha or VDC.

Slightly O/T, but related since this thread has evolved. I saw these mic leads in a CPC Flyer and decided to give some a try.



I have a hatred of Chinese "Neutrik Copy" XLRs and have just managed to banish the last of them from my rig, but these ReAn pre-made cables are excellent. The plugs are actally moulded on so there's no wirres to come adrift or cable grip to split. Not the thickest cable or the easiest to coil but for patching around amp racks and so-on I'd thoroughly recommend them. The 3m ones are anly about £3.40 each too!

Pete.

Rean = Neutrik Chineese licenced moulded connectors. =) Hence they are pretty good! =D

Yeah I can see why IF they are not going to take much punishment and just stay in situ that you would go for those Rean ones. There is a definite saving to be made at not too much of a dip in quality. BUT..in all other circumstances I would go with the pukka Neutrik version.

IMHO.... The extra quality gives considerable extra longevity and thus is actually a saving itself in the long run. I do accept though that they are not the usual pants copies...far from it

Further to my comment above...I was chatting with a pal about this topic (yes I know...I really do need a life )

And he told me that Neutrik had bought Rean and were about to (or just have) start manufacturing their budget range under the Rean brand name.

So it could very well be that the ones you have seen are of a higher quality than I remember for that reason.

Also...getting back on topic..

I just got the latest Canford email with their offers and I notice that in their Clearance List there are now several of the HST types on offer not just the Brown. There is also a couple of rather good Multi-core cable types going cheap too 24 way and 10 way as well as some Neutrik stage boxes...if anyone is setting up a touring or install rig...it might be worth a look.

Anyone used the FSJ and FSM types before? At less than half price I am pretty tempted even though I dont actually need any right this second.

Direct Cable's Evolution cable - just as good as Van Damme, slightly cheaper.

http://www.directcablesystems.com/ - These guys are great if you haven't already stumbled across them!! Lots of alternative to Van Damme products.