Lo-Z/Hi-Z???

[ragele]

Im looking to pickup some good mic cables and noticed there are quite a few differnet types.
Some being Lo-z, some Hi-Z. What is the differnce and what would be a good mic cable type and brand for dynamic/condensor mic. thanks

 

[teleharmonic]

hello ragele,

'Z' is the letter in electronics that refers to 'Impedance'. So what you are looking at are Low Impedance and High Impedance cables.

Off hand, i would say low z, but it would be best to try to find out what your microphone manufacturer recommends as far as using low or high z cable.

greg

[ December 18, 2003, 10:25 AM: Message edited by: teleharmonic ]

 

[ragele]

thanks Greg, i was wonding about if Impedance had anything to do with it. im using the good old sm57 so ill find out what it requires. thanks

 

[teleharmonic]

no problem ragele,

shure sm57 is a low impedance mic.

cheers,
greg

 

[mike buzz]

Ragele , the difference is in the electronics a low Z input is like a mic pre/input to a mixing board (300-600 ohms usually) with a XLR ( round 3 pin connector ) a hi Z input is like a guitar input on an amp it has a 1/4" phone plug ( like on your guitar ) these are in the 5000-10000 ohm range ) they do not overlap IE sending a high Z input to a low Z input will not work very well and vis-versa.

The different cords you can by ( mic cable etc.) are sorted by quality mainly Radio Shack = crap , this is because the cable itself is of low quality , the better the cable the better the sound 90% of the time ( of course if the sound source sucks so will the recorded sound)

Moral BUY GOOD CABLES

I hope this helped

Later
Buzz