Lorin David Schultz wrote:
"Gareth Magennis" wrote:
I'm with George on this. I have just run over a Neutrik XLR in my
car about 20 times and I can't break it.


That's not how they break. You gotta reach for your coffee while
holding a mic, a stand and a cable. When the cable slips between your
fingers and falls to the floor, THEN it will break.

The other way to break them is to plug them in really fast 'cause the
drummer was late and you're on the air in six minutes. Spin the
connector to line up the pins and the catch snaps.

It's interesting that driving a tank over them won't break them, 'cause
just stepping on them sure will. Maybe it has something to do with
weight distribution.

At least that's been our experience. We've ruined scores of 'em in just
seven or eight years of live TV. I don't think any other brand would
have been any better, but I can personally refute any claim that the
Neutriks are somehow impervious to damage from normal use. We work 'em
hard, maybe harder than a typical studio, but we don't have any tanks or
trucks in the studio and ours still break regularly.

The only failure I commonly see, and it is endemic to all XLR
connectors with metal bodied, is that the male end gets driven over,
stepped on, dropped from height onto hard surface, and the shell is
knocked out of round enough to no longer plug in.
I've found Neutriks no more or less durable than other brands from
reputable makers. There are cheap chinese XLRs out there that rather
than bend, the metal cracks and shatters. But they are nameless
connectors that show up at local shops in the dollar bin.

--Dale