All too often, integral audio accessories play second fiddle to the equipment stars of the show, and reasonably so. The choice of microphone, guitar, bass, keyboard, or amplifier makes the most direct impact on your sound after the talent of the performer. However, as any live sound or studio pro will tell you, you will only sound as good as the weakest link in your audio chain, and grabbing “just any old cable” can come back to haunt you, usually at the most critical time.
When planning a new live rig or studio set up, it will pay dividends to budget for cabling needs from the outset, rather than being forced to go with the cheapest solution at the last minute, which will not do your gear justice, and likely fail after a short time. RapcoHorizon is a well-known name for pro-audio cabling, and has a reputation providing high-quality cables that will not eat up half of your budget. Roadhog Brand cables are a testament to that reputation, and with good reason. Available in 1/4" instrument and XLR versions, this line is geared toward live use (as the name implies), but will also be at home in any project or home studio setting.
The cables in the 1/4" instrument cables in the Roadhog Brand are unbalanced and designed for Hi-Z connection jobs, such as connecting guitars, basses, or keyboards to amplifiers or DI inputs. Starting from the inside and working our way out, the Roadhog instrument line features pure copper conductor and shield construction, with a low capacitance that allows for a wide frequency response. The challenge with rugged cables is to provide the proper shielding (to reduce or eliminate RF interference) without sacrificing flexibility, and the Roadhog line does just that by employing a serve shield process during construction. The cable’s outer jacket is made of durable PVC that maintains its flexibility despite its strength. The hand-soldered connection to its 1/4" TS connectors is covered in heat shrink, to provide additional strain relief, which is a very important feature, as the connector and strain relief are common points of failure for many cables. The 1/4" connectors themselves are gold plated for consistency and quality performance. Roadhog instrument cables are available in many common lengths, including 10, 15, and 20 feet.
The Roadhog Brand microphone cable line boasts a similar construction concept as the instrument line, combining quality performance with ruggedness intended for the stage, but its feature set is customized to the needs of a good XLR cable. Again, looking at the cable from the inside out, the cables in the Roadhog microphone line start with dual 24-gauge-center pure copper conductors, and then utilize the same serve shield shielding procedure (once again employing pure copper) as the instrument cables, to assure both low-noise operation and flexibility. The cable’s jacket is made from matte PVC that assures not only durability, but aids in flexibility as well, which is something most engineers (and even more likely, their interns) will appreciate when they have to wrap the cables up for storage. As for the XLR connectors themselves, Rapcohorizon uses Neutrik brand connectors. Like the instrument cables, the Roadhog microphone cables are available in a variety of lengths, including 10, 20, 25, 30, and 50 feet.
For further improvement in sound quality and RF rejection, the Silverhog line features the same construction as the RoadHog cables, but employs 95% pure silver-plated spiral copper shielding and silver-plated conductors. Both the instrument and microphone Roadhog and Silverhog lines come backed with a limited lifetime warranty from Rapcohorizon.
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