Ive fallen in love with VOVOX cables..as they are super lightweight, and IMHO, sound the best of any cable I have used yet..http://

lean and mean recording rig??

MICs>>XLRs>>>sound devices 722/tascam HDp2/marantz pmd671/fostex fr-2

or schoeps MK caps>>>kcy active cable>>sonosax m2>>recorder
(my friend doug at http://www.oade.com does a number of mods to the marantz, tascam, and fostex that are phenomenal)

Ive got some military grade silver/teflon jacket made by an EE friend that are light as well...if you want to borrow em..

but i HIGHLY reccomend VOVOX.(if you want to borrow my silvers, that would be fine too..they are also great!)

Joe,

This is a BIG issue for me since I carry everything on the subway/bus or in the trunk of a taxi (welcome to New York). The Mogami W2552 cables seem to be about half the weight of my Star Quad cables and they work great for me. I get them at Redco.

Best of luck - I feel your pain!

-- James

Thanks James, they look good indeed, although I think it's bare wire, or you have them build it for you? I'll check it out, either way. 8-)

Joe,

Redco will build them for you or send you all the parts. I've done it both ways. They do an excellent job.

-- James

It's amazing how much 'invisible' weight is contained in cables...

I have often thought about buying some of the special winch cable made by Mogami and others. It's very small diameter and quite strong, but expensive and not very flexible. Check out Mogami #2697, #3031 and #2901...

For a little while I was using a stereo cable made by Klotz, called TwinPatch TP414. It's a figure-of-eight profile, just like speaker cable, quite small and light and flexible. At one point I had 100m of it with XLRs on each end, and had no problem running mic signals down it. It was quite light for what it was, but difficult to wind, unwind and lay due to its profile. When it was time to put together my location rig, the TwinPatch was out of contention. I really didn't want anything too fiddly (try quickly winding any cable with a figure-8 profile into a neat loop with the under/over technique and you'll know what I mean). The light weight and performance were fine, but I never enjoyed working with it - and that's a big part of it for me (for better or worse).

So, in the end I settled on the cable I got the most satisfaction from working with: Mogami #2930 stereo multicore cable. It's so flexible and pliant and well-behaved; it obediently stays where I lay it, and it is always easy to wind and unwind. It's probably not the lightest two channel cable on the market, but it's lighter and *far* more convenient than two separate cables, and it's the best I've worked with.

I carry 20m of it, in two lengths. One is 5m, the other is 15m. Both are terminated in 5-pin XLRs, and I have a 1m break-out cable plugged permanently into my Nagra (2 x 3-pin XLRs terminated in a 5-pin female XLR), which is also the only cable I use/need when making handheld microphone recordings. The microphone rig also terminates in a 5-pin XLR, so the set-up is very fast (one cable instead of two) and it's impossible to wire things incorrectly. It's neat, tidy and fast.

The entire 20m of cable weighs more than I'd like, but I don't mind the weight concession considering all the other benefits. I often leave one of the two cables behind, depending on what I'm doing. Sometimes I know that 5m will be all I need, sometimes I know that 15m will do the job. If I'm not sure I take them both, so I can get a total of 20m if necessary.

For your applications, Joe, I'd seriously consider something like this (perhaps in combination with a couple of short mono cables for when you want to close mike two different instruments) in preference to two separate long lengths. The weight saving alone will be worth it, setting up and packing up will be much faster and simpler and tidier, and you won't be making any compromises in cable/signal quality.

I like the Canare

http://www.canare.com/index.cfm?objectid=D9C6764B-3048-7098-AF24BF296C253796

or

http://www.canare.com/index.cfm?objectid=D0A595E1-3048-7098-AF591C0C5F39832F

Both are very good both are very easy to work with and are very flexible.

Simmosonic wrote:
So, in the end I settled on the cable I got the most satisfaction from working with: Mogami #2930 stereo multicore cable. It's so flexible and pliant and well-behaved; it obediently stays where I lay it, and it is always easy to wind and unwind. It's probably not the lightest two channel cable on the market, but it's lighter and *far* more convenient than two separate cables, and it's the best I've worked with.

Has anyone here tried Mogami W3106 2-ch mic cable? How does it stack up to W2930 in terms of ease of handling, performance, etc?

Thanks,
Mike