Are Expensive XLR Cables Worth It?
What's the difference between an $8 and $50 XLR cable? Do $50 mic cables make your recording sound better? Why pay so much for a cable? In this video, I address those questions and demonstrate the difference in shielding and test if there is any difference in tone based on the XLR cable you're using.
DO XLR CABLES AFFECT THE TONE?
Based on my testing and measurement of the frequency response, all 4 cables tested were within 1/10th of dB of each other within the human hearing range of 20Hz - 20kHz. Therefore there is no tonal change within this range of cable.
DO XLR CABLES AFFECT NOISE FLOOR?
Yes & No. If you’re looking at the inherent noise floor of a recording, excluding interference, the answer is no. In my testing using a 150-ohm resistor, there was no delta between the noise floor of all 4 mic cables.
If we look at the noise floor caused by interference there is a tremendous difference. The 3 affordable cables in this test suffered from interference from power cables and wireless chargers. The $50 Mogami had a minute amount of interference picked up but it was almost negligible.
CONCLUSION
When looking at what cables you want to buy, you can get by with an affordable cable if you are recording in a controlled environment that does not have a large amount of EMI and RFI and if you avoid running the cable over or parallel to devices that output EMI.
If you’re a field recorder, I think the higher end cables with improved shielding are a great investment because you may end up recording in environments that you’re not familiar with and are not aware of the EMI / RFI situation. The last thing you want while recording on a job is to have a nasty buzz ruining the recording, so I think ensuring you have properly shielded cables would be necessary.
Hope that helps answer the question. I know this is not a peer reviewed scientific study, it’s just a quick test and demo to address a question that I’ve been wondering about since 2016.
FOLLOW UP
Some folks pointed out that the dummy XLR cable I was using was skewing the results and that the results were not real world demonstrations. I agree they’re not real world demonstrations, they are a worst case scenario to demonstrate the differences. That being said, I did rerun the tests using a microphone plugged in in my box of doom and the results are consistent, albeit, a bit less loud. I wanted to include this additional test in the article and share it with you.