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[Geoff Doane]

A customer recently handed me a Seismic snake to (wait for it...) see if I could repair a bad channel.  The brand has been roundly trashed here already ( https://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,167126.0.html ) but I hadn't actually seen one before.

Let's just say it doesn't inspire confidence.  It looked brand new on the outside, and is constructed with very limp, supple cable (like Mogami, but that's where the similarities end).  The XLRs at the fan out end are off-brand with large numbers cast in them, but being black-on-black, they're almost impossible to read.  The owner had added labels.

The point where the individual pairs fan out is also a worry.  It's covered in heat shrink, but doesn't seem have much underneath to reinforce what is a potential weak spot in any snake.  I made that mistake with the first snake I built myself (about 40 years ago now), but I wasn't trying to sell stuff on the internet.  I used it myself, and learned the hard way what doesn't work in the real world.

Inside the box, the chassis XLRs are all mounted to two PC boards, with the wires then soldered to the edge of the board.  That part looks professionally designed, but the execution was sloppy, with loose strands all over the place, and the multicable jammed between the two boards with them bent apart (and presumably stressed).  I'm not even sure what advantage the PC board has, since there are the same number of wire connections to be made by hand.  I guess they save a little time dressing the wires.  And some rocket scientist decided that all the XLRs should have pin 1 bused together.  Perhaps not a problem if you're just connecting to one mixer, but try and run Clear-Com down a spare channel.

Here are some pictures for your amusement.

GTD

[Rick Powell]

I have avoided buying anything Seismic up until now, but I admit thinking once about buying one of their patch snakes because “how can a manufacturer screw up a snake?” I guess where there’s a will (or lack thereof) there's a way, and glad my only copper snake is an EWI.

[Dan Mortensen]

Inside the box, the chassis XLRs are all mounted to two PC boards, with the wires then soldered to the edge of the board.  That part looks professionally designed, but the execution was sloppy, with loose strands all over the place, and the multicable jammed between the two boards with them bent apart (and presumably stressed).  I'm not even sure what advantage the PC board has, since there are the same number of wire connections to be made by hand.  I guess they save a little time dressing the wires.  And some rocket scientist decided that all the XLRs should have pin 1 bused together.

Wow, not only are they specifically designing in for no good reason a Pin 1 Problem as identified 30 years ago by Neil Muncy, which has otherwise thankfully disappeared from our world due to Neil's efforts, but they also execute it poorly!

For those who have not had to live through Pin 1 Problems, that is when the ground cable/shield connected to Pin 1 on an XLR is routed in a device to a foil PC board trace which is too small to immediately dissipate the induced voltage on the cable shield. The trace acts as a resistor and the undissipated voltage goes places it shouldn't in the circuitry and causes a variety of problems, usually including hum.

Designing an oversize (compared to the signal) trace for the ground or using almost any gauge wire connected directly to the device's AC ground solves the problem. The three traces for the XLRs look the same in your pictures, which is bad.

These guys not only reinvented the wheel, they reinvented the out-of-the-box flat tire. Where are these designed and made?

Thanks for posting this.

[Mike Caldwell]

I'm going to boldly say everything Seismic is music store junk.
I had some bands carrying Seismic splitters for their IEM systems that all had some bad channels, the connectors would not really fit into a Neutrik and I was scared they would get stuck, and the wire gauge on the fan out felt like it was maybe 26ga and kind of looked like it from where a couple connectors had pulled off.

[Steve-White]

The sloppy soldering is bad enough, but not even taking the time to twist the shields - let alone do some type of organization of the wire wad.  As Mike stated, music store junk.

[Jeff Bankston]

I'm glad I have Whirlwind snake bites

[Brian Adams]

I'm struggling to see how this design is a benefit to the manufacturing process. It seems like it would have actually been easier to do it right!

I have a couple of fan-to-fan snakes from Seismic, and while they're not amazing, they're not quite this bad.

I also have a Seismic 32 channel rackmount splitter, and other than the female combo XLR's being crap it seems pretty decent for the price. I replaced all the el-cheapo female panel-mount XLR's after the first problem with one and I haven't had an issue in about 5 years since.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not recommending Seismic. They're not what they claim to be (and there's much better stuff out there), but my experience has been more positive than these examples. The Seismic snakes I have aren't nearly as bad as the MCM Electronics snakes that I used at one point! I still have 2 of those MCM snakes, but the cable has the smallest conductors I've ever seen in an audio cable, and I've replaced and relabelled ALL the connectors. I guarantee that those weren't a wise investment.

I'm happy to have a large Whirlwind inventory now, all with W1 connectors, and I'm glad I don't have to be reliant on cheap junk these days. If only I'd done it right the first time!

[Steve M Smith]

I'm struggling to see how this design is a benefit to the manufacturing process. It seems like it would have actually been easier to do it right!

Agreed.  The PCB looks to be ok.  A bit more time spent preparing the cables could actually make it easier to get them soldered in place properly.


Steve.

[David Allred]

I'm going to boldly say everything Seismic is music store junk.

Their 4" yellow gaff tape is very functional. 

[Bob Faulkner]

I'm going to boldly say everything Seismic is music store junk.

Completely agree with you.  I'm not around SA gear much, but when I am... it's not good.

Very recently, I sold my JBL PRX718XLF to a friend of mine (a DJ).  He was using a seismic 15" powered sub (500 watts RMS - I think).  He was complaining the SA sub didn't have much low end, and the cabinet was making noise every time it "hit".  He used the JBL sub at a Christmas party last year; when I talked  to him about it, he said the JBL was way beyond anything he imagined for bass.  He verbally trashed the SA and hasn't figured out what to do with it.  He commented the JBL opened his eyes to how he envisioned his system was to sound.

[Sean Zurbrick]

about 10 years ago I bought 2, 4 channel 15-20 ft patch snakes. One lasted 2 shows before a connection let go and one channel went. The other maybe 6-7 shows. By 10 shows at least 2 of the 4 had gone on each. I seem to remember something on the cable splitting too. I ended up just tossing them in the trash at a gig. Never again.

[Martin Primus]

While I'll certainly not sing the praises of anything Seismic, I do have a 24 channel split snake that has been going (fairly) strong for almost 5  years for my band's in-ear rig.  We don't use it for every show, so it's more than paid for itself in that time.  The only real issue I've had is the male xlr connectors are certainly cheap and I've replace a couple.  For anything more than occasional use, yeah, the money should certainly spent on something more durable.

[ProSoundWeb Community]