Cable Matters Male to Female XLR Microphone Cable
[{'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2017', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Although I am giving this product 1 star, it should work fine for audio applications. The cable seems nicely made.\n\nWhy the 1 star? Well, I am an engineer and in my business "specifications" are everything. If a supplier lies to you about one thing, you totally lose confidence in everything they say. In my hobby, I use XLR cables to distribute DC power for one box to another - I generally build my own cables because I need wires larger than 22 AWG, which seems standard for audio cables. Except the Cable Matters, which proudly proclaim they use 16 AWG in these XLR cables. (BTW, wire gage indicates the size of the copper part of the wire and SMALLER numbers mean BIGGER wire). So 16 AWG is a LOT bigger than 22 AWG.\n\nWhen I got the cables (3 ft), I disassembled one end and compared the internal wires to a piece of 22 AWG wire. Really similar in size. Next, I compared it to a piece of 16 AWG, which was much bigger. It appears this is a standard audio cable using the normal wire size - which makes sense, since a larger wire would make no difference to a microphone, and would simply add weight and bulk. Unfortunately, that is not what they advertised and not what I wanted.\n\nIn conclusion, I gave the item 1 star because I dislike fake specs - it the wire size is grossly inaccurate, what else did they get wrong?'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on September 15, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I did a head-to-head between this XLR cord (2 for $20), a very high end cord (Mogami gold) and a couple random XLR cords I\'ve collected, all around $20 each. If you don\'t know, Mogami is supposed to be about the best you can get for mass produced cords. Lots of insulation, good components and build. I say this not because I\'m trying to push anyone toward it, just using it as a $50-65 comparison. I compared them using two rather high end mics going through the same PreSonus Audiobox into Reaper for my DAW. I made all comparisons with both mics and used Low (9:00 on the channel\'s gain knob), Medium (12:00) and HighGain (3:00).\n\nHere\'s the short version of the results:\n\nI couldn\'t find any significant difference between this particular "cheap" cord and Mogami. The other cheapos introduced a lot of noise. Maybe bc they were older, maybe because cheap cords bring in some noise, a lot at high gain. But this one didn\'t. It\'s thick so seems to be well insulated. In fact, it looks quite a bit like the Mogami insofar as the size and components.\n\nThis cord worked great, and for 1/4 the cost, I think the only thing that it\'s missing is a lifetime, no-questions warranty. I suspect if you\'re using it in a studio or in some way not plugging, unplugging, coiling, uncoiling, slapping them into piles and traveling around with it, it\'s going to be great. I was pleasantly surprised and this will be my go-to cord (at least until I find something better). I couldn\'t believe how it compared to the high-end/expensive brand.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'TL;DR: These cables are extremely nice quality and are free of interference and defects for a fairly low price.\n\nI ordered these because the last few cables I bought from CableMatters were pretty good quality and arrived very quickly. These were also the right length and price for what I was looking for, except I was going to end up with *2* cables for the price I was expecting to pay for a single cable.\n\nThey came in a padded Amazon envelope and inside a single plastic bag within this envelope; the bag also had a large label on it saying it should contain 2 cables and warning the distributor that they are to stay packaged together in a pair. I guess they\'ve had issues with separation, kind of made me laugh a tiny bit because this warning label is so prominent.\n\nI disassembled the connector on the female end just enough to check the assembly and material quality, since I just assembled one of these recently and I knew it would be easy to take apart and put back together. I wanted to make sure I got what CableMatters claims to sell, and I\'m happy to say it looks like it\'s all exactly what they said it is on their site.\n\nWIRE/CABLE:\n\nAnyway, these cables are very thickly insulated with copper braid shielding. Supposedly there\'s foil in their under the copper braiding, but I couldn\'t see it in there and I don\'t want to damage anything digging for it. (Braided shielding is more effective, more expensive, and usually provides lower resistance path to ground than foil, but adding a layer of foil provides complete coverage against interference.)\n\nInside of the shielding, there are two conductors (separately insulated wires--hot and ground) that are very thin gauge. I\'m not sure what gauge, but I\'m guessing it\'s like 24 or 26 AWG.\n\nThe jacket of the cable (outermost layer) is soft, thick, and should be made of PVC but I don\'t know how to tell what the material actually is. Scratching it with my nail doesn\'t seem to hurt it. Text is printed at regular intervals on it in a very clear font; it contains their logo and reads, "Cable Matters (THEIR WEBSITE URL)HIGH QUALITY MICROPHONE CABLE" and does not otherwise describe the ratings or properties of the cable; I would have liked to know the ratings and maybe who manufactures the cable material (I don\'t think CM makes the wire in-house, I think they just modify and assemble it), but that\'s me.\n\nCONNECTORS:\n\nYou can disassemble these connectors by gently unscrewing the black plastic strain relief cones from the metal connector housings.\n\nThe connectors seem to be some Neutrik XLR gold-plated connectors, which have been repainted in semi-gloss black, do not have the stamped NEUTRIK labels on the strain relief or housing, and have a silkscreened small CableMatters logo opposite of the latching mechanism. I\'m not sure which model line (eg XX, EMC) the connectors are, and I can\'t be completely sure if they are actually NEUTRIK or just look the same. The springy plastic ring around the strain relief can probably be swapped for Neutrik\'s XXR-n (swap n for numbers 0 through 9) color coding rings. These are currently $0.25 or so each if you order them from electrical supply companies, such as Mouser or Allied, but if you really want them from an Amazon vendor, I saw a listing selling them for $6 *each* with an additional ~$7 in shipping, or another listing that sells them for about $8 shipped. :)\n\nThe paint looks like the polyester powdercoating that I\'ve seen on Hoffman industrial enclosures at work, except thinner, so I believe it\'s the same stuff. It\'s not a very tough paint, in my experience; it will probably scuff somewhat easily if you drag or hit it against metal, but I also think that since it\'s thin, it probably is at least not going to have poor adhesion or just flake off, and it shouldn\'t get damaged by fingernails, wood, or plastic.\n\nThe wires and shielding are soldered to the connector pins and tab; the solder is shiny, I was not able to pry off any connections with my fingernail (I\'d rather know if they are cold-soldered sooner rather than in the middle of a gaming session), and the insulation of the wires and connector isolator material are not deformed or melted. These cables are probably assembled by hand and the workmanship is absolutely fantastic.\n\nSOUND QUALITY:\n\nUsing the direct monitor setting, even with my pre-amp\'s mic gain setting turned all the way to +60 dB, the sound through this cable is crystal-clear and no detectable hiss. I can clearly hear sparrows chirping and wind blowing through my open window with how high I have the gain set; when I swap to my old cobbled-together coax abomination cable, there is a lot of popping, there is a low hum, and everything going through my mic sounds horribly distorted. I wish I had a "real" XLR cable that I could compare it to.\n\nNOTE: My pre-amp has noise filtering, so it\'s possible that some interference may still be getting picked up in this cable and the amp is managing to filter it all out enough that I can\'t detect it at full gain. The pre-amp definitely doesn\'t filter much noise from my other cable, though, so I think this cable from CM blocks interference extremely well.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Ok, so here\'s the deal. I\'ve been avoiding, for YEARS, balanced cabling between components. Bought these b/c they were competitively price and built on OFC copper. I\'ve been using virtually every variation, including those I made myself, of unbalanced cables. This includes, RG-59, 6 and multiple kinds of fancy "Litz" wire. Through them, I thought I\'d reached, nay "achieved", audio nirvana. WRONG! Look, I\'ve owned multi-thousand watt, multi-thousand dollar, electronically tri-amped class-A planer-dynamic and electrostatic systems. And, yes, I\'m well aware of electro-mechanical "burn-in". The point? One of those systems, built around unbalanced inter-connects, no longer "does it" for me. The new Cable Matters XLR cables, driving a high-current Class-AB amp itself driving comparatively inexpensive stacked dynamic speakers took me, last night, to that ever so elusive place "audio nirvana". It\'s as if the high smoothed out and system noise floor dropped. You know, like live music. All-in-all, to anyone reading this, and their components support balanced cabling, do not hesitate to buy these. Would rate 8-stars if I could. Context? I *NEVER* write reviews but had to, this product. Thanks for reading.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2018', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "I've purchase a LOT of this brand of cables! These really are heavy duty cables, and still relatively inexpensive. HEAVY conductors inside, not 24 gauge or 22 gauge wire, this is quality. We have 50' versions of these we use to power our PA system, and the cheap cables actually sound worse. I never would have believed I would hear a difference, but even me, a drummer, can hear it. I've been buying and using these for two years, not a single failure. Not one. I recommend these to everyone."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "These are connected as balanced cables from my Topping D70 DAC to my THX AAA 789 AMP that gives very clean distortion free audio signal to my Focal Elex headphones.\n\nI just loose myself while listening. It's like there is a live band or an orchestra in front of me while I'm sitting at the front row 🎶🎧🥺🎧🎶💕"}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2017', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "These are high quality cables for an excellent price. Each pair comes packed in a nice box, a pleasant surprise. The cables are thick and sturdy, yet supple and easy to work with. They have black metal housings and gold-plated connectors. I haven't had them long enough to know how they'll hold up in the long run, but I get the impression they'll stand the test of time. Only time will tell, but for now, I have no reason not to give them a solid five stars. Great product.\n\nUPDATE: Since my initial review, I've added many more Cable Matters XLR cables of lengths from 3' to 25'. They have held up great and never let me down. The quality of these cables is a cut above and they're a dream to work with. Highly recommended."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2016', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "Fantastic XLR cables at an unbeatable price. Not sure it need much more elaboration other than that! The cable is very thick and sufficiently pliable, which is the mark of a quality cable. Connectors are very solid too. I am using them with Shure SM57 for instrument/amplifier mic'ing. I don't detect any interference noise in the cable.\n\nA word of caution with cables: although it's tempting to get long cables to be as flexible as possible, it's my opinion that cables are cheap enough that you can afford to get various sizes and use the shortest length to get the job done. Resistance (degradation of signal) in the cable is a function of cable length. When you can get great cables like this as cheap as being offered, there isn't much excuse to get a bunch! Just my opinion anyway.\n\n5 stars! I will be buying more!"}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I\'m using 2 sets of these on a Yamaha MG10/2 mixer with a Digitech GNX3000 and a Digitech GNX4 XLR among other things. running into a Focusrite Saffire Pro 14 firewire, into an X99 FTW custom PC with a PCIe Firewire card with TI chip. I had an issue with a ground noise, using these instead of 1/4" alleviated the issue, and sound better. I\'m running in true stereo so this really gives a much better stereo separation and no hum that I had before. I recommend these cables, I\'m just a hobby home studio musician, I wouldn\'t consider myself a professional, but I\'ve been doing it for 35 years.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2021', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "I got what I expected from the Cable Matters cables I ordered. The cables I received have no faults, and the construction is honestly better than what I expected from cables at the $8/each price point. The insulation is very soft rubber with a nice feel, and it makes for easy routing with no cable stiffness exerting forces on any of the connected gear. The connections inside are cleanly soldered and insulated from each other with shrink-fit tubing, a detail I would not necessarily expect at this price. I would not hesitate to buy more of these cables for interconnecting gear in my home studio.\n\nThat said, I would also NOT recommend anyone buy this grade of cable for live stage performance or commerical studio use. The wire and insulation types used are not the sort that are suitable for hard use and heavy foot traffic, nor is the shielding adequate for use in venues where lots of high-powered gear and lighting are putting out a lot more electromagnetic radiation than anything in a home setup.\n\nTLDR; As long as you're buying these cables for light-duty home use consistent with their build quality, you should be fine."}]