ORIGINAL: mwd

ORIGINAL: rumleymusic ~ Speaking of boycotting cable manufacturers. Has anyone here tried making their own cable? I have been thinking of seeing how well that would work out.

Recently did just that with about 4 billion miles of studio cable. Purchased Canare cable and G&H Connectors. Also used some Neutrik connectors.

It was actually quite therapeutic. Saved a good chunk-o-$$$ and got custom cable lengths, as needed, which turned out much cleaner.

My one tip or trick is to get really good solder. Makes a diff.

Best info I've found is this Chart from Rane to show you any hookup you'll encounter.

Big +1 on all points.

I wired my own studio as well. Been making my own cables for decades, and I agree about the therapeutic quality! I'm not sure why, but the whole DIY vibe is really satisfying... when you're done and you know that the sound is coming from something that you created, both materially and musically, it just adds to the whole good feeling. Luthiers must get this feeling multiplied by 1000!

Another tip: Get a good iron, like a Weller, and keep the tip clean. If you've never done it before, then it's a good idea to practice on some cheap connectors with some scrap wire. Just google on soldering technique and you'll find the tips that you need. A good supplier of tools and parts is MCM Electronics (http://www.mcminone.com).

That chart from Rane is a great reference too.

Whenever I do a lot of soldering, like copper pipes etc I use a soldering flux:

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/chem03/chem03278.htm

Dunno about brandnames over there, for copper we use this here:

http://www.mkfix.nl/default.asp?pageid=15&artdetail=6B015023+UL

A good brand of multicore solder will include rosin flux right in the mix, so no added flux is needed in that case. I prefer the narrower gauges (24 or less) because they melt faster and flow more quickly. That's better for the components and wires that are being connected... less heating.

You really shouldn't need more than 30 Watts on the iron, unless it's a mammoth speaker wire connection.

Edit: BTW, rolling your own cables and connections is a great way to boycott the Monster!

A good brand of multicore solder will include rosin flux right in the mix

Yep. Might be an eyeoper to some though, exactly WHY that works so much better.

[late edit for typo]

I wished we had a judicial system that didn't sleep with some of these big corporations like monster cable and Volkswagen.

There should be steadfast copyright laws that followed common protocol and common sense.

Like sure you can trademark or copyright Monster Cable but you have no rights to "monster". Or yes you can trademark Volkswagen. No you can't trademark VW... it's part of the english alphabet, no you can't trademark "bug" it's part of common language but sure if you want to trademark "VW Bug"... go ahead.

It's real simple... if the context existed before you did... then you can't own it.

ORIGINAL: mwd

I wished we had a judicial system that didn't sleep with some of these big corporations like monster cable and Volkswagen...

Well, in fairness to the courts, this particular case is not really one of judicial corruption, per se. In fact, Monster Cable has gone out of its way to *AVOID* taking its own lawsuits to court.

These are shakedown cases. The whole idea is that even though these lawsuits don't have a chance of success, the defendents will find it cheaper to "buy" the rights to use the word Monster for a few grand than to actually fight the case and deal with the hassle of proving that they already have the right to use it. So the whole racket actually sidesteps the courts altogether.

The "flaw" in the American judicial system that is being exploited here (if there is one), is not corruption, but rather protections of the right to sue. In some countries, if you file a frivilous or wrongful lawsuit against someone else and lose, you may have to pay their legal expenses, plus reimburse the taxpayers for wasting the court's time. In the US it is difficult to punish someone for inappropriate use of the courts in these ways so it is sometimes worthwhile to knowingly file a lawsuit that you know you have no chance of winning in order to basically try and extort a settlement from the defendant, who doesn't want to go to court.

Believe it or not, this protection of the right to sue is most often seen as a protection for the little guy, who might be reluctant to seek redress against the wealthy or powerful if losing the suit means he'll have to pay for the defendant's million-dollar lawyers.

Cheers.

Yes you are correct. File a frivolous lawsuit and force someone to travel out-of-state or hire a lawyer in a state they have never even been in to defend themselves or default.

Is most definitely a flaw.

Just googled "boycott monster cable" to see what would pop up. 237,000 references, that's what. Clearly, the movement to boycott this company is picking up steam.

This page lists email addresses for the executives of Monster Cable: Monster Greed

Labor unions have taken up the cause. Apparently, the company doesn't think any more of their employees than they do of their customers: Justice for Monster Cable Workers

Saw they also had a youtube vid on that worker page, and then something else caught my eye, so I did a quick search - apparently MC is has been on a extensive promo-trip lately, and they got quite a few big names for the MonsterMusic blah-blah of theirs:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=monster+cable&search=

Maybe time for some Artists Awareness Alert on this cr*p. Slash, Kerry King, Santana, Al Jarreau - pretty big names, all helping to sell hot air.

I've been vehemently anti-monster since using their bulk snake cable I referenced in the other thread. Was always leery of them before as every chunk of their ad-copy I'd seen sounded like snake oil. Also have a couple friends that were 'on the inside'. Some of the tales I had heard were numbing.

Joe & Dave's points about monster cables breaking female connectors in guitars were well documented. My understanding at the time (around '00 /'01-ish) was that Ken Smith Basses had a warning on their website that using Monster would void the warranty with respect to the jack, and that Mackie mixers were prone to having the tip connector on their jacks torn out due to improper tapering on the monster cable end.

The power strips (around $50 for a sl weber style) would short out if they were dropped. Not a great design for something advertised for stage use. Their rack-mount 'power centers' had non-standard hole spacing and had to be redesigned.

We have some of their 'balanced configuration' cabling at work (dot-com leftovers ). Stereo RCA and composite video bundled together. No shielding on the audio lines carries through to ground.

Had also heard their 1st gen of their iPod car-adaptors put out too high a voltage and would smoke the iPods connected to them.

Best part of all, their cabling (and probably the remainder of their product line) is Chinese sourced. Yep, for that premium price, it's not even domestically produced. Amazing.