Mystery cable
 

I ordered a stereo miniplug to 2 x RCA cable from A2ZCables specifically to connect my mixer to an XL1s. When I got to the soundcheck, I was only getting one channel. When I got home I double checked it -- still only getting one channel. After about 20 minutes of fiddling with it, suddenly it starts working perfectly. My first thought was that maybe there is a crack in the solder somewhere, but when I twist the wire slightly the signal doesn't click on and off like you usually get with a bad connection. It appears to be working just fine. My other thought is maybe there was oil on the connectors from the factory and with all of my playing with it, enough rubbed for the cable to work. Has anyone else ever experienced this? Can I trust this cable? I'm inclined to send the damn thing back, but I don't know what to tell them now that it's working fine. It's a really nice Belden cable too. The shoot's this weekend and I'd really like to use this cable, but I don't know if I can trust it.

I'm not sure I would still trust that cable. Have you tried contacting
them and explaining what has happened? Perhaps it is a known
thing or they can tell you what is going on. Especially the more
expensive brands usually swap troubled parts to keep their
customers happy (I don't know the Belden brand myself).