"Cheap ass" cables and build quality. Good or Bad.

[antcollinet]

I couldn't find a better thread - so this one is specifically for discussion of build/manufacturing quality of cables at the "sensible" end of the price spectrum.

Good and Bad examples welcome. Anyone trying to divert the discussion even tangentially towards sound quality will be black holed into the time vortex. Similarly "snake oil" cable discussion should be taken to the already appropriate threads. The aim is to guide people towards cables which are good - and those that should be avoided.

For my immediate example. Here is me trying to cheap out by buying one of those "brands" on amazon, that you've never heard of, and often can't even pronounce. What can go wrong with a cable? I thought. Well clearly the manufacturer had no idea what materials to use, despite the claim "gold coated for corrosion resistance", or something like that. These have been used for about 18months, and have then sat on a shelf in my (dry, heated) media room for about 2 years. Imagine this going on inside your expensive audio gear. Amazon review has been left.

 

[Sokel]

I have an example:



Wiring goes as:

Blue and Red wires soldered together as hot (+)
Shield split in two with one half soldered as cold (-) and the other half as shield (G) .

Can't think of a use case for this.

 

[threni]

I couldn't find a better thread - so this one is specifically for discussion of build/manufacturing quality of cables at the "sensible" end of the price spectrum.

Good and Bad examples welcome. Anyone trying to divert the discussion even tangentially towards sound quality will be black holed into the time vortex. Similarly "snake oil" cable discussion should be taken to the already appropriate threads. The aim is to guide people towards cables which are good - and those that should be avoided.

For my immediate example. Here is me trying to cheap out by buying one of those "brands" on amazon, that you've never heard of, and often can't even pronounce. What can go wrong with a cable? I thought. Well clearly the manufacturer had no idea what materials to use, despite the claim "gold coated for corrosion resistance", or something like that. These have been used for about 18months, and have then sat on a shelf in my (dry, heated) media room for about 2 years. Imagine this going on inside your expensive audio gear. Amazon review has been left.

View attachment 431187

Clearly some sort of sacrificial alloy. Looks messy but the good news is your amp is not going to sink!

 

[Doodski]

I sold tons and tons of gear and near everything came with those thin cheap RCA cables with chrome plating and thin copper cores. These are the same cables in use decades later and found in junk drawers/boxes after decades and still in use. What gives?

 

[Sokel]

On top of that there's a reason that the devices that use decent female jack connectors have the option to have easy access in them from the back side.
It's not unusual for useless jack plugs loosing their tip

 

[D2013]

Perfect examples of how their is always a happy middle ground when it comes to price and quality.

 

[D2013]

These are the same cables in use decades later and found in junk drawers/boxes after decades and still in use. What gives?

I'd guess high humidity. And a very poor choice of alloy.

 

[antcollinet]

I sold tons and tons of gear and near everything came with those thin cheap RCA cables with chrome plating and thin copper cores. These are the same cables in use decades later and found in junk drawers/boxes after decades and still in use. What gives?

Exactly - I still have some of those that are around 45 years old. Still perfectly serviceable. Though, probably nickel over copper or nickel over brass, rather than chrome.

 

[ZolaIII]

Normal, good quality cables don't cost much and there's really no need to skimp on that. So getting good one's and not thinking about it is worth the effort and on the long run. Prefer normal manufacturers who provide full specification and one's with best availability and pricing to where you are.

 

[Barry_Sound]

I couldn't find a better thread - so this one is specifically for discussion of build/manufacturing quality of cables at the "sensible" end of the price spectrum.

Good and Bad examples welcome. Anyone trying to divert the discussion even tangentially towards sound quality will be black holed into the time vortex. Similarly "snake oil" cable discussion should be taken to the already appropriate threads. The aim is to guide people towards cables which are good - and those that should be avoided.

For my immediate example. Here is me trying to cheap out by buying one of those "brands" on amazon, that you've never heard of, and often can't even pronounce. What can go wrong with a cable? I thought. Well clearly the manufacturer had no idea what materials to use, despite the claim "gold coated for corrosion resistance", or something like that. These have been used for about 18months, and have then sat on a shelf in my (dry, heated) media room for about 2 years. Imagine this going on inside your expensive audio gear. Amazon review has been left.

View attachment 431187

But … did you measure them?
Joke aside, thats why I buy brand cables even if someone dares to make a profit.

 

[diablo]

I buy pretty ordinary cables. I have a large box of odd cables, which I don't have immediate use for, and which have been stored in a damp, cold garage for five years. None of them have gone like that.

 

[Sokel]

Good or bad, no cable should be connected if not measured first.
There's a gazillion things that can go wrong and end up shorting things, a resistance measurement in parallel and in series is mandatory.

 

[antcollinet]

I'd guess high humidity.

my (dry, heated) media room

We are not renowned for high humidity here in good old NW England.

And as I say, I have (probably) 100s of other interconnects (not only audio), many stored in much worse conditions. None of them have corroded.

So

And a very poor choice of alloy.

This - and inadequate plating.

 

[mhardy6647]

I couldn't find a better thread - so this one is specifically for discussion of build/manufacturing quality of cables at the "sensible" end of the price spectrum.

Good and Bad examples welcome. Anyone trying to divert the discussion even tangentially towards sound quality will be black holed into the time vortex. Similarly "snake oil" cable discussion should be taken to the already appropriate threads. The aim is to guide people towards cables which are good - and those that should be avoided.

For my immediate example. Here is me trying to cheap out by buying one of those "brands" on amazon, that you've never heard of, and often can't even pronounce. What can go wrong with a cable? I thought. Well clearly the manufacturer had no idea what materials to use, despite the claim "gold coated for corrosion resistance", or something like that. These have been used for about 18months, and have then sat on a shelf in my (dry, heated) media room for about 2 years. Imagine this going on inside your expensive audio gear. Amazon review has been left.

View attachment 431187

Were you storing those for eventual use on a pirate radio station ship in the North Sea someplace?
Just curious.


EDIT: PS On the other hand, that attractive braid jacketing the cables is holding up real nicely... so there's that.

 

[Astoneroad]

On top of that there's a reason that the devices that use decent female jack connectors have the option to have easy access in them from the back side.
It's not unusual for useless jack plugs loosing their tip

Are we still discussing cables here?

 

[Waxx]

Good cables are very simple, use real copper multistranded (preferable OFC) cable of the right size (gauge or mm) with not esotheric isloation and user quality connectors (Neutrik is th most known brand of those). QED, Blue Jeans, Mogami, Canare, ... all make good cables that are not necesairly extreme expensive. But you can find cheaper also locally, brandless or local brands.

Just avoid CCA (copper clad aluminium) as they are not that durable and have a higher impendance. It's not a disaster if you have them, but it's better not. Most generic OFC copper cable is good and also not so expensive. I pay for 1.5mm stranded OFC speaker cable about 1€/m when buying them on spools. Good connectors outside Speakon cost less than 10€/Piece (often even less than 5€). Speakon connectors are a bit more pricey, but are always multichannel (so not more expensive per channel). A finished cable of 1M long that goes over 50€ is by definition overpriced. And many good are way cheaper than that.

 

[blueone]

I understand the backlash against hyper-high-priced audio/video cables. When I worked in Irvine, CA, every time I exited the highway to get to my office I saw the Audioquest building nearby, and I'm pretty sure I snarled and chuckled every time. But I think many people here are going overboard in this backlash, and trying to justify the lowest possible price. I've used Blue Jeans Cables for many years, which are certainly not low-priced cables, but they make them to my specifications, have very high build quality (in my experience), they look good enough to sit out in the living room without embarrassing my wife, and don't include any technobabble BS to insult my intelligence. I definitely could have paid less, especially if I made the cables myself, but I've become too lazy in my old age. Considering the additional cost per day of Blue Jeans over ten years, I'd rather have great reliable cables than the couple of hundred dollars or so I would have saved. Why stress about lowest possible cost? Because the audio industry has attracted a lot of cable charlatans over the years, and we have to rebel? (Especially in the context of the cost of most of the audio equipment owned by people who post on this forum.)

 

[Roland68]

I couldn't find a better thread - so this one is specifically for discussion of build/manufacturing quality of cables at the "sensible" end of the price spectrum.

Good and Bad examples welcome. Anyone trying to divert the discussion even tangentially towards sound quality will be black holed into the time vortex. Similarly "snake oil" cable discussion should be taken to the already appropriate threads. The aim is to guide people towards cables which are good - and those that should be avoided.

For my immediate example. Here is me trying to cheap out by buying one of those "brands" on amazon, that you've never heard of, and often can't even pronounce. What can go wrong with a cable? I thought. Well clearly the manufacturer had no idea what materials to use, despite the claim "gold coated for corrosion resistance", or something like that. These have been used for about 18months, and have then sat on a shelf in my (dry, heated) media room for about 2 years. Imagine this going on inside your expensive audio gear. Amazon review has been left.

View attachment 431187

I have never seen anything this extreme in 40 years.

In a basement in our company, various copper and brass alloys are stored under poor conditions that have taken at least 20-25 years to look like this.

I have been carrying cables with cheap brass plugs with and without gold plating for at least 28 years and none of them have ever tarnished. They were definitely not always stored optimally.

- Not every gold-colored coating is gold plating. The manufacturer often doesn't even know what the supplier is doing.
- If the nickel layer under the gold plating was forgotten or was faulty, the gold plating can diffuse into the plug material within a few weeks/months and the plug material would then be unprotected against oxidation.
- The green tarnish at least shows that it is a brass/copper alloy or pure copper.

 

[Sokel]

Are we still discussing cables here?

I will laugh forever with this.

 

[Robin L]

With speaker wire I'm only concerned with the gauge - I've bought most of my speaker wire at hardware stores. Don't think termination counts for anything, really. Just twist the ends of the bare wire and attach to the terminals. With line-level interconnect termination counts. Back around 2015 Amvets (a thrift store in Fresno CA.) had a lot of Monster Cable interconnects. They were going for around $3 a pair. I bought a batch of those as I was using a surround sound AVR. Only kept one one meter pair and a 6' single cable, have been using them ever since. Right now, my system is 2.1. I got a 1' Amazon Basic pair to connect my Topping E30 to my Topping L30, use a 6' Monster cable (from Amvets) hooked up to my sub. I used to have some Blue Jeans cable speaker wires when I had the 5.1 system, gave that to my stepson when I downsized.