Last Sunday our little band played a gig. An outdoor event, we were not the main attraction but provided the music as per the advertised 'live music'.
For about the first half hour, I was not totally satisfied with the sound from my Markbass amp. I kept thinking that it sounds very closed in and attributed the change to the fact that we were playing out of doors. I used a plastic like red coloured cable but during an announcement by the organizer, I changed the cable and used a well worn guitar lead instead. The difference was close to mind blowing. The closed in sound had disappeared. The Markbass sounded as it normally does.
I have long noted that cables in a hi-fi system do affect the sound you hear. This idea has long been done down by those in the know, but I can only report what I hear and that is that the cables used do affect the sound. And now I know they affect the sound of my bass too. I had always thought this to be possible but discounted it as you can always EQ out the effects of the cable. But you can't EQ out the closed in sound I heard when I started playing that gig.
There is always the possibility that further use of the red cable will iron out it's closed in sound. Perhaps, if it does I will report back.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. [Albert Einstein]
Nil Satis Nisi Optimum
Comments
Ebay mark7777_1
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
Turning that into an argument that you need to spend 10k on hi-fi speaker cables, or worse, the last three feet of mains cable between a power station 50 miles away and your stereo is still bollocks though.
But I can see where this is leading .
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
soundcloud.com/thecolourbox-1
youtube.com/@TheColourboxMusic
Oh, hang on, no, I don't, because it should be obvious to the meanest intellect that there are lots of rather important differences between them.
I am saying that people react differently when they know something to when they don't know something.
Rocker knew he was swapping from one cable to another.
The cable he swapped to he described as a 'well worn guitar lead'.
Confirmation bias is a real thing and leads people to conclusions that are either not valid, or at least exaggerated.
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
Nil Satis Nisi Optimum
Badly constructed, poor quality, horribly abused leads, or the wrong kind of cable certainly make a difference but once you reach a certain minimal standard of materials and construction using the right cable I don’t believe any amount of unobtainium conductors, exotic construction, snake oil, or gold-plated plugs will make any difference.
I really miss Rob and his KaBL business...
What missing from this discussion is that a guitar / bass pickup is a high impedance source, ie very poor a driving signal into a capacitive load, eg a guitar cable.
The complex impedance of the pickup generates a resonant circuit with the cable capacitance; there are plenty of data on this effect and it is both audible and measurable.
Here's a nice paper on the subject:
https://www.princeton.edu/ssp/joseph-henry-project/electric-guitar-pickup/Guitar-Pickup-Theory.pdf
Been uploading old tracks I recorded ages ago and hopefully some new noodles here.