XLR male and Female Connectors

Neewer is a chinese rebrander.  They sell all kinds of A/V products.  Some good, some bad.  Never heard of the others, but I'd bet that they're the same.

I think you'd be best served by buying a couple of each and seeing them up close.  I've found that chinese-rebrand connectors, even from the same resellers, can vary wildly from batch to batch and part to part because they don't manufacture the parts themselves and just buy whatever is cheapest.

Back before Alibaba and all the direct-from-china sales sites, I found a place in china that sold TRS and XLR connectors in bulk, for about 0.10$ a piece.  I bought them by the hundreds to outfit my studio with the first patchbays.  Even in the batches of connectors there were about 1-5% of them that couldn't be used.  Some of the rest needed to have their sleeves soldered to the base because they'd turn and not make good connections, and so forth.  Since most of these have been installed and never moved, it worked fine for me, but I wouldn't trust them to necessarily stand up to regular abuse.  Unfortunately, I later bought another batch of connectors from the same place that turned out to be complete junk.  Now that Chinese sellers have become savvy to the fact that they can sell their wares for a lot more than they had previously, there are no deals like this to be found anymore.

I've used GLS like Winetree has, and still do, although I've since been slowly moving to Neutrik/Mogami cabling that I make so I've been using them less and less.  I'd say they're about the same quality as the connectors on the cheapest cables at Guitar Center and even though they generally *look* like Neutriks, they do not have the same superior contact arrangement as Neutrik.  Their connectors are the same chinese types as Neewer are, but either from a reliable source or they do QA on the connectors.   Their prices have been a little high the last few years since they've gained traction in the market.  Their stuff is very usable workhorse products, but their connectors are a little pricey if you don't take advantage of their sales.   you can find NOS Neutriks on Ebay if you look hard enough that can sometimes rival their non-sale prices.

What I've found with cheap connectors is that the metal case is usually the same between all of them.  The plastic parts are where the real differences start.  The actual pins/sockets are another place where things can be hit/miss.  Some of the really cheap ones (especially TRS types) will have pins offset, rings/sleeves that will spin freely, the plastic will have flashing all over it, and sometimes the clamp/stress reliever will not clamp down well or the rubber will pop out the back when you tighten it.  Also, the plastic will deform quickly when heated so the chance of ruining a connector is much higher.

I haven't had too much issue with the connector plating.  The cheap ones are just hard tin plated.  

Overall, if you need a billion connectors, are willing to put up with some possible aggravation, and aren't running sound on tour with them, then they'll be fine.  If you need absolute reliability and peace of mind, go Neutrik.

Thanks guys. Yeah, I've used just about every brand you could imagine over the years, Mogami and Canare are my cable goto's, but the XLR connectors have me baffled. Thanks for the contributions.

Man John I can’t disagree except to say everything you hate about the Neutrik are why I love them when somehow a cable needs to be repaired on the fly and done yesterday day !

I never need a cable repaired that quickly - I always carry spares. Usually more spares than I expect to need. And I'd rather use a cable that's far less likely to fail in the first place. I've had too many Neutrik strain reliefs fail to ever really trust them.

I cannot stand the rubber rings Neutrik uses on the female connectors. Pain in the ass to get all the way in on like 75% of my gear/mics. I dig the Redco connectors. I've defaulted to those on all my snakes and haven't had an issue yet.

I get that - I don’t work in live situations other than plunking on a guitar or bass every now and again. Neutrik works great in the studio.

The ts and trs switchcraft connectors are the biggest pain in the ass to deal with if you’re ever going to use them more than on the cable they are on. You’ve got to pry the 2 grip clamps off the cable, and half the time they snap off after more than 2 changes.

Just not worth the pain in the arse to me.

Redco

Markertek has good prices and color variety for canare.

Switchcraft forever. I've tried them all. They all break. But Switchcraft break the least and tend to last 25 years or more