Hey! I was wondering if the Mogami Platinum is truly a step up from the Gold? I use all Golds now and they sound great. Just wondering if anyone has tried/owned the Platinum and if it's worth the $$$! Thnaks

My bet would say no.

Hahahahaha. Joke thread

My bet is that you will hear a distinct improvement which will immediately disappear in a blind test.

Damn!

If your looking for an improvement you can hear look else where, if you want to spend your money and brag about having the top Mogami go for it!

First step I would take would be to run some null tests with your Golds and some cheaper cables.
It was pretty, um, informative when I did that.

If you really want quality, I know a guy who builds custom, hand-soldered, 100% EU made cables. They start at about €500 for a TR to TR 1 meter cable. Needles to say, the sound is a lot more crisp and warm, but also much more punchy and tight. Let me know, if you're interested, 'cause he doesn't operate "commercially", custom builds for friends only.

One of the best things I've ever read on GS. You could probably post this on 50% of the threads here.

Nice try but no cigar.

I know a guy who can make cables like that for a mere $400 US.
He actually lives in my house.No shit.

I'll do it for $250.

Yes, in an ideal monitoring situation, you can surely hear a difference between the Mogami Gold and Platinum. But if your overall gear chain and monitoring isn't truly top-notch, you may not realize much of a benefit from Gold to Platinum. The Golds are still excellent and are better than just about any other cable out there. If you do want the "very best" though, the Platinum is indeed a step up. The resolution and dynamics that get through are stunning. Incredibly pure signal. But again, you have to ask yourself if you even need this very high degree of fidelity. Many folks do not have the gear or the ears to be able to appreciate it so they choose to just poke fun at the concept. So ignore the haters. Choose what makes you happy. When I record, I use Platinums exclusively, and have Golds as back-up and for stage use etc. But if for some reason a Platinum is not handy for recording, I'll use a Gold in a pinch and it's just fine. In the grand scheme of things, yes, I'll admit, this is all somewhat a splitting of hairs. But there IS a blindfolded observable difference, it's not just hocus pocus.

Gotham AES cable > Mogami.
The golds are star quad, which are not the best approach for fidelity. Better for long runs and problematic environments.

If €500 cables are what he does for friends I'd hate to see what he does for enemies!

Do you guys realize that your credibility fades as you write posts about the cables making your recordings sound better?

It appears as though the "Platinum" line is just guitar and instrument unbalanced cable? The model they list is W3302 which is exclusive to their retail packaged line from what I can tell, no bulk / wholesale on the market.

I do not think this is related to the QUAD GOLD cable people buy for line and microphone use in pre-packaged Mogami.

We have compared W2549, a far more affordable Mogami cable, with W2534 QUAD Mogami for balanced line and microphone use and have found W2549 to be the superior cable in clarity and sound at any length.

Unfortunately the QUAD stuff tends to dull the audio a bit, more noticeable at longer lengths. Mogami chose it for their GOLD line because it is their most expensive, not because it sounds the best.

Go with W2549 and save money and experience better audio, if you seek balanced line or mic cables.

War

I'll just add that in my above post, I was referring to instrument cables specifically.

Will "high-fidelity" instrument cables make a recording sound better? Maybe, maybe not, way too many variables involved. What you gain from the instrument cable might be erased by other effects or short-comings in the chain.

But, go ahead and take an assortment of instrument cables, a Mogami Gold, Platinum, along with some other common, cheaper brands... and do a careful comparison test using top-notch monitoring... blindfolded... and you will hear a difference. And you will pick the Platinum as your favorite and you will want it.

Can a great recording be done using a mediocre instrument cable? Sure! But, "it depends"... many variables involved. Can a high-fidelity cable allow a great recording to be that much better, given that everything else involved is of top-notch quality? Yes.

People that don't wish to spend the time, effort and expense to actually check out the really good cables apparently find it comforting to just dismiss all this cable stuff as hogwash. I've done several, careful blindfold tests with different, talented engineers and the cables could be identified every time with almost 100% accuracy... and the Platinums were always top choice.

Bottom line... there IS a difference... and the Platinums DO offer greater fidelity. I consider this a fact. The question then becomes, is the degree of fidelity increase of the better cable actually worth it to the individual? For those who can barely hear a difference or can't hear a difference (due to either a weakness in their gear, monitoring or hearing), the answer is no. But no need to dismiss it all as hogwash just because you are not able to reap the benefits.

In my (admittedly limited) understanding, there is more substance to unbalanced cables sounding different than there is to balanced cables sounding different.

For my purposes, I was at one point curious about costlier mic cables and if they truly offered a sonic improvement. I bought some Mogami Gold and ran null tests with my middle of the road mic cables. They nulled. I returned them.

Surely you're a salesman.. for mogami or monster cable. Most converters can't even be reliably picked out in shootouts 100% of the time. Cables of equal length will have different resistances and noise rejection sure.. but to imply changing your cables will bring you to a new level of sonic accuracy is just...either this is a trolling attempt or you assume everyone else is recording with coat hangers twisted together and covered in aluminum foil.
Reap the benefits? Lolz
Sent from my SCH-S950C

Eh, sorry you can bash him or me as a "salesman" if you like but I have to say it, there is a difference.

Luckily you do not HAVE to upgrade a cable that WORKS and nobody is pushing anybody here.

We listen to stuff all the time, critically. We then perform null tests.

Cables matter in different styles, lengths and quality.

They sound different in varying degrees.

If you're not worried about it, don't worry about it.

It's not really fair to accuse somebody of being a plant because like us and so many others, he has heard a difference.

War

He's talking about instrument cables here. Unbalanced instrument cables. Totally different animal, and readily observable in a real world environment with just a guitar and an amp by anyone, not just "audiophiles" or self-proclaimed golden-ears types. The difference is in the top end, and has to do with cable capacitance.

For balanced mic lines and such, the only difference I've noticed is build quality.

+1. For instrument cables, there are definitely differences. You don't need to be an audiophool to hear them. Also, expensive doesn't equal better. Sometimes I prefer a cheaper guitar cable because it rolls off some of the top end. Wouldn't want the same property on a mic cable, but on a guitar cable, it can be preferable.

For balanced mic cables, well, I'm not sure, but I don't doubt you. I know enough about cables to know that it's more useful to standardize on one type than it is to swap back and forth between them, no matter what you use. So, my solution has been to always use Mogami W2549, just because it's reasonably priced, is a high quality cable, and has been available for a long time. Whether it sounds different than the few other cables in my pile, ehh, I don't know. I've never swapped out a mic cable that was working because another sounded better.

One thing is for sure, though. Nobody ever cancelled a recording gig because they found out the studio had the "wrong" cable.

No, I'm not a salesman. Just reporting on my first-hand experiences.

I too once thought that the concept of "high-end" cables actually "sounding better" was false. But after I took the time to listen for myself, I learned that it is true. Again, I'm talking about unbalanced instrument cables here.

If you really feel so strongly against my claim, why don't you take a listen for yourself before you make accusations? Have you conducted a shoot-out of your own?

As others have stated above, differences CAN be heard. Subtle, but detectable. Again, it's a personal decision as to whether or not the degree of subtlety makes it worthwhile. But if you have good monitoring and good hearing, the differences are indeed obvious.

Yes, you'll detect differences in frequency response, but also in dynamics. Cheaper cables have more of a "saturated, compressed" type of quality to them... and you might actually prefer that. I happen to enjoy pure, authentic dynamics. If I wish to saturate / compress, I'll do that with outboard gear.

Also, a high-end cable will yield, what I call, a "higher-resolution" signal. The signal sounds more detailed and refined, extremely accurate and "present". By comparison, a "lesser" cable will yield a slightly more "blurry" or "cloudy" signal, darker, dirtier. None of the "good, expensive" cables I tested were blurry or cloudy, but a few standard ones were, even ones of known, respected brand names.

Now, if you are going to feed your electric guitar signal into a super dirty amp with tons of overdrive, multiple effects pedals, through a super saturating, distorting mic pre-amp etc, then likely you do not need the pristine fidelity that a Mogami Platinum cable provides. After all that processing, the subtle refinement the good cable offers will be completely lost. But in some cases, depending on what you're recording and how you're treating it, etc, the extra fidelity of the good cable surely can be enjoyed.

Again, it's all a situational and personal decision. If you choose to not believe it without even hearing for yourself, that's also a personal decision and is fine. Believe whatever you like. But in that case, at least refrain from posting false accusations.

In my experience (again this is my own experience) I feel that as others have stated they dont notice as much of a difference with mix cables other then build quality (how long they last, connecter feel, etc) Ive tried alot of junky and high end mic cables and just cant seem to justify spending a ton....but at the same time i dont buy bottom barrel either because they either stop working or the connections stink.
For instrument cables i tend to use monster stuff...as well as for my speaker cables....i usually go with slightly higher end stuff there (although nothing outrageous) as i have felt that using a decent instrument cable provides a better sound then those 6.99 specials at your local music store...

To be clear, I think there is a difference in cables, but you don't have to spend TONS of money to diminishing returns and beyond to get a REALLY GOOD CABLE.

For example, I have an Epiphone that came with the most laughable guitar cable I have ever seen. Literally the cheesiest, dinkiest crapper of a cable imaginable. However, I don't believe you need to spend triple digits to get a great guitar cable, let alone $500 a meter. I have also seen $700 HDMI cords, which frankly, I view the same way.

Yup, we heard entry level Monster cable that sounded better than expensive quad designs...and Mogami's W2552 (very thin jacket) is so close to W2549 it's not even funny and I recommend it all the time for patching of gear. W2552 is extremely affordable and sounds great.

W2549 does edge it out though in clarity, in our listening tests.

The one thing nobody wants to hear in this thread is that the cable that sounded the best and also nulled the hardest against the original signal was VOVOX which is very expensive cable. Still, nice to know that if you are going to drop that kind of coin that it is a winner.

We slapped a pair on our monitoring chain and there they stay.

War

Just out of curiosity what speakers/interface do you all have that allows you to hear a difference in cable quality? I'm not going to say it doesn't exist just because I haven't personally heard it.

You are all fools. You should have taken my earlier offer. Well, too late.
However I do offer platinum grade HDMI cables, they don't come cheap, but your image resolution and color depth will increase dramaticaly.
Also for anyone interested, I'll also sell you caned quality air, to improve the sound of you're wireless transmitters.

On a serious note, there should be a sticky, explaining the physics behind a cable, so that this kind of threads don't happen. They always seem to wind up in an youtube-style trolling.

If one can successfully distinguish cables in a blind test (speaker or line level, guitar cables are a whole different ball game) there is a million dollars on offer somewhere.

I wouldn't make any claims about what someone else is or isn't hearing, but one's very first move should be a null test. If it passes that (never happened for me with balanced cables but it's not like I do them all the time) then it's blind test time.

It's not like anyone has to wonder about it in any kind of foggy way. Just test the cables and test yourself.