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Warning! Do Not Buy Cheap Speakon Cables

#61
musicman556 said:
I'll echo the question someone else posited a page or two back: any word on the REAN marked connectors which are marketed as a subsidiary or licensee of Neutrik? Does anyone have personal experience of problems with these specific connectors?

I have a Hosa cable with these REAN connectors that I got from Sweetwater, and it's been fine so far... granted, it was simply plugged in once, with care, between a TCBQ500 and an Ampeg SVT410HLF cab and hasn't been subjected to anything else.
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I've used 1/4" REAN without a problem, I didn't even know they were making SpeakOns. From what I know, they're 'import' Neutrik, legit so their specs should be solid. I do see that they don't appear to be available at a retail level, so they must only wholesale them to other manufacturers.
 
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#62
musicman556 said:
I'll echo the question someone else posited a page or two back: any word on the REAN marked connectors which are marketed as a subsidiary or licensee of Neutrik? Does anyone have personal experience of problems with these specific connectors?

I have a Hosa cable with these REAN connectors that I got from Sweetwater, and it's been fine so far... granted, it was simply plugged in once, with care, between a TCBQ500 and an Ampeg SVT410HLF cab and hasn't been subjected to anything else.
Click to expand...

Good question. Rean is a Neutrik brand that IIRC used to be called "Neutrik Ningbo" and was a Chinese based manufacturing arm of Neutrik specifically for contract manufacturers located in Asia. They are a quality manufacturer and was mostly known for their 1/4" and XLR jacks and plugs, but also manufactured the tiny series XLRs for wireless as well as some specialty adapters. I haven't actually ever seen SpeakOns with the rean brand and can find no reference to these on the rean website.

At one time, Neutrik Ningbo (a legitimate division of Neutrik) manufactured Speakons under the Neutrik brand and label for OEMs and cable houses located in Asia, and their quality was fine. At this point I don't know how this works, but it looks like rean may be acting as a distributor for the Netrik branded SpeakOns rather than it being a separate brand. I wouldn't expect there to be any issues with these products, though I don't know if they can be identified as "Rean" parts.
 
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#64
Keyser Soze said:
Andy ratted 'em out in his post.

Like you, I've bought all kinds of cables... and more, from them over the years, almost exclusively without issue.

I've come to think they might be kinda like Harbor Freight; If it can't hurt you, OK, buy it (e.g., tape measure.) If it can hurt you (e.g., band saw) run awaaaaay!
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Good way to think of it. Like I mentioned, I've had Monoprice stuff hooking up my home audio equipment - HDMI cables, speaker cables/ring terminals, etc - for 10+ years now and I'm still using the same stuff I bought in college. Something as specialized as a Speakon cable, though? Pass.
 
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#65
I noticed the “Rean connectors” label on a SpeakON cable I just picked up the other day. As agedhorse says, I didn’t see anything on the Rean website that shows the SpeakON connector. The fine print on the packaging says “a brand of Neutrik AG”.

E2D1BDC1-3D20-4A1C-B7C0-0817EBBA1FD2.jpeg
 
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#66
Rean is a division of Neutrik; I think you can trust that they wouldn't allow NL4s to be sold with their name on them if they didn't meet spec.

Edit: I've mentioned this on the board before: Neutrik, unlike their competitors Switchcraft and Cannon ('XLR' is part of a Cannon part number series), responded to users and made several incremental improvements in the NL series connectors over the years while still keeping everything backwards compatible. The connectors today are considerably different than the original NL connectors; I think a lot of folks would be confused as to how the original version even worked.

Plus Neutrik recognized that there was a market niche for dedicated speaker connectors -- everything that was in use at that point was an adaptation of connectors that had originally been engineered for other purposes. This is most especially true of the venerable quarter-phone connector, which most folks know came out of the telephone industry.
 
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#67
MetalMaximus said:
For awareness (and DJ Bebop, you may already know this), the screws in Neutrik SpeakON connectors require a #1 pozidrive bit rather than a regular Phillips head screwdriver. A Phillips head screwdriver may work to some extent, but there’s a greater chance of stripping the heads as you try to get them tight enough.
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Yeah, I was hip to that. My 'screwdriver' on my bench is a pozidriv screwdriver set.
But it does pay to hip people to that, thanks!
 
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#68
Obese Chess said:
Good way to think of it. Like I mentioned, I've had Monoprice stuff hooking up my home audio equipment - HDMI cables, speaker cables/ring terminals, etc - for 10+ years now and I'm still using the same stuff I bought in college. Something as specialized as a Speakon cable, though? Pass.
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IMO, Monoprice is fine for certain staples. USB cables, ethernet, power cords, home A/V cables and connectors, video game accessories, and other consumer goods. I've built plenty of cables using Monoprice RCA plugs. I wouldn't trust them if I was setting up and tearing down each night. The solder/crimp joints, the pin and the shell are made of soft metal that will snap with repeated flexing. But they're cheap and are perfectly adequate for systems that are going to stay in place for two or five or ten years.
 
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#69
There are some other advantages to SpeakOn connectors that are invisible to the end user but are very much a part of a designer's concern.

For example, all Neutrik SpeakOn jacks are dead back style which means that for the touch voltage and current hazard safety test, the test probe can not pass through the jack and become energized on anything behind it. Also, the materials and the flammability rating is safety agency certified which is important in flame spread fault testing of the end product.
 
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#74
seamonkey said:
Neutrik initiative against product piracy

They need to have some kind of mark that indicates when licensed Neutrik IP is used in a product.
It'd make it less hard for the average person to know if it's original, licensed, or not
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I don't know that they actually license their product to other manufacturers. If you see Neutrik's name on it, you SHOULD be able be certain it's an authentic product, but that doesn't mean an unscrupulous off-shore manufacturer wouldn't appropriate their trademarks along with the format of the connector.

Switchcraft made a foray into manufacturing NL-compatible connectors some years ago and then stopped suddenly -- I always presumed that it was because Neutrik asserted their proprietary interest and forced them to stop. If they hadn't, the connector might have been well on it's way to becoming a generic, unprotected product like the ubiquitous 'XLR' connectors.

I still have a few of the Switchcraft cable-mount MALES (NL4-MC?), which Neutrik didn't offer at the time -- it may be that they still don't. I bought them to make some adaptors, but never used more than 2 or 3. Now I'm having a hard time imagining another use for them.
 
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#76
I only bring one speaker cable to my church gig, and therefore it has Neutrik branded SpeakOn connectors. It was one of my 1/4" speaker cables for the Marshall, but I've changed out the connectors.

My amp has Neutrik branded connector as well. I figured it's best to match the brand.

-After thought, I didn't check the brand on the back of my GK cab, but it's likely Neutrik as well.

If I do have problems with the amp, speaker cable, or cab, I can go DI from my wireless base to the board. I've had no problems yet.
 
#78
Keyser Soze said:
So I think, "Let me try them in my Mesa Subway 800+ into my Fearful 112 cab." So I plug one in, fire up the amp; Bingo! Sound. "Lemme try the other one," I think. I unplug the cable from the cab. When I try to unplug it from the back of the amp; it won't budge. It'll only turn 1/8th of a turn, not 1/4 like it's supposed to. I try -- gently but firmly -- for a few minutes and get nowhere.
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Wow. I had a similar problem with a speakon cable. The metal locking plate that is supposed to slide back would not budge, so I had to take a flat head screw driver to get it to release. I was running an extension 2x10 cabinet on my Fender Rumble Stage 800. Yes... I agree... spend the extra cash to get quality speakon cables.
 
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#79
ElectricBass72 said:
Wow. I had a similar problem with a speakon cable. The metal locking plate that is supposed to slide back would not budge, so I had to take a flat head screw driver to get it to release. I was running an extension 2x10 cabinet on my Fender Rumble Stage 800. Yes... I agree... spend the extra cash to get quality speakon cables.
Click to expand...

On my cable, the metal fixture moved freely, did nothing to release the cable.
 
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