Mogami and Canare cables are both high-quality, well designed brands, and provide stellar performance when used in the right situations. Care must be taken in selecting from the top-down the right cable for different applications, and the first choice you'll make is what brand to use. This guide is written to help you, the end-user, decide which brand you need.

Mogami Cable

Mogami Wire & Cable Corp. is a long-standing company in audio, video, & digital cable manufacturing, and has been releasing ground-breaking, high-quality products, especially in analog audio cables, for over 30 years.
Mogami's Neglex cable technology represents some of the finest and most revered cable design in the professional audio industry. Mogami cable of all types is used almost exclusively in the majority of professional recording studios worldwide.

Most Mogami audio cables feature a served (spiral) bare Oxygen-Free Copper (OFC) shield, which according to research by Mogami preserves higher sound quality than braided shield. The conductors are bare OFC copper, and the dielectrics (insulation around conductor) are XLPE (Cross-Linked Poly-Ethylene), which provides excellent electrical insulation from the shield (which carries the ground signal). The XLPE used by Mogami is softer and more pliable than the XLPE in Canare cable, helping give the cable remarkable flexibility. The jacket is PVC, and is very flexible, yet strong and firm.

The design and materials of Mogami cable make it exceptionally well suited for recording use. Most Mogami cables only have a flex life of between 11,000 and 15,000 cycles, due to the spiral shield used. Therefore, its weakness is live "gigging" use, where it will inevitably be put through the proverbial wringer. When well handled, Mogami provides exceptional sound quality and transparency.

Canare Cable

The Canare Corporation of America manufactures both cable and connectors, and is relied upon by much of the broadcast industry for their high quality products. The Canare Star Quad microphone cable is a well-designed, very durable cable, and has become the staple of many rigorous use applications. Star Quad cable, like Mogami, features OFC copper throughout. There are 40 strands of copper in each conductor to prevent breakage from flexing. The dielectric around the conductors is a stiffer XLPE than is generally used by Mogami, adding to the strength of the cable and protecting the conductors. There are many cotton strand fillers between the four conductors, and there is an overall paper wrap around the conductors. In most Canare cables, the shield is braided, and in some cases tinned as well for faster soldering. This is one of the main factors attributing to the durability of Canare.

The design and materials of Canare cables, especially the braided overall shield, make the cables better suited for live "gigging" use than recording studio use. The fillers and braided shield provide an estimated flex life of well over 150,000 flex cycles, but also cause sound quality to suffer.

Canare GS-6 guitar cable is an exception to this. The large 18AWG core conductor conducts low frequencies like few other cables, and the cable has a warm, enhanced tone which so perfectly accentuates guitar and bass that it is the first choice of performers worldwide.

  Conclusion

From extensive research into the qualities of Mogami, Canare, and other brands of cable, we have concluded that Mogami and Canare are both superior cables in their respective application classes. The line between the two brands is the situation the cable will be used in. For the most neutral, transparent response in a low-handling enviroment, Mogami is the best choice. In live events, or situations such as filming where a great deal of handling is involved, Canare provides an excellent quality-to-durability balance.