Mar 15, 2009 12:28 pm in my opinion, not really.
Worth to make own mic cables?
Posted on Mar 15, 2009 11:46 am
audiotech
Member Since: Mar 15, 2009
I did some math and not sure if it's really worth making own mic cables. I was gonna buy a 300ft spool of 2 cond. plus ground and make different length mic cables. Just in cable it would be worth it 15 feet $14 in a store, made would be $6 but I have to add $6 ( for 2 connectors). What do you guys think? Is it really worth it?
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Mar 15, 2009 12:28 pm in my opinion, not really.
Mar 15, 2009 12:39 pm I used to make cables all the time, it was worth it mostly cuz I had nothing better to do some of the time, depending on how busy you are or not, it could be worth it.
Mar 15, 2009 12:44 pm If you use a pedal board with lots of stomp boxes for your guitar, or if you use several pieces of rack gear then I'd say YES! You can buy some high-quality kits from the likes of George L or Planet Waves. The kit supplies you with a length of good-quality shielded instrument cable and lots of connectors. I believe that they are solderless designs so you don't have to endure blisters on your hands and fingers from learning how to solder correctly.
The benefit to doing it yourself is that you get to create custom lengths of cable, minimizing the length of the path that your signal has to travel, thereby minimizing the potential for picking up noise, and minimizing the capacitance of your cable runs. Plus with custom cable lengths, you don't have extra slack that you have to bundle up and keep out of the way.
Mar 15, 2009 02:02 pm personally , not really , well not mic cables more of a pain in the ***. now 1/4" can save you a little hastle if you have a lot of rack gear and such .
Mar 15, 2009 03:55 pm Yeah, XLR cables are tougher to put together. Same for balanced TRS 1/4" cable. Simple TS instrument cables are pretty easy though. And once you factor in charging for your own labor and materials, you'd probably have to end up charging more than commercially-available cables cost.
Mar 15, 2009 04:51 pm Manufactures have the advantage of buying in bulk. Any time that you purchase in bulk, it brings the unit price down.
You will never be able to make your own any cheaper then they can supply.
Now maintaining is a different story. It's cheaper to maintain then purchase.
If you go to places like Whirlwind, or Rappco. You can have them print up your company name on the heat shrink. Which does not cost that much more.
Mar 15, 2009 05:06 pm the cable is pretty cheap the cheapest I can get is $0.30/foot it's the connectors personally I would go with Neutrik unless I buy bulk they go for about $3 $4 a piece. Soldering audio connectors is probably the easiest type of soldering to do, I've been working with PCB and SMT for years now.
Mar 15, 2009 05:22 pm Wow! Where did you find Neutrik for $3 or $4 each?
That's the best price that I have ever seen on Neutrik. If you can get them for that price, then I'd say go for it.
But, I think it's better to use cable that is a little more expensive. Something that is more on the lines of Beldon grade cable.
Beldon grade is around 50 to 60 cents a foot. But is well worth the extra money.
Mar 15, 2009 07:14 pm I dont think they are really neutriks, the market, especially e-bay is flooded with chinese knockoffs, they even say neutrik. when whirlwind is selling a package of 40 20 foot mic cables for 189.00, its hard to justify making them
Mar 15, 2009 07:45 pm Ya, cable at $0.30 ft. is sounding like either not audio shielded cable or something really crappy. I don't know that I even found it that cheap years ago when i was still doing custom rack set ups and rewires.
Gotta agree with monmixr as well. I've looked around and had a buddy looking as well and not found real Nuetrik that cheap at all. Not from a reputable dealer anyway.
Mar 15, 2009 09:25 pm $0.30/ft is for 500ft and the Neutrik connectors (NCF-MX)are at $5 each for over 20 that's the cheapest I could find in my area. There's a store that I go to that have a bin full of Neutrik connectors for $3.00 each, it's a surplus from an installation company I bought 20 of them but there's none left.
Mar 15, 2009 09:30 pm Either way, that is cheaper then any price I've seen on that kind of quantity of either the cable or the connector's.
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