Members witesol Posted May 21, 2014 Members Share Posted May 21, 2014 School me on Quad core, if it's needed, warranted, worth extra $..I don't have any Quad core mic cable. Recently I had an on-location live band recording session where a mexican radio station ended up on 4 of the tracks. I swapped out cables, even ran into a trans iso splitter. Not much luck. Would Quad core mic cable help that with it's additional paths? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members B. Adams Posted May 21, 2014 Members Share Posted May 21, 2014 The only real benefit of quad cable is mechanical redundancy. If one wire breaks, there's a backup. If you have RF interference and your mics and other equipment aren't up to the task, quad cable isn't going to help one bit. I use Canare quad cable. Mostly because it's nice and soft, flexible, and durable, not because I see any performance benefit. What mic and mixer were you using? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members witesol Posted May 21, 2014 Author Members Share Posted May 21, 2014 B, Mics.. 4 of the 7 tracks had radio. Mics directly into a Zoom H6 recorder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted May 21, 2014 Members Share Posted May 21, 2014 RF generally won't have any reduction with "quad" cable, the primary theoretical benefit is better LF common mode rejection... but of course claims by marketing folks really exaggerate it's benefit. Think about it, a typical arena snake is 250-300', plus subsnakes and split feeds, the signal levels and power gain factors are much higher than typical smaller systems and RF is rarely a problem. (Power gains are typically several orders of magnitude greater) RF rejection is primarily controlled by the shielding integrity (and % coverage), any input inductance along with shunt capacitance, HF common mode chokes on input stages, proper grounding paths inside the equipment, and good connections eliminating any junction effects (which act as RF detectors). Ground loops can also be a cause or lead to an increase in symptoms through coupling from shield current into the conductor pairs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Pro Sound Guy Posted May 22, 2014 Members Share Posted May 22, 2014 Honestly I believe was no fault of the mic cable but the gear itself. I have seen tube guitar amps pickup RF in this manner. Not often but it happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted May 22, 2014 Members Share Posted May 22, 2014 I don't think it's the mic cable either. I haven't picked up any RF in at least 10 years and I do not use quad cable anywhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted May 22, 2014 CMS Author Share Posted May 22, 2014 If you do use quad core, how do you know if one or two of the 4 conductors has broken? The "benefit" of redundancy is only valid if you know when a failure occurs and the redundant factor is being utilized. Otherwise, you're still out of luck when that second or third conductor snaps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members monthlymixcd Posted May 22, 2014 Members Share Posted May 22, 2014 I had a Gibson Melody Maker 12-string and a Dan Armstrong Blue Clipper guitar jack plug-in fx box that, when used together... would pick up Iowa/National Public Radio clear as a bell when you weren't playing. Only those two items used in conjunction would create that phenomena. Neither used separately or with other gear would cause it... and it would only get NPR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Audiopile Posted May 22, 2014 Members Share Posted May 22, 2014 If you do use quad core, how do you know if one or two of the 4 conductors has broken? The "benefit" of redundancy is only valid if you know when a failure occurs and the redundant factor is being utilized. Otherwise, you're still out of luck when that second or third conductor snaps. I'll say that on one occasion I was using a 50ft. quad mic line for a cross stage run to feed the stage left FOH racks & stacks, and that line ended up getting pinched between the back of the drum riser and the venue wall directly behind the stage... and by the end of the show that mic line was almost wore in two where it was pinched. One of the four conductors was severed, and another was "just a few more kick drum kicks" from breaking in-two... but the cable still passed signal fine. In this case, it was clearly evident one of the conductors had broken... I fixed the cable by making 2 cables out of the one. Anyhoo... that the one ( 1 ) instance I can sight were I was patting myself on my back for "being so smart" to use a quad mic line. Actually... truth be known: I didn't even know it was a quad mic line... as I recall I bought that cable in a package deal and never even realized (or cared to know) it was a quad mic line till I was looking at the damaged area with the 1 7/8 broken conductors and scratching my head trying to figure out why it was still functioning. At the time I didn't even know quad mic lines existed. Then when I discovered that mic line actually had four conductors I was thinking "why?" I figured it was some 4 conductor cable for a 5 pin application and figured somebody just stuck 3 pin connectors on it. It wasn't till years later when I was reading about long telephone transmission lines and the star quad configuration somebody figured out for noise reduction in really long lines and it was mentioned that "sometimes" quad cables are used also for mic lines that I understood why that mic cable had four conductors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members witesol Posted May 23, 2014 Author Members Share Posted May 23, 2014 The only time I've had problems is with an open mic cord. This was definitely weird. RE20-mic cord-Zoom H6. 3 more mics had it too. Freaky cameras too. Just a convergence or triangle of weirdness! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pro1-54 Posted May 23, 2014 Members Share Posted May 23, 2014 Have any of you tried Asterope cables? They use a special process that results in a noticeable difference just using a 20' xlr from the mic to the snake head. They are not a quad core cable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Audiopile Posted May 24, 2014 Members Share Posted May 24, 2014 Have any of you tried Asterope cables? They use a special process that results in a noticeable difference just using a 20' xlr from the mic to the snake head. They are not a quad core cable. I'd like to research this to find-out more. With a somewhat quick Google search, this is what I found: http://www.amazon.com/Asterope-AST-B.../dp/B00BG3H1MA Let me know if there's additional information? (we all use "special processes" in constructing cables of most any type... same could be said for cooking up the dinner slop again tonight) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pro1-54 Posted May 24, 2014 Members Share Posted May 24, 2014 I think it could be akin to Alexander Dumbles "crystal lattice" theory but from what the president of the company told me it is a unique proprietary process using high quality manufacturing techniques. It is very expensive to make the wire and that is obvious in the price. Same company that makes the wire has contracts with NASA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Audiopile Posted May 24, 2014 Members Share Posted May 24, 2014 I think it could be akin to Alexander Dumbles "crystal lattice" theory but from what the president of the company told me it is a unique proprietary process using high quality manufacturing techniques. It is very expensive to make the wire and that is obvious in the price. Same company that makes the wire has contracts with NASA. How many and of what length of those cables do you own and use? And if it's 1 or more, I'd be willing, ready, able, and otherwise motivated to send you one randomly selected off one of my warehouse shelves for an evaluation against what you have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pro1-54 Posted May 24, 2014 Members Share Posted May 24, 2014 How many and of what length of those cables do you own and use? And if it's 1 or more, I'd be willing, ready, able, and otherwise motivated to send you one randomly selected off one of my warehouse shelves for an evaluation against what you have. I have 4 of the 20 foot xlr, 2 of the 10' instrument, a 20' instrument and 6 of the 1' patch for pedal boards. The instrument cables are really great. I get a lot of positive comments when I give one to a seasoned player who knows tone. The xlrs don't leave my studio as a rule but I did try them live against a canare 4e6s cable and there was a difference in clarity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members witesol Posted May 24, 2014 Author Members Share Posted May 24, 2014 $250 mic cables... Not for me. Way too many more important things to consider. ...like big bucks IEC cables. Why would the first 20-25 feet of mic cable that then plugs into hundreds of feet of non $250 mic cable have so much impact on the sound? Call me a skeptic...and cheap! Perhaps im just jealous. Every so often I see those guys at gigs or in the studio with their cables. I think to myself: "sure, you may think that every.0003% of tone matters but your tone is not that good, I can move the mic 1" , take a Sudaphed, the temperature can change, etc...all those things are substantially more impactful" ..Or, " you might want to take $25 of the cable budget and get a metronome" Sorry to be sarcastic about the idea and post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted May 24, 2014 Members Share Posted May 24, 2014 $250 mic cables... Not for me. Way too many more important things to consider. ...like big bucks IEC cables. Why would the first 20-25 feet of mic cable that then plugs into hundreds of feet of non $250 mic cable have so much impact on the sound? Call me a skeptic...and cheap! Perhaps im just jealous. Every so often I see those guys at gigs or in the studio with their cables. I think to myself: "sure, you may think that every.0003% of tone matters but your tone is not that good, I can move the mic 1" , take a Sudaphed, the temperature can change, etc...all those things are substantially more impactful" ..Or, " you might want to take $25 of the cable budget and get a metronome" Sorry to be sarcastic about the idea and post. Not a skeptic, but a realistic and practical point of view. I have tested and tested many such claims and have found (in the case of mic cable) each and every one to be highly exaggerated to outright false. Once you put 20' of anything onto 300' of snake, any infinitesmal claim of "improvement" is swamped by the real world. In fact, the real world dominates in each and every case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Scodiddly Posted May 24, 2014 Members Share Posted May 24, 2014 My understanding of quad-core aka star-quad cable is that in a balanced line configuration it does a better job of rejecting lower-frequency interference, such as AC hum near a transformer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pro1-54 Posted May 24, 2014 Members Share Posted May 24, 2014 $250 mic cables... Not for me. Way too many more important things to consider. ...like big bucks IEC cables. Why would the first 20-25 feet of mic cable that then plugs into hundreds of feet of non $250 mic cable have so much impact on the sound? Call me a skeptic...and cheap! Perhaps im just jealous. Every so often I see those guys at gigs or in the studio with their cables. I think to myself: "sure, you may think that every.0003% of tone matters but your tone is not that good, I can move the mic 1" , take a Sudaphed, the temperature can change, etc...all those things are substantially more impactful" ..Or, " you might want to take $25 of the cable budget and get a metronome" Sorry to be sarcastic about the idea and post. I'm not taking your comments as sarcastic at all - like I said, my Asterope XLR usually stay in the studio where I do enjoy the difference. If it only cost me 1/4 of what a the starting price of a good mic pre costs, I'll take it. The gig I used the Asterope live on was a 20' to a 100' snake into an LS9. There was a definite difference in clarity. $250 worth? I guess it all depends on your personal opinion of hearing. I know I wouldn't want to mix em in with my regular $30 cables! I'm planning on getting some shorter length cable to see if they make a difference too. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I've given the instrument cables to tone freaks and they dig it! Some of them have pedal boards and just using an Asterope on the guitar to the pedal board is a difference. It is a shock to me as well. Its the "crystal lattice/magic pixie dust" alignment of electrons that happens when the source leaves its signal path I guess lol! I'll post in this thread when I experiment later this summer - the only difference will be a Souncraft Si3 with a MADI stagebox and I plan on testing a 20' Asterope directly in compared to a 6' Asterope into a 15' regular XLR to the stagebox. I might even drag out the LS9... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted May 25, 2014 Members Share Posted May 25, 2014 Frankly, I remain a healthy skeptic. My years of seeing these kinds of claims have in just about every case, been totally refuted in double-blind testing. Even those with the most grandiose claims of being able to tell the difference don't do much if any better than pure random a/b picks in the tests. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members witesol Posted May 25, 2014 Author Members Share Posted May 25, 2014 This sort of reminds me of my mixing gig Friday. Won't say the name but a really good act. 1000 people small show. Frontman is an "ears" guy. He comes out front with his EV 967 , vocalizes and suggests adjustments to me ; EQ, verb, delay and compression. I hadnt gotten to a couple of the adjustments he shouted over to me as I was undoing the previous show's effects and compression settings. He then tells me "that's it, perfect" and tells me how he's very particular and its nice to work with a soundman who is on the same page...and I hadn't even figured out what comp insert he was on! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members witesol Posted May 25, 2014 Author Members Share Posted May 25, 2014 I'm pretty certain that blue cables sound better btw... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Dogoth Posted May 25, 2014 Members Share Posted May 25, 2014 I would say it depends...... (Ooooh I just had to say that) on the construction of the cable. I always figured quad cable's only real attribute over conventional stuff was circuit redundancy BUT having worked with Cat-6 cable I now have a different view. Cat-6 cable not only has the pairs twisted but also twists the twisted groups. I've found if I put a tone generator on only one pair, I can hardly find it with the inductive reciever but if I tie it across the two non-opposing pairs (since there's 4 pairs), it works fine. I'd think cancellation of transmission would be the same as recieving (this is EM noise we're talking about). Does this quad cable also tightly control the twist of the twists? if so it probably has better CMR (common mode rejection) but if it's just two twisted pairs parallel or willy nilly to each other inside the jacket, then it probably makes no difference. RF noise is a different animal altogether (See agedhorse's explanation above). FWIW the redundancy idea is still a worthwhile attribute if you can justify the cost difference. EDIT: Ouch! I just read the second page. $250 for a mic cable??? this just negated my last sentence. You can buy a speaker for the cost of a few cables - what a waste of money. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted May 25, 2014 Members Share Posted May 25, 2014 Note that for Cat5/6, the twist patterns and tightness have to do with a combination of maintaining characteristic impedance along with improved HIGH FREQUENCY crosstalk pair to pair. 20kHz (audio limit) is not what's considered in high frequency performance. The primciple of star quad is averaging of 2 twisted pairs, one twisted in tbe opposite direction. This can theoretically cancel LF interference by an additional amount, but what's missing from most discussions is that say you have a 25' piece of star quad and the remaining 75' in a 100' run is conventional cable, only 25% of the theoretical benefit will be realized. Say the theoretical benefit is 24dB, this gets reduced to 6dB in the above example. Now, for a live application, extrapolate to a 25' piece installed into a 225' conventional snake. The improvement will be only 10% of the theoretical maximum or a couple of dB. There is something called the threshold of noise window, that is the point where the noise becomes audible (in this case) so if the threshold of noise FOR ONE CHANNEL has a margin better than a couple dB, then there will be no audible difference using just a single channel. Another inportant consideration is the additive nature of the noise, say we have 40 channels of audio passing through the same 225' snake. Multiply 40 channels by 225 and you will get the number of conductor feet that contributes to the summed noise. The ratio in this case would be the 25 foot star quad cable divided by 9000 feet which is why the improvement gets swamped out by the sheer numbers. It also shows how much noise margin there is already present before crossing the threshold of noise audibility in a typical (quality) cabling installation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TimmyP Posted May 26, 2014 Members Share Posted May 26, 2014 In my many hi-fi years, I found that cables did sound very different. And the fancier they were, the worse the usually sounded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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