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instrument cable?

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4/15/2003 6:23 AM

instrument cable?

Hey,
I want to buy a big spool of instrument cable, stuff I can wire for balanced or unbalanced, just basic, decent quality shielded instrument cable so I can make cables whenever I want. I'm guessing mouser has this stuff, but I'm not sure exactly what I want, I don't know a lot about this stuff. Can someone point me in the direction of the right cable for this purpose?
Thanks very much,
Andrew

4/15/2003 8:53 AM
joe	dude look for microphone or instrument cables at any electronics shop.

4/21/2003 2:27 AM

The best inexpensive mic cable you can buy IMO is Mogammi Star Quad cable. Canare also makes good star quad cables. IMO if you want the best, you should always use star quad instead of conventional mic cables especially for long runs.

Star Quad cables have 4 twisted conductors instead of two. You get it down to two signal paths by shorting each pair together. This will effectively reduce noise pickup of the cable as well as reduce inductance. Canare says a star quad configuration reduces spurious pickup of noise by 90% compared to conventional cable. I suggest Mogammi's cable because they make low capacitance cables made with polyethylene dielectric rather than PVC. Polyethylene roughly cuts capacitance by 50% compared to PVC. Too much capacitance in a cable attenuates highs. Only thing better than polyethylene is teflon jacketing, which is expensive.

IMPORTANT: If you are using a computer based digital audio workstation with your mic cables to do digital recording, you will almost certainly want to use a cable such as star quad with a low noise factor to eliminate pickup of RF being radiated from your computer. For example, many people have noise problems when using external tube preamps to feed their digital sound cards. Part of the solution to this problem is to use star quad.

For Mogami star quad cable at reasonable prices in large spools see:

http://www.fullcompass.com

I've dealt with them before and they are good.

Here's some good cable articles you can read if you choose:

http://www.mogami.com/e/puzzle/index.html

And here's an article explaining the virtues of star quad cable and how it should be wired with XLR connectors.

http://www.canare.com.hk/star_quad_mic_cables.htm

LFO

4/21/2003 5:00 AM
Enzo	You might also look into Rapco or Horizon. They are cable makers but they also sell bulk cable and connectors.

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