Hi All
So its snowing I'm indoors and i've not much to think about. I've been to a few amazing concerts recently and looked at all the rigging. All the metres and metres of Speaker Cables I saw at the venue I presumed must have cost an absolute bomb. I came home and googled concert equipment and found all cables seemingly very very cheap. Turns out speaker cables and microphone cables for concert equipment are really quite cheap. So another thought came to me - if the domestic hi fi market are being convinced to budget 10% for cables (thats about £250 in my case) why doesn;t this rule apply to the proffessional market as well?
So I did a bit more googling - this time for some recording studio equipment with the preconception that if the domestic market are spending 10% on cables to play back their music, surely the proffessional market are using this sort of budget (or more) to RECORD the music? Turns out not so - you can buy 250 foot of professional microphone cable for about £100! 4 metres of interconnect cables from a professional store don;t go above about £20. The list is endless. I just don;t get it. The home consumer seems to be being sold extremly expensive over priced cables when compared to the professional market.
I happen to know for example, PMC wholeheartedly recommend Van Damme speaker cables - especially when they setup for recording studios. They weigh in at around £3 per metre!! How can van damme (In their own words) "Suppliers to the audio, video and broadcast industrial markets" charge this sort of money when compared to other manufacturers prices go absoltuely through the roof for the domestic market?
You may have noticed I do write this with some sceptisicm about very expensive cables / interconnects! So - am i right about this? Have i just not looked hard enough about what the trade / industry spend on their cables? Am I drawing correct comparisons? Or am I simply just talking an absolute load of misinformed pish?
hehe - maybe i can start a debate?!
Thanks for reading my ramblings / rants / comments!
So its snowing I'm indoors and i've not much to think about. I've been to a few amazing concerts recently and looked at all the rigging. All the metres and metres of Speaker Cables I saw at the venue I presumed must have cost an absolute bomb. I came home and googled concert equipment and found all cables seemingly very very cheap. Turns out speaker cables and microphone cables for concert equipment are really quite cheap. So another thought came to me - if the domestic hi fi market are being convinced to budget 10% for cables (thats about £250 in my case) why doesn;t this rule apply to the proffessional market as well?
So I did a bit more googling - this time for some recording studio equipment with the preconception that if the domestic market are spending 10% on cables to play back their music, surely the proffessional market are using this sort of budget (or more) to RECORD the music? Turns out not so - you can buy 250 foot of professional microphone cable for about £100! 4 metres of interconnect cables from a professional store don;t go above about £20. The list is endless. I just don;t get it. The home consumer seems to be being sold extremly expensive over priced cables when compared to the professional market.
I happen to know for example, PMC wholeheartedly recommend Van Damme speaker cables - especially when they setup for recording studios. They weigh in at around £3 per metre!! How can van damme (In their own words) "Suppliers to the audio, video and broadcast industrial markets" charge this sort of money when compared to other manufacturers prices go absoltuely through the roof for the domestic market?
You may have noticed I do write this with some sceptisicm about very expensive cables / interconnects! So - am i right about this? Have i just not looked hard enough about what the trade / industry spend on their cables? Am I drawing correct comparisons? Or am I simply just talking an absolute load of misinformed pish?
hehe - maybe i can start a debate?!
Thanks for reading my ramblings / rants / comments!