CBT-500 Cable Tester by Hosa Technology
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. This holds true with audio system interconnection.
I recently purchased the CBT-500 Cable Tester. I was surprised at how heavy it was. Weighing in at almost 2 pounds its quite heavy to keep in my gig bag. For now I leave it on my workbench where I assemble cables. The 16 LEDs and rotary knob work great for checking adapter cables that aren’t necessarily wired one to one.
To check an XLR cable, for example, plug the male end into the left side and the female end into the right side of the tester. Then, turn the rotary knob to 1, 2 and 3. The yellow LED indicates the test voltage on the selected pin, the green LED indicates the voltage returning on each pin. If the yellow and green LEDs light up on the same pins, you know your cable is good. Some cables using different connectors on each end, like a stereo mic cable with two XLR 3 pin connectors on one end and an XLR 5 pin connector on the other can be tested as well.
Supported Cable Types:
• XLR 3 Pin (Most Microphones)
• XLR 5 Pin (DMX lighting and Stereo Microphones)
• TRS and TS 1/4″
• RCA (Unbalanced Audio)
• SpeakON 2, 4 & 8
• DIN (MIDI)*-
• RJ-45 (Ethernet cables)
• USB Type A to Type B
• Test Probes (For most other cables)
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Overall Rating: 
Good-
Many features for a good price.
Price Tag:
$60
Pros:
Priced right.
Extremely versatile.
Cons:
Test probes are not very robust. I had to fix both ends of each probe cable.
Too heavy to keep in a field bag.
