Karaoke Forums

Some time back, I bought a lifetime-guarantee mic cable, and one that was not
a lifetime guarantee.

Plugging the cables into my cheesy karaoke mixer with 1/4" connectors,
the supposedly good one didn't work very well and the cheaper one worked fine.

Later, I bought a real mixer with balanced 1/4" inputs, and discovered what
balanced/unbalanced meant. I checked the two cables, and discovered they had a
different type off connector on each -- one was balanced and the other was not. The
good cable worked fine plugged into my live-sound mixer.

(I know that the normal cable for live sound is an XLR-XLR which is the other
connector on my mixer, and I have some of those too.)

Furthermore, the top-quality one appeared to have some sort of inline component
like a resistor in one of the inputs.

Can anyone give a short treatise on what these cables mean -- or point me to a
resource that describes this? I presume a balanced 1/4" with it's three connections
is the same as an XLR other than connection method, but that is just an assumption.
What could that inline component be?

I get a kick out of the comments on forums about cable my first real experience with cable was aboard the USS Little Rock which was a WWII cruiser.. We spent hours ringing out cable with sound powered phones to determine continuity sometimes from one end to tother focsle to fantail... Mosy were 50 to 100 shielded conductor and the insulation color had long since faded.. But most (we had to use chemicals and if soldering alot of flux to make contact.. Since then I have worked with all cables and strung 1000 ft spools for rf video and audio The old shielded cables had interwoven shield (sometimes around each pair and heavy around all) You had to physically comb out the shield and twist it to solder on to a plug. I have used special tools to attach a 50 pin Duetch plug closed loop tv plug or a 75 pin winchester plug going to a video switcher.. All 2 pair shielded ... I have worked with the so-called expensive musician rec cable and it sucked..

So one or 2 wires in a cable does not intimidate me in the least.. The impedance with audio is insignificant so we wont even consider it.. When cable was oursouced to to places other than here pure copper and other things were sacrificed.. I dont know if I can still go down to the place and get shielded cable anymore but if I could it would be economocally unfeasable It used ro be 6 cents/foot..

When I shifted to power speakers I started buy spools again and on ebay bought some cable It is valled audio purity and is soft and pliablle and has a decent heavy shield. It was 500 feet and I made a couple of 100 ft speaker runs and various speaker cables and it was soon used up Cant find anymoe.. Think Im going to throw it away Ill cut ends off and resolder until the cows come home..

Without looking at your cables I cant answer your question directly and I dont have a clue what a component would be in a mic cord.. However I will provide you with the best audio tech link on the web rane

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Hi, There are High and Low Z (impedence) mics.
It is not a hard and fast rule but generally pans out.
A High Z mic. would normally plug into a jack socket.
A Low Z mic. would normally use XLR, but ocasionally
you would get a jack input marked Low Z.
If you put a Low Z mic. in a High Z input you would get
a tremendous drop in volume.
High Z mics are generally the cheepies.
Any doubts and you simply google your products
to see what they are.

Sorry, missed your point,
Your mic. cable is like an antenna.
It can pick up 60Hz hum and stuff.
Unbalanced cables just uses two wires,
core and shield and are ok up to about 20 feet in length.
Mainly used for High Z mics.

For longer mic. runs you are generally better using a
Balanced cable which uses a twisted pair (a bit like ethernet)
that then has a shield.
It is the twisting of the pair that gives noise rejection.
Dont know why but I have always heard better sound
from a balanced cable, or maybe it's my imagination...

I am only using balanced cables these days; all my mics are good ones (Shure SM-58, Sennheiser e935, Audix OM-3).

I guess the ohmmeter doesn't lie -- I should be able to ring out the cables and figure out what is going on. It is a bit confusing, though.

I think what is happening is that my cheap mixer has unbalanced inputs and using the balanced cable with the component in one of the lines caused a problem. The mics work fine in that mixer with a balanced cable that doesn't have that component.

Well all your mics are low Z.
I can only guess at the in line resistor.
If the cable is XLR to jack...
Sounds like the component you are refering to would be
a step down transformer, allowing a Low z mic to be
plugged into a High Z input, therefore matching impedence.
The component may be arround an inch wide maybe 2" long.
Saying that, I have been out of the industry over 12 years.
Dont know current technology.
If I'm wrong, please explain a bit further.