Snake Shopping

[Fieldstone]

The EWI stuff I find to be hit or miss. The connectors of the TRS snakes are knock-offs of Neutrik and I've had a few ends fail (found out they had a problem with some batches). Some other items I've purchased from them have been great though.

[philper]

EWI (from Audiopile) has been fine for us, but we are not doing tours--use is occasional and just by us. I don't think they would work well in rental.... Good price though, and not junk.

phil p

[Rick Sutton]

Originally Posted by WVUtubadude

Useless in that they give means to become a dealer, but not how to find a dealer.

Becoming a Conquest dealer is a very helpful thing if you do a reasonable amount of wiring/interconnecting.
I have been a dealer for about 30 years and they are my "go to" for many items.
I have Conquest cables, connectors, wall plates and snakes that have seen tough duty for these thirty years that are still in daily use.

[rwhealey]

Originally Posted by talbe1019

Conquest is very similar to Redco. They use Gepco cable and you get your chioce of Switchcraft or Neutrik connectors. They are made to order in the USA. If I am not mistaken EWI is made in South Korea and uses look alike Neutrik connectors. I am not saying that the EWI snake is not good, but definitely not the same source as EWI, and I believe the build quality is better. That said, the EWI snake price is great for what you get.

I know that you posted in February and this topic got bumped, but EWI now offers snakes with Neutrik connectors:

Link:
NEUTRIK EQUIPPED SNAKES

[Mark A. Jay]

Originally Posted by jwgreen6

My band has a 24x4 ProCo snake that's at least 10 years old. In August 2009, we had a number of problems with the snake. It turned out that 3 of the 4 TRS return plugs were broken, causing ground loop problems. Some of the stage box XLR's were missing the lock release and a couple of channels did not work.

Living in Fort Wayne has a few advantages. One is it's the home of Sweetwater Sound. Second, we're only a couple of hours from ProCo's headquarters in Kalamazoo, MI.

The snake was dropped off at Sweetwater Monday afternoon to see what they could do with it. They took one look at it and immediately shipped it to ProCo that same Monday. I called ProCo to let them know the issues I had with the snake and to expect it soon for repairs. I also stated my band has a gig coming up Friday and need it back asap. I asked them about the warranty and I was told "As long as we made it, we'll take care of it regardless of how old it is."

Not only did ProCo replace all 4 TRS plugs, they replaced most, if not all, XLR sockets on the stage box! By the way, I had the snake back in my hands Wednesday afternoon. Dropped off at Sweetwater Monday and returned to Sweetwater fully repaired 48 hours later. Now THAT'S service.

I have not experienced such service from any other company, so I may be a little biased.

If you need a multi-channel analog snake and value top-flight customer service, give ProCo a call. I'm sure you won't be disappointed. Kudos to Sweetwater, too, for their first-class service.

Although I do not prsently own any snakes, I can say this about both ProCo and Sweetwater - neither have ever let me down. I have tons of ProCo cables, all of which I purchased from Sweetwater (great people to deal with by the way).

I don't know that I would go the CAT5 route for the reasons cited by some of the others; I am an old-school guy, meaning that I believe in STP (not just Stone Temple Pilots, but shielded twisted pair) and stranded wire - far more fogiving in terms of breaks due to either cold-working (bending the cable back and forth) or localized pressure than can sever a cable.

Someone else (I forgot who) mentioned how the shielding / twisting can vary a lot (which is true), but the main factors in any balanced line are the facts that they are twisted (which puts them in essentially the 'same' physical space, and as such, ensures that any currents induced into the cables will be of equal magnitude and phase) and of course, shielded.

It's my contention that the twisting is responsible for most of the common mode rejection for line frequency EM components (in North America, 60, 120, 180... Hz) while the shileding, though effective for line frequency (and harmonics of it) EM is extremely effective for helping to rejecting RF components (i.e. 'hash' from triac-based light dimmer packs) which can, in a poorly-designed interface, cause some pretty high frequency stuff to be passed on to downstream gear. Usually this is not a problem as *most* designers work in some form of RF attenuation (such as chokes on the inputs).

In any event, I can say that in all my years of live sound, instrumentation, recording, and distribution system work, STP has NEVER let me down from an induced noise point of view.

So, in my b ook, as long as the cable(s) have shielding and the XLR(s) / TRS connectors reside in a box that is permeable, and no shields are compromised, you are good to go.

At that point I would say that 'product differentiation' comes down to things like adequate strain relief and mechanical integrity.

Hope this helps...

[rumleymusic]

If anyone is interested, check out Carvin Guitars. They have an 8 channel box with 4 returns, 100' cable, and neutrik connectors for around $150. San Diego based company, everything made in the USA. I have one, it looks very well made and works perfectly. (No XLR locks on the box though)