"James Harris" no.email.please wrote in message
.. .

Someone has offered me interconnects which apparently use the
standard cable of a certain manufacturer but the terminations
are soldered on rather than welded.

Soldering and crimping are the standard means of terminating cables. So, I
don't understand what could reasonably be meant in a general context by
saying "soldered on rather than welded". Welding connectors onto cables is
not the baseline methodology. Crimping and soldering are the baseline
technologies. It would make more sense to say: Welded rather than soldered
but that's not the situation.

The price is significantly less than that for normal product cables.

Standard audio cables are remarkably cheap to make if you make them in
volume. For example, standard 20' microphone cables are marvelously robust
high-tech wonders compared to your typical home audio RCA cable, yet in the
audio production market, they are frequently "given away" or sold quite
cheaply.

Can anyone comment on
whether these are likely to be legitimate and sold with the
approval of the manufacturer.

Cables that are soldered, crimped, or welded are IME equally legitimate.

BTW, a good job of crimping amounts to cold welding with the extra bonuses
of high mechanical strength and inherent disruption of oxide films or dirt
on the connector or the wire. Given my choice, I'd pick a well-crimped
connection over the other two, but I would not worry about a good job based
on the other two methods. Crimping and welding have the disadvantage of not
being as field-repairable as soldering.

- As an aside, any comments on soldered vs. welded?

Because of the nature of the application, all three methodologies are
equally viable and effective if they are done properly. Soldering is the
lowest-tech solution as it is the oldest technology and can be done with the
least costly, most available, most generalized tools. Soldering is still
perfectly acceptable for typical audio applications, if a bit time-consuming
and messy. Welding is probably the highest-tech approach, and requires the
most specialized tool.

In other applications, one method may be chosen over the other, based on
what's easiest to do. For example, it would usually be a little tough to
crimp all of the parts onto a circuit board, but welding and soldering are
viable alternatives. Mostly, circuit boards are still soldered.