I've always had good luck with Whirlwind for off the shelf.

Good value for the money and quality, IMHO.

I like rolling my own, but I dunno if you wanna' get into promoting raw materials.

Where is Cucco these days? He runs a cable business outta his office at the Pentagon, doesn't he? His stuff looks pretty good, too, all sorts of options.
I used to "roll my own" cables, but the flux got to me, made me slow to speak and move. Plus, when presbyopia set in, seeing that damned .24 gauge wire proved too much of a problem, and I kept burning the cat's tail with the soldering iron.

I was gonna suggest Sir Cucco, but I don't know if he wants to give up all that boring studio money to make fabulous money as a cable consort. :)

But, yeah, man... I hear ya. I'm up to almost needin' +1.50 reader's...

If I burned my cat's tail with the soldering iron... He'd rip my arm off and beat me with it. Believe me, at 30lbs, he could do it!

I got a bunch of cables and snakes from Cucco. Great to work with. Made just what I wanted. Nice work.

I'll buy any of the top-of-the-line cables from just about any company: they're all good. My favorite so far has been Planet Waves, especially with those compression springs on the 1/4" cables. Mogami was flimsier and not as good, Monster seems about the same as Mogami, Proel cables die really quickly, although the short ones still work well for me, I tried Sweetwater cables, and they are guaranteed for life, but the plastic housing doesn't thrill me (the price does, though). And what about Hosa cables? They actually work well and I have yet to have one die on me, but I'd rather just pay a few more dollars and get one that will be replaced free of charge for life. I just hate paying around $50 per cable, but what can you do? What really kills me are the connector cables, as they cost almost as much as the 30' ones.

Well, maybe we should get Cucco in production mode and supply all of RO. Where is that chimp lol?

Agreed, Dan.

I got a bunch of PW for trade for my first project.
While I can't say the "Tour-Grade" stands I also got live up to their name - if I ever had a problem w/ a cable, replacing it w/ the PW fixed it.
I haven't had any problems w/ the PW, so I'm good there.
Granted, my sample time is about a year, so we'll see what the next couple hold.

I'm also interested in Cucco's skills. Like most, I have a variety of cable needs (long gui runs, short balanced 1/4", short/long XLR), and having someone do bunch of these different ones as opposed to spending $500+ on ones that sort of fit my needs would be nice.
Plus, I'm sure he could do a better job than I w/ stock stuff.
Though that is something I need to do. Or at least be able to do.

Gah - it never stops hitting me how much random crap an engineer has to think about and pay for. Musical acoustics? Electronics engineering? Construction? Humidity/weather? Psychology? Have I actually mentioned any actual recording or mixing yet?

OK kids, heat up your irons !! Let's get soldering !

Roll a few of your own Dan and you'll see why it costs about the same to make a 2ft. cable as it does to make a 30ft cable. The bulk cable is pennies per foot. You're paying for the connectors and someone else's soldering skills more than anything else. Oh yeah, and combat pay for the carcinogenic fumes.

For live sound I've been using Rapco Roadhog mic and instrument cables. They have a thick neoprene jacket that is really flexible and they're easy to roll up and keep from kinking. We replaced all of our gig cables six or seven years ago with Roadhog cables and we've been really happy with the durability and ease of handling. After that, assuming any high quality cable sounds good and is reliable, the bottom line for me is; will it roll up neatly, and lay flat on stage and in storage? Untangling cables before a job will get me aggravated in about 2 seconds.

I also have to give a tip of the hat to Whirlwind cables. I finally had to retire the first Whirlwind mic cable I bought when I was ... drum rolllllll ..... 16. It was old faithful for about 30 years, without a single repair until it started getting a little dicey last year. (tear) :cry:

I saw a cable today that had a unisex Neutrik connector that could change gender instantly - I'm not sure why I'd need a sexually ambiguous cable - but you gotta admit they're always thinking over there at Neutrik

PS: I hear ya on the eyesight thing. What a nuisance!

Still around...just busy. I'm backstage working on an all day festival right now. One day, I'll be able to sleep!

I also just got done laying over 5 miles of cable and soldering each end on a historic church renovation here in my home town (George Washington's boyhood church). The funny thing is, I've got LOTS of left over. I've got some Mogami 2 channel snakes (works great for a location job - not most sturdy, but with a little care of the cable, it will work for life). I've got a little bit of Mogami (non-quad) single channel left and about 600' of Mogami 8 channel snake. Everything else I have is in short lengths - 10-20 feet of cable here and there (some "cheaper" stuff, some Canare Star Quad, some Belden and some Redco.)

My favorite cables to work with are Mogami non-quad. It's easy to solder and make and it's pretty robust. My least favorite stuff to work with is the Canare Star Quad - it's robust as hell, but damn that stuff is annoying to work with!

I've also been working on making a bunch of "thin" cables" made from thinner Canare and Redco. The specs aren't quite as good as a good AES cable put into service as a mic cable, but they're still nice. (I'm using a pair on my Schoeps flanks right now and they work great!) The good thing about these is that for remote work, they cut down on my SWAP load (Size, Weight and Power). I bring my main 2-channel snake for the main pair (a Canare 2 channel snake - heavy and robust as hell), 2 Mogami stereo snakes and 2 regular 50' Mogami non-quad flank cables and then 6 25' thin cables and 4 50' thin cables. All of this plus my 100' 8 channel snake, 2 headphones a couple power cables, gaffer's tape, a few odds and end interconnect cables (trs to xlr, etc.) a mouse and keyboard all fit into a Pelican 1610 and weighs in at about 65 lbs. (Easily 1-man liftable).

Sorry - probably way more info than you all were looking for...
;-)
J

Cucco wrote: Still around...just busy. I'm backstage working on an all day festival right now. One day, I'll be able to sleep!

So you think... :)

Sorry - probably way more info than you all were looking for...
;-)
J

Uhhhh... nope... quite the contrary....

actually we're missing one thing....

price list???

(hehehehe)

audiokid wrote: Who are some of the best companies to order cables from? Possibly a good company that we can support.

Blue Jean Cables.

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/

-Bruce

If you are not going to be getting the real high end stuff (mogami and the like) I have had very good success with these days. Its made in Korea, but seems to sound good and I have never had a problem with any of it.

http://www.audiopile.net/