Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2009/01/19

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Subject: [Leica] OT: Audiophile Question
From: tgray at 125px.com (Tim Gray)
Date: Mon Jan 19 07:35:34 2009
References: <COL119-W39405754CB1E7C351F1C4282D70@phx.gbl> <8f5413a60901161614u4c1cb966g4063a44ff5e8ceec@mail.gmail.com> <20090117023722.GT27374@jbm.org> <8f5413a60901190715o726befbn70936191751d661b@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Tim Gray <tgray@125px.com> wrote:
> The point is, your music was most likely recorded using Canare and/or
> Mogami cabling.  And Neutrik connectors (who make an awesome RCA
> connector too).  These are industry standards.  They are perfectly
> suitable for playback (if not identical) and will save you a bundle.
> For much less money, you will have *nicer*, more professional cables
> than Monster cables.  Certainly less than any super fancy brand.  I
> think I wired up five speakers with speaker cable as thick as my
> finger with nice heavy duty gold plated banana plugs for about $50?
> Beat that price with even crap wiring...  I will say that I'm very
> comfortable with soldering though...

I just wanted to clarify this.  I didn't do this to save money or get
'okay' speaker cables/mic cables.  I was using this stuff with some
very expensive microphones, recorders, and speakers.  Well maybe not
super expensive speakers, but some very well respected boxes that are
used professionally (and not Yamaha NS-10s or anything).  This
selection of cabling and connectors is perfectly sufficient.

The fact of the matter is, when it comes to things like professional
location sound in $150 million dollar movies, these things are
recorded with Schoeps and Sennheiser microphones, a plethora of
recorders (Sound Devices, Deva, Aaton, ...) and... Canare (or Mogami)
cable.  Actually, if you want to kill your inner audiophile, a *very*
popular board for cart recording in big movies is the 16 Mackie board.
 Yes, Mackie.  Reviled even by home studio enthusiasts.

Ditto with music recording.  Some types of music (orchestral, etc.)
actually do use mic brands like Schoeps and the fancy Sennheiser mics
(the MKH series), and super high end preamps that cost $1k/channel,
but most don't.  Not that they use crummy equipment, but sometimes
that Shure SM57 sounds better on a snare drum than a $2k Schoeps (or
however much they're selling for today) or an $Xk Neumann .

But then again, I'm a physicist.  Electricity and magnetism are
paramount in my field of physics so I'm familiar with the physics.  I
just don't believe the hype surrounding a lot of audiophile products.
I don't include in that things like Bryston amps, etc., but the kind
of stuff like super expensive power cables, $100/ft speaker wire,
little trestles to hold you cables off the floor, $500 wooden knobs,
etc.  Sorry if I offended anyone on this list...

In reply to: Message from gregj_lorenzo at hotmail.com (Greg Lorenzo) ([Leica] OT: Audiophile Question)
Message from tgray at 125px.com (Tim Gray) ([Leica] OT: Audiophile Question)
Message from jbm at jbm.org (Jeff Moore) ([Leica] OT: Audiophile Question)
Message from tgray at 125px.com (Tim Gray) ([Leica] OT: Audiophile Question)