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discovered I had a bad, but very brand-new mic cable. We switched it out with another Mic cable, and the line noise is gone."

There are few things worse than chasing down a noise and finding it to be the brand new cables—as I found out reconditioning a turntable for my kids and connecting with set of hookup wires I bought off Amazon because I wanted them next day. Grrr…

Buying cable can be quite frustrating these days. Many brands one has never heard of, all looking great but rebranding crap as above. Tried and true brands such as ProCo not being available in music stores anymore, way overpriced boutique cables making nonsense promises, the list goes on…

I now buy custom starquad cables made by Sescom through Markertek. Nine lengths in any of eight colors—a 25’ mic cable is $27.49. Some colors are in stock; others may take up to two weeks. Only downside is the lead time. They have thousands of standard options but truly custom cables are available with a minor upcharge. Markertek started off as a broadcast supply house and is the go-to for most large studios etc. I discovered them about 50 years ago

As I’ve posted before, Starquad is actually quieter than 2-conductor balanced wire but only in an electrically noisy environment such as mine in the middle of the SiliconValley. If you can’t hear a difference, you didn’t need it—I do but, at these prices, I see no need to use anything else. Sescom uses Canare, Belden and Mogami if you need really thin cable. I made some starquad power cables (required in certain industrial applications) but they made no difference in my studio.

BIAB 2024 Audiophile Mac
24Core/60CoreGPU M2 MacStudioUltra/8TB/192GB Sequoia, M1 MBAir, 2012 MBP
Digital Performer11, LogicPro, Finale27/Dorico/Encore/SmartScorePro64/Notion6 /Overture5