Cable Snobs - there has to be some here??

hywelg

I tried loads of cables a couple of years back. I had wired my pedal board with Van Damme Instrument cable and neutrik RA jacks, and just could not get my Strat to sparkle like it did straight in to the amp. So I went with george L's. Way better tone and so easy to put together.

Problem was I kept moving stuff around on my board and the George l's are not that reliable when you keep doing that regularly. However having tried the George L for my board I also got a couple of longer leads for guitar to board and board to amp, they surprisingly have been absolutely fine and tonaly they are excellent, but the the handling is a bit awkward, they are very rigid and springy, not a problem on the floor obviously but I didn't like them from the guitar. have since changed over to Lava cables and they have been 100% reliable not one failure yet.

At one point I got a GigRig Remote Loopy which has two loops and I started trying out all  my cables in these two loops. This is the only way to try them, the time taken to swap a guitar lead straight in to an amp, you will have forgotten the nuances of the sound, unless it is absolutely dire, which a couple of cheap ones were, as was a 15m long Van Damme cable I made up. Dreadful.

I tried a few other cables in addition to the George l's, A Providence, a Lava Soar, a Van Damme Lo Cap (huge great thick thing wont go through the rubber on a Neutrik jack!) a Planet Waves, Klotz La Grange. Results were very interesting. The sound quality is inversely proportional to the useability of the cable. I generally now use the Providence and the Klotz, the others are great stiff things that are no fun to use at all though they do sound better.

I do like the new Fender cables, they are just so lubbberryyy, handle beautifully, I haven't got one yet but I keep getting to use one and they are great, so much so that you will forgive any other foibles.

Islandape

EdGrip said:

I just reviewed it; I suspect the seller won't allow it.

I was about to post asking who from here wrote that  )

Skipped

hywelg said:

I do like the new Fender cables, they are just so lubbberryyy, handle beautifully,

Which one?

http://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/Products/Products/quick&q=fender+cables&type=search&searchclause=all/

hywelg

Skipped said:

hywelg said:

I do like the new Fender cables, they are just so lubbberryyy, handle beautifully,

Which one?

http://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/Products/Products/quick&q=fender+cables&type=search&searchclause=all/

The pwain bwack wubberwy wones.

Skipped

Ta.

EdGrip

Islandape said:

EdGrip said:

I just reviewed it; I suspect the seller won't allow it.

I was about to post asking who from here wrote that  )

If you found the review helpful, by all means mark it as such on Amazon.

Rocker

Can someone tell me what the reason was for this thread? To pour scorn on someone who uses an expensive cable from their guitar to amp? If so then why limit it to cables. Try amps, guitars, FX pedals, straps....

EdGrip

A general scorn thread would soon become chaotic and unfocused.

imalone

Rocker said:

Can someone tell me what the reason was for this thread? To pour scorn on someone who uses an expensive cable from their guitar to amp? If so then why limit it to cables. Try amps, guitars, FX pedals, straps....

EdGrip said:

A general scorn thread would soon become chaotic and unfocused.

Indeed, there are already threads for those. Besides, you can't use a strap from your guitar to your amp.

Roland

musicegbdf said:

Ok make my own here as well. A friend and I bought a 100m drum of Van Damme cable and a bundle of Neutriks. 

Same here. When I acquired a PA I made up a set of XLR cables of different lengths using Van Damme and Neutriks. Since I've got half a drum left I also use it for guitar cables, again with Neutriks. One of my guitars has piezos as well as humbuckers, which I switch from the floor pedal, so I use stereo Neutrik jacks one all my guitar leads. The cable is red, so I know they're mine, and I haven't lost one yet. 

Bogwhoppit

Wi-Fi is the way to go

hywelg

Roland said:

The cable is red, so I know they're mine, and I haven't lost one yet. 

No the red Van Damme's are mine! I have (or had) 3 of them, I'd better go and count them!

TBH, I dont use them for guitar anymore, they're in with the PA stuff for running monitors etc.

stickyfiddle

I have a couple of Whirlwind Leaders that I've had basically forever, and the rest are all Kabl. I did make my own Klotz stuff but I found they got crimped and broken way too easily.

impmann

I have a couple of Award Session cables that I bought when I joined the band 2 years ago - we're out at least every weekend, sometimes more than that. They get jumped up and down on, beer spilled on them and generally abused. At the end of the evening they get shoved into the bag (after wrapping them with as much care as I give to scrunching an empty crisp bag) and forgotten about. They are still just as great as when I first bought them...

Point is - to me a cable is a tool. I can't get excited about them - only when they don't work. Buy reasonable quality ones from a decent source and they will last - yes, you can get soppy about those super cables (Evidence Audio, anyone) but in the Dog n Duck, when you're competing with a drummer, another guitarist, a bass player and a vocalist for frequency space and the pub already has the hubbub of people drinking, dancing, talking etc... you are *not* going to hear the difference between that and a reasonable to good quality cable costing at least half the price of the 'super' cable.

Studio - maybe a different story, and maybe based on what sort of music you are making.

Final word from me - Hendrix at Monterey... superb performance with a knackered, crackly, microphonic shitty cable. Did it take away from the performance?... Did it shite.

allicio

I just bought a couple of evidence audio lyric hg cables from strings direct last week. Beautiful cable with a lifetime warranty.
Oh and I use bluechip picks as well so I guess I'm the subject of this thread.

57Deluxe

Misty

ICBM said:

It's not just the plugs - Planet Waves are the most unreliable cables I've ever come across. I wouldn't trust one as far as I could tow the Queen Mary with it. The shop I work for took a whole delivery of them and over 90% failed - some customers had them replaced more than once before they gave up. The cables hadn't been mistreated as far as I could tell - in fact for one of the customers (a friend of mine who I had recommended PW to when they first came in) eventually swapped them for some cheapo Westfield cables, and no more problems.

I don't get this, somebody please educate me. I've been using Planet Waves cables between guitar, pedals and amp for years now, done hundreds of gigs with them, and yes they all have those spring loaded plugs which are supposed to fit more tightly in the socket. None of my sockets have ever become looser as a result, the cables sound fine,(though I will say I've never been tempted to try other makes, apart from some Whirlwind ones I've also had for years and also sound fine), and yes I've had to refit the silent switching jack (which also works very well) a couple of times but it's easy, just cut the cable off at the end, push it in the hole in the plug, tighten the screw, job done. I've found them to be extremely reliable.

ICBM

Misty said:

ICBM said:

It's not just the plugs - Planet Waves are the most unreliable cables I've ever come across. I wouldn't trust one as far as I could tow the Queen Mary with it. The shop I work for took a whole delivery of them and over 90% failed - some customers had them replaced more than once before they gave up. The cables hadn't been mistreated as far as I could tell - in fact for one of the customers (a friend of mine who I had recommended PW to when they first came in) eventually swapped them for some cheapo Westfield cables, and no more problems.

I don't get this, somebody please educate me. I've been using Planet Waves cables between guitar, pedals and amp for years now, done hundreds of gigs with them, and yes they all have those spring loaded plugs which are supposed to fit more tightly in the socket. None of my sockets have ever become looser as a result, the cables sound fine,(though I will say I've never been tempted to try other makes, apart from some Whirlwind ones I've also had for years and also sound fine), and yes I've had to refit the silent jack a couple of times but it's easy, just cut the cable off at the end, push it in the hole in the plug, tighten the screw, job done. I've found them to be extremely reliable.

It is odd. I don't get your experience either! All the people I know personally who have used Planet Waves cables have had problems with them, and I've repaired numerous amps with jack damage caused by them - although, the worst problems seem to be when you use a mixture of PW cables and others. Perhaps if you exclusively use them you don't notice the jack damage… although that still doesn't explain the cables not breaking!

Maxi

Although there is plenty of snake oil evident on stupidly over priced stuff the difference in performance between cheap and say over £40 for a 12 foot cable is enough to make a producer favour the expensive kind .

Shielding , core strand specifications effect over all performance .

Its normally the higher frequencies that suffer first, the thing is on certain gear a cheap cable will suit the sound better if the said device is already compensating for cheapness .

Im thinking cheap budget gear mainly .

EdGrip

It would make sense that exclusively using PlanetWaves cables doesn't lead to a problem, because the socket has deformed to the new size and so jack and socket function normally. It would only be when you re-introduce a normal jack that you might notice a problem, but it would be dependent on the type of jack socket involved; the Switchcraft guitar jack socket has such a long, looping terminal for the jack tip that I can't imagine it would readily deform just because of a slightly wider jack, regardless of how long it was connected. Some of the enclosed amp and pedal jacks have very short terminals so I would expect them to be more affected.