Crap Quality XLR Microphone Cable Teardown
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2024
- Teardown of a crap quality XLR microphone cable from www.selby.com.au
Comparison with a good quality Yongshen/Neutrik connector cable from Swamp Industries.
Sorry the focus is hunting, just realised the camera was set to center spot focus only.
Update:
"Yongsheng or Ningbo Neutrik Electronics Co., Ltd is part of the world renowned Neutrik AG company with manufacturing operations in China. Producing a range of industry standard analog audio connectors for musicians and sound engineers. Connectors manufactured by Ningbo Neutrik Electronics are branded Yongsheng"
It did say "noise microphone cable" on it so it performed as expected ;)
He got what he paid for
Clearly that cable is well-past its sel-by date!
Pretty crap soldering job. I made audio cables through my highschool years for a reputable local company. Those pins got nowhere near hot enough. The cable fits down in those holes, and should be seated as far down as you can manage. Then the shield should be shorter than the inner core to provide strain relief, then there ends up being no tension on the cores so they don't break like they have here
I always make sure that even if there's a pull on the cable that strain relief can't cope with, there's a bit of slack so the wires don't get pulled tight.
The strain and pull relief on Neutrik XLR connectors is top notch but even then it can be overpowered in some instances.
Looks like they have a group of assemblers doing the cables, and some of them do a good job, but others are doing the bare minimum that will pass the incoming DC check on the cables.
The braid on the red ones is probably 60% coverage, more there to reduce hum in a stage application, not really good for triboelectric noise from handling, where you would need both the 100% shield and the semiconducting layer around the cores.
Ideally though the cables should be 3 cores with a separate shield to the grounding lug on the connector, let the equipment provide the single point connection to the shield for hum suppression and let the twisted pairs do the cancellation properly. 3 core cable though is more expensive, so you get 2 cores instead, though I have seen plenty with a single core and terrible screen in use.
Yeah it is pretty crap soldering I have soldered loads of these including DIN plugs never had a failure yet, you do see a lot of terrible soldering on TH-cam and the tips on some of these Irons I've seen better pokers for an open fire !
looks like a cold solderjoint. didn't even properly attach to the metal on the plug
That yellow wire didn't break off. It just completely came off from the pin. The pin had no sign of any solder still on it.
I order the parts and solder my own XLRs and cables... don't trust pre-made audio cables very much.
Andre Gulbis That's the Best way make them yourself using quality components and good cable
Yas littlefox!
I bought a load of unbranded stereo audio cables from eBay to allow me to connect anything to anything (RCA, 2.5mm, male, female, etc), thinking they’d be useful to have around. The left and right channels were reversed on 50% of them.
LOL
About the same quality soldering you would see in any main brand XLR cables. They're all basically the same mass produced half-ass solder job. In my experience the shielding on the cables doesn't matter as long as the signal remains balanced all the way from source to destination, but once you lose one of the signal wires, inverted or non-inverted, you lose 6dB of signal and gain 6dB or more of noise and the handling noise starts in whenever you touch it. And with a properly balanced signal you technically don't even need the ground or the shield wires. ;)
That's a new one to me "Dry as a dead dingo's donger"...😂😂😂😂
Standard aussie slang.
The lack of shielding should not be a problem, what with it being symmetrical and twisted. All in all it doesn't look that bad, even has a cord for force transfer. Shame about the soldering.
I've done live sound for years, I wouldn't use cable with that amount of shielding on anything longer than maybe 5m run and even then I'd appreciate it if the source was line level and not microphone level.
Shielding is very important regardless the balancing since balancing not perfect and over the distance and on weak signals there's a high probability for all kinds of crap get on to the signal itself.
Sure, but for a 30cm run between microphone and camera operating outside a microwave, that cable is exceeding requirements (minus electrical continuity).
The worse part is taking hours thinking it’s the mic, or something else. Then just discover changing the cable takes away the hum or pop. And some cable companies cut back on the shielding for more flexibility to call them stage cables, thus can cause unwanted signals interference. A good stage flexible cable would use more shielding wire at smaller wire gauges winded together. I guess you do get what you pay for. Even a good expensive cable can go bad, took me a few weeks to discover an intermittent hiss sounds was caused by one cable.
The behind the screen of being a TH-cam creator. Your the director, audio technician, video technician, lighting tech and what ever you do on your channel also.
Such cringe worthy soldering! Can't stand seeing bad cables like that as a sound engineer with OCD. Makes me want to take a plane flight over to Australia just to check your other cables and resolder Neutriks onto everything!
Jim Griffiths what do you think about the Cordial CRM Series?
The Czib
**drools**
Can't get better than Neutrik XX series connectors.
Well honestly, I mostly had Problems with shielding and soldering on cheap cabels but never really with the connectors.
Cordial makes very good quality cables and Neutrik makes very high quality connectors.
Tarnished connectors are what annoy me. I always go for gold plated now so I don't have to: _Plug in, pull out, plug in, pull out, plug in, pull out, plug in..._
The Yongsheng connector is a off brand from Neutrik
Well, it would only need a quick resolder to make it good. Sure, that is poor, but that was an OK cable and should have been decent for a low cost item - which you said it was. Sometimes you can get a 'Friday afternoon' item from anyone, even Rolls Royce - I think Qantas had an issue recently, a loud mouthed self promoting twat of a pilot wouldn't shut up about it.... I would always give people a second chance as these things can slip through. This is not necessarily a bad outfit and I know I would feel terrible if I was judged on one dodgy item. Edit: Especially a cheap shitty lead...
PS No connection with Selby.
In fact a quick perusal of their site leads (pft) me to the conclusion they are a professional well run outfit - they also plaster on their front page a big 'no quibble guarantee', and I bet would have sent you a better cable smartish - esp if they got wind of who you were.
And for the poor chaps at Selby...There is no such thing as bad publicity. Thank goodness.
Yeah, the plugs and cables were fine, not the best, not the worst, but fine for semi-pro use. A cold solder joint can happen to anyone, doesn't make a company bad. If you had bought lots of cables from them and all consistently failed and had problems with bad soldering, that would be another story but with only one single cable on hand you can't judge the quality of the company. If it was me, I'd just shrug it off and resolder the plug and be happy with it.
No, the connector was crap too, it didn't fit properly, way too tight
that is one worst XLR solder jobs ive ever seen. i make 4pin and 3pin connections all the time at my job. so i know a bit about it. they are using 1 hung Lo brand of connector. you should use Nutrik. secondly they barley put the wire into the pin. those pins are hollowed out and go deep for a reason. you can get the wire at least 5mm in there before soldering.Look at time into video 3:51, cold solder joint.
Sagan can probably solder better than that! I'd repair it properly and keep it as a spare (get out of jail card). That shielding will be fine for such a very short length. The purists will disagree and I respect them for that. Only to be used in an emergency until a proper one from Neutrik comes.
Neutrik or nothing
The outer braid isn't a shield, it's a ground. The nature of balanced audio signals largely negates the need for shielding.
That's a really terrible cable. Even the cheap-ish XLR cables have a braided shielding.
Also, when you want to dismantle the female XLR, you have to push on the latch while pulling the connector insides out.
The shielding is adequate for a differential signal
Not enough heat + time during soldering. The cable has been put together too quickly. Don't scrap it, rework it (both ends) and put it to less critical duties.
Everyone with a box of cables should also a own cable tester. I like Behringer's, it's good at detecting intermittent opens.
A lot of pro audio guys are 'Neutrik or nothing". Almost all pro audio gear uses them because A: they are really that good, and B: a lot of people won't buy gear that uses other brands. FWIW, I suggest ordering the parts and making your own cables.
Back before you were born I worked at a TV station that was adding a new studio, which involved something like a Bazillion XLRs to be attached to cable runs. For some reason the boss really liked my soldering and OCDness, and I got to solder most of 'em. It really is NOT that difficult to do it right.
Since it is a differential cable, does it need shielding at all? I mean Gigabit Cat6 cables are UTP, if they have a + shaped separation lug. So whats the deal with 100% shielding or shielding at all...
I'm surprised you don't make your own cables Dave. IMO ready-made cables are expensive and the soldering/construction leaves much to be desired. I prefer making them myself.
Well, you got what you paid for. If you want a good cable, doing it yourself is the only way. Even brand name cables show poor craftsmanship.
Why didn't you repair the cable? Seems a waste ripping it apart.
I will "tell you what I think" I think if you wash white underwear with red socks, you will have pink underwear ... thanks for the Video i enjoyed it :-)
I think SWAMP manufactures their own? I use a lot of their stuff and they sell both built cables as well as rolls of the cable plus the connectors individually - Neutrik, Yongsheng (which is actually pretty good quality). Either way the first cable you had looks like rubbish. If it has a spiral shield and it's thin, it screams cheap quality. I use Canare cable and Neutrik or Yongsheng connectors to build my own now.
Balanced cable; of that length; the ground coverage makes 0 difference.
What no resolder to get it working again and testing the improvement?
Nope, nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.
EEVblog2 it would be fine if it was resoldered correctly.
Hallb2015 Brandon Hall he also said it's too tight for his Sony camera. Since the has a new cable, might as well just destroy the old one to avoid it damaging something.
Yes, we all know how bad soldered stuff is from China. To spend 5 minutes kavetching about something on youtube and say its content is not worthy of Daves best efforts, very negative.
Because bitching for 7 minutes over crap cable is easier than repairing a simple failure, or making a proper cable using branded quality material. ;)
Looks like factory moral is at an all time low. More whippings!
I would probably check it and resolder it before buying a new one :)
edit: I wouldn't blame the retailer for the cable, just the company producing it.
On the female side on some of these cables the contact get expanded out and no longer work, anyone got any idea to fix that? I have become the student sound tech this last year for my high school jazz choir and I fixed a big box of these clables with bad solder jobs, they break fast because they get abused by the students from unplugging and plugging into the performance mics daily.
Shield coverage shouldnt be too important on a symmetrical connection.
Yeah, "not too important" under Ideal Conditions. But if you are in a situation with buzzy phase-angle light dimmers, or a high RF environment (like a broadcast transmitter site) then that horrible cable will bite you right in the backside. Not worth saving a few pennies out here in the Real World.
I was just trying to say that shielding is *less* important with balanced cables like XLR (compared to unbalanced cables), since they cancel out most of the induced noise. Of course it always depends on your local situation.
I wouldn't go with super cheap cables anyway, since there are already enough other things to get annoyed by.
Buy some Amphenol plugs and Van-damme cable from Farnell next time. Pre-made budget cables are always cost cut and rushed.
This is why i make all my XLR cables myself with Neutrik plugs and Belden cable
I enjoy a lot of your videos David, and I can understand your annoyance about a defective product, but I can not agree with you in claiming that a product or brand is bad only by analyzing a damn one single sample. I think that is not fair enough for a guy as smart and capable as you. Cheers mate.
Obviously at 12000 Km not related to shelby at all.
Looks like they forgot to heat the heatshrink at 6:50.
I just noticed that, maybe there's a reason for doing it like that?
krish They only use it to prevent shorting to loose strands. Leaving it unshrinked allows quick field repair with a solder pencil, versus having to cut the cable short and possibly getting a new connector from nowhere. There's not a lot of places that can get you spare connectors in the evening in a random city 30 minutes before the show opens.
Or you can just cut away the heatshrink :) No need to cut the wire. The heatshrink will also act as a strain relief at the most fragile point, where the solder on the wire ends.
If you want one with "shrunk" heatshrink then you need to fork out a few bucks extra for the delux version ;-)
At least they soldered the wire into the cup. The heatshrink wasn't needed for corrosion protection, just insulating from stray wires or paths.
Our ears perceive louder as better. :)
When I get new audio cables, I usually tend to open connectors if they are not molded and check soldering and cable so that I know if I can trust them. And for some applications I just buy cables and connectors separate so I can make my own custom cables for specifications I want, and it is usually cheaper that way too than buying whole cable locally.
Why do you just make them yourself?
Buy the XLR’s (pref nautrik) and some decent cable and make them yourself. I know it’s cheaper buying one but getting the bits you can make whatever you want
That's terrible, Muriel! The cable is terrible. It looks like not even 50% coverage, and spiral wrapped (much inferior to proper braided shield). And the connectors are terrible. Cheap Chinese knock-offs with poor dimensional accuracy. And the assembly is terrible as well. Horrible wire prep, and beginner-level soldering. Even the other one with "heat-shrink tubing" (which is either NOT heat-shrink, or at least not shrunk.) is hardly better.
This is why I buy name-brand connectors and cable from my favorite supplier (Redco) Even their house-brand, sensibly-priced cable is orders of magnitude better than that stuff in your videos.
And I have found that Amphenol ( originally AMerican PHENOLic but now a Australian company) connectors are terrific. Equal quality to Neutrik and at a sensible price. But nowhere near the wide variety of product that Neutrik does. But then for bog-standard XLR male and female cable connectors, I love them. And nice TS and TRS 6.5mm plugs as well.
XLR and TRS cables are so easy to terminate, there is no reason to gamble on buying cables of questionable quality from ANY vendor.
1) Solder never took to the pin (cold) 2) REALLY bad workmanship. 3) Pin #1 should not be bridged to the case connection, otherwise "ground lift" options will not work on devices so equipped. 4) Regarding shield coverage, looks to be 30 to 40%. Will work ok on a short balanced line, but inductive of real cheap cable. 5) Often knock-off XLR connectors do not have good mechanical tolerances. (A big red flag on those connectors.)
A common construction problem with ready made cables is the conductive plastic sheathing under the screen.
All too often not trimmed back providing a resistive short.
I use lot's of cabling so I buy cable by the drum and bags of Neutriks to make my own.
Here's a question:
When using mic cable i.e. screened twin core, as a guitar lead (Jacks instead of XLRs) which gives the least core to screen capacitance, using both cores together as the Hot or taking one of the cores together with the screen?
OR
I guess leaving one of the two inners not connected?
Although I make most of my own cables I do, when ordering from Thomann, add a couple of these to the order.
3m cheapos.
www.thomann.de/gb/pro_snake_tpi_a_3.htm
Sturdy enough though.
I do curl the corners of the cable clamps in to give 'em a little more bite.
😀😀😀 I used to work for Swamp industry as repair technician . I have soldered all the cables.Wow that's my job Very interesting 😃😄"Based in Canberra Fyshwick!!"
Never support cheap crap. For 99% of the consumers, the cheap crap just ends up in the landfill.
I told a chinese seller who sent me some crappy led effect lamps, that he don't need to refund me, if he promises me to tell the manufacturer that they need to push the LEDs flat on the board while soldering it. They will fail by overheating, because there was a big air gap under each led.
I just resoldered it.
He chose to send me replacement lamps.
99%?
Manuauto I repaired my crappy lamps.
I'm hopeful that at least 1% of consumers will attempt to have repairs made to ever-so-slightly improve the crappy product. Call me optimistic.
logmeindog My sister had a broken washing machine. The technician charged 80€ just for looking at it ( less then 10 minutes) and wanted 225€ additional to fix it.
She ended up fixing it herself for 60€ for the part by watching a diy video how to do it.
Yongsheng is Neutrik's Chinese manufacturer. I'm about to replace a female Yongsheng XLR on a cable integrated into a K&M boom arm. The contacts are unreliable now. I suspect the spring tension that grips the mating pin in the male is not quite good enough for a solid connection anymore. Thats' not a reflection on Neutrik branded connectors - they are far better than Yongsheng.
All connectors have an expected number of reliable "insertions" that vary according to both the design and the manufacturer. I have yet to have a Neutrik XLR fail as a connector even with repeated frequent insertions. I've had plenty of others fail. A suggestion for Neutrik XLR connectors -- get silver contacts in preference to gold and gold in preference to nickel. Avoid nickel if at all possible. Silver is the most conductive metal and has almost zero resistance. Silver oxide (the black tarnish) is almost as conductive as silver. Silver plated contacts where both surfaces are silver plated will not wear through -- the silver will transfer between sliding mating surfaces even if it becomes exceedingly thin. Gold won't tarnish but copper in gold alloys can tarnish into green gold oxide. Like most metals except steel/iron, nickel will acquire a thin surface corrosion over time that doesn't progress further than an exposed surface. Nickel corrosion is horribly non-conductive. The only reason 1/4" nickel connectors work is that the infinitesimal point contact inherent to its design tends to push away the surface corrosion in repeated insertions but not completely reliably.
Unlike most other audio connectors, 1/4" connectors have an infinitesimal mating contact area. The flat folded contact spring in the typical female is a fold contact edge that touches the male cylindrical shape at right angles which is, mathematically, an infinitely small point. They work OK in well designed female designs that use better internal contacts that get a higher contact area.You'll see them in balanced line applications for line level (-10dBV and +4dBu levels) audio. Using them in high current applications such as connecting power amplifiers to passive speakers is very undesirable. Use SpeakOn connectors instead.
The Neutrik Yongsheng connectors are clearly not the same quality as their German made *XX series, but they weren't really the issue here.
What gave out was the bad build quality of the CABLE as a whole. You ALWAYS fill the solder cups completely and you make sure that the wire is stripped far enough that it goes all the way to the end of the cup. You want proper fillet on the end and it'll never come off... Then you make sure that there's just a few mm of extra wire inside the connector such that if the strain relief slips for what ever reason, the stress isn't immediately transferred to the solder joints. It had basically zero extra on the wires... so obviously it failed...
Yeah, you pay for a quality.
With good flux, you should get a solid fill in those solder cup contacts. Those who are looking to do perfect soldering, look up "J-STD-001 soldering". If physically possible, I make my cables/harnesses strong enough to hold the devices by. I make no assumptions as to how my devices are handled by people. If you want to put together perfect harnesses and cables, start with military-level techniques and work your way down towards what's practical for your application. You do need to be a little obsessive to make perfect cables. ;)
What the hell is going on with this video? It suddenly popped up - saying it was released yesterday. So why didn't this show up in my subscription list - even I watched every EEVBlog2-video before...
Wow. That one bad soldering joint came out of the factory colder than a witch's tit in a brass bra doing push-ups in the snow in February on Mt. McKinley. It's colder than a Three Dog Night or a timber wolf's toenail. (You win a pony if you can name the source of that last reference.)
Dude, I think your dead dingo's dry donger was done a long time ago, at least when it comes to cold solder joints.
Shielding on an XLR cable is not as big of an issue since it's a balanced signal. Pins 2 and 3 are carrying the signal and a phase-inverted version of the signal, so all you need is a preamp/input buffer with good CMRR, and any interference that might have affected the cable is effectively canceled out. Shielding matters far more with unbalanced 1/4" TS cables.
I make my own using quad-core cable bought in bulk and neutrik connectors. The quad core (twisted pairs) really helps prevent the cables from picking up unwanted RF noise. Cheap cables are inferior and good cables are overpriced for someone with basic soldering skills.
Sexy?! Are you an...electrosexual? Huh?! A French Musician? I like to look up words that are supposed to be complete bullshit. This time, it was actually something already. Aww...
I've always played safe with either Van Damme or Klotz cable, usually with Neutrik connectors. That said, I think that one would have worked fine, but for the poor soldering. The poor shield coverage probably doesn't matter too much on a balanced connection.
Ah, Swamp industries. I have some midi patch cables on my desk from them...
They work alright, though their branding efforts look a bit cheap. (stickers on the plugs that come off rather easily.)
Still, if it works, it works.
Now if only I could say the same for the USB midi adapter...
Midi is pretty poorly supported on modern versions of windows anyway, but I couldn't even get this adapter working on a windows XP system, and XP still had solid midi features...
Such a pain.
This is typical these days. Reputable companies actually having their manufacturing done in , dare I say it, “China” and this is the quality of the product they thrust upon us for exorbitant prices. I worked at Philips as an engineer many years ago and they sent manufacturing off to China for their low to mid range AV products and discovered very quickly how little notice the Chinese manufacturers of quality control or quality assurance.
if i would make a living with videos, i wouldn't be using a cheapo cable off ebay. You have high end lab equipment all over the place but use this?
Try to only use Neutrik XLRs because they just fit like it should. I have seen cheap connectors that get stuck which could ruine your day and even your device ;)
I also make all cables myself. Never had a bad cable unless it was heavily abused like jamming it in or under a door.
Holy crap that cable's just awful. I'd expect a conductive polymer or metal foil shielding in addition to the braided shield. Shielding and noise with single-ended vs balanced transmission lines -- now that's a good reason to bring Doug in for a new video series!
At least the cable has some shielding. I have bought one RCA cable with 3 tiny wires of "shielding" so i don't be surprised by this kind of quality.
If you ever want to see a house of horrors teardown then check this out th-cam.com/video/sFLRBgTPCJ8/w-d-xo.html The guy even sounds like Dave. I didn't know that there was so much electronics inside a TIG welder, albeit 1980s technology in a recent model.
Seriously Dave, I'm a bit sad that you actually bought a cable and didn't solder it you're self. It's bad practice to trust the handywork of cheap cables...
Focus hunting. Only Sony failed to implement auto focus. They failed 30 years ago and still seem unable to get it to work.
As a person who has soldered MANY XLR connectors... Yes, the soldering is absolutely awful.
ewh..... if they want to save up on soldering time, why aren't they using crimped connections instead of.... that?
Oh come on Dave. You bought a "Noise microphone cable" and expected to not get the "Noise" part ? It works just as advertised.
Dave, at 1:17 the "Vincent" logo made me very nervous...even it's font...know where I'm going with this? lol
One simple solution - do cables yourself. 5-10 minuts and it's done. Quality connectors and and cable don't cost that much
Experience has taught me not to trust any cable manufacturer. I make my own cables including RG-58 BNC with full shield cable and banana plug test leads made with silicone rubber.
I make my own cables, expensive ones are a rip off and cheap ones are put together poorly. The bare wire should bottom out and the pocket should be totally full of solder.
The good end didn't look too bad soldering wise... The bad end though.... The last time I soldered that bad, I was 10.
I'm still pretty old school. Belden 8412 and Switchcraft connectors.
On the Selby site, Dave says "Looks legit". They sell HDMI cables for $5, so I'm sure they are. :)
This is why I always build my own mic cables. I buy bulk Canare star quad and neutrik xlr connectors and make them as I need them.
looking at the junk cable it looks like they used a section of electrical cord and re printed it for microphone cable.
a really good cable should be shielded and use ofc oxygen free copper and metal tips instead of plastic and should maybe even have a screw to hold it together instead of looking like diy
Yongsheng is actually a brand owned by the Chinese subsidiary of Neutrik. So that part is alright ;)
Maybe the Brand is good, but the cable was faked and sell on Ebay, like Samsung SD-Cards from China , who knows?
That's definitely not typical. Any, at least ok quality, cable will have a braided sleeve all the way around the inner wires.
Gotta watch out for those dodgy Australian suppliers and stick with the genuine Chinese brands!
XLR cables guaranteed to break at some point. They will break just sitting in a box unused somehow.
The warning is the blue sometimes red rubber washer! = CRAP!
yet another thing I did not know; area of shielding can change according to required profit margin. Where will it end?
also! never connect the shield (pin 1) to the chassis pin on BOTH sides of the cable! pick one side only!
I wonder if Selby will ship you another cable to show some customer service.
Neutrik is the only legit brand. These look like Chinese Knockoffs.
Actually the plugs themselfs are crap also. I had many connectors where I was not able to solder cables to the pins as their finish and plating prevents solder to stick onto. Very sad that this company used so bad components...
XLR cables use balanced audio signal, so shielding isn't as important.
Their iron probably wasn't able to sink enough heat into the solid pins. The sheet metal in the other connector has less mass and was likely easier to solder to
That's what you get for shunning Chinese seller and products.
"Drier than a dead dingo's donger" ROFLMAO
For the things it needs to protect you from, the shielding is probably on par
Focus hunting is killing me.
Manufactured by the Sum Ting Wong company.
seriously....: what do you expect...?...at least use neutrik....;)
I wonder how much gold plating would effect xlr connections.
Theres better soldering on my model railway than this thing. Damn.
Fleetwood Mac electrons in that cable... they “go their own way”
in aussieland you need to hold the connector up-side-down while soldering.
Definitely not good enough for Australia