Your buying strategy for guitar cables...

CaseOfAce

****** Warning: Potential cork sniffery / triggering alert *********

Last night's rehearsal between songs I swapped out a Fender Deluxe cable for a Fender Professional (both 3m I believe) going into my  pedal board. The former one is double the price of the other.

I immediately heard a difference. Not major. My band mates didn't notice obviously but playing the song ... I heard... something different...not exactly a harshness but an increased... treble?? .. something had changed. Immediately went back to the cable before.

I do not profess to have golden ears. I remember Paul Reed Smith saying every bit of your rig matters (like duh...  but after last night ... errr.. gulp ...right) and it's got me thinking of cables and what I will buy in the future.

This isn't exactly a slam dunk either. I've had the pricey (very) Klotz cables in the past and couldn't tell the difference. I've had cheap Dáddarios .. fine.. 

So ..what's your approach ... and what do you swear by...

Danny1969

Well some cables have a lower capacitance and lower resistance  than others which results in a brighter tone ... which is certainly noticeable if you compare 2 cables. The capacitance of a cable is in parallel and the resistance of the cable is in series so it's actually acting as a very crude low pass filter. 

But the  impedance of the guitar and the input impedance of the amp /pedal input  will also affect how much the cable affects the tone too.

So I just set the amp to how bright I want it regardless ... if it's a big stage and I'm using a 5m cable there will be a slight loss of treble but I will just set the amp slightly brighter to compensate. 

BillDL

I'm curious about something @Danny1969. I don't know enough about electronic mumbo-jumbo to know the answer, but I am sure you will.  With wireless transmitters and receivers is it true to say that the only frequency losses due to capacitance and resistance would be from the internal circuitry and other metal parts in the devices, or could there be frequencies lost during the actual wireless transmission of the "waves" from transmitter to receiver caused by some other effect?  Air temperature, humidity, distance, etc?

As far as cables are concerned, my main concern is mechanical handling noise and crackling and I like good cable that isn't very affected by vibration, being dragged on a floor, or being looped across itself and being moved.  This was a concern when I was gigging, but even in the house I hate crackly hissy cables.  I generally prefer fabric covered cables because most I have tried (even from budget brand retailers) aren't nearly as noisy as some expensive thick-sheathed heavy "rubbery" cables.  Additionally they tend to lie out in a straight line without the propensity for coiling up on themselves.  I never set up my effects and amp with my guitar tone(s) on 10 and I always leave some leeway on the amp settings to compensate for treble loss, so it's not really something I think / thought much about.

Danny1969

@BillDL ;

The guitar signal is buffered and pre amped on a traditional radio transmitter and receiver system. So capacitive loss wouldn't be an issue as that's only an issue from a high impedance source.  But there is signal degradation due to other factors like Squelch which kind of acts as noise gate, switching off if the amplitude  of the signal falls below a certain level. 
Digital wireless solves some issues of radio but adds a little latency due to the analog to digital conversion 

Some cable types are less prone to noise  than  others but all are generally better if looked after and coiled nicely after use. Some of my friends tie notes in there's to make them smaller before they get shoved in a bag and their cables are always noisy. 

thermionic

Some wireless systems are able to simulate the signal loss from various lengths of cable!

bertie

Danny1969 said:

Some of my friends tie notes in there's

in case they forget solos ?

PLOP

I just stick to brands that aren’t too expensive and a length i need. I have a 5m fender one to go from my helix to the power amp on the cab, and a coiled 5m (maybe?) Ernie Ball one from the guitar to helix. 

Easy. 

Rkphilpot

I buy D'addario Custom cables. Their mid level and priced cable. The only reason is they are guaranteed for life and once when I had one go wrong I contacted them and the next day a replacement was on my doorstep. The service was superb. I've used the same ones for years and that's the only one I've ever had break. Whilst I know that capacitance is a thing, I would probably stop using a wireless system if it bothered me that much to me its the reliability that's most important.

guitars4you

Super Leeds - Made in Yorkshire

robinbowes

I make my own cables.

I also make cables for others, if they ask nicely  

As @Danny1969 has already said, the difference you heard was probably due to the 2nd cable having a lower capacitance than the 1st one.

Your guitar cable really is an integral part of your sound, and you can change things significantly by changing cable. For example, if you go from a cheapish 10m stage lead to a wireless transmitter you will probably find your sound will become noticeably harsh and "toppy".

So,make sure you test any new cables in your rig at home/rehearsals before taking them to a gig.

Sporky

BillDL said:

could there be frequencies lost during the actual wireless transmission of the "waves" from transmitter to receiver caused by some other effect?  Air temperature, humidity, distance, etc?

No. The modulation techniques used mean that signal loss doesn't translate to particular frequencies being lost.

As a crude analogy, if you translated a book into German, then took out every letter "a", then did your best to translate it back, you wouldn't get the original without any "a"s. 

octatonic

I buy raw cable and Switchcraft or Neutrik (former for guitar, latter for studio use) plugs and solder them.

I've saved thousands over the course of my life (including studio cables).
These days the only ones I don't solder myself are DB25's- I've done them before but they are too fiddly.

HAL9000

I’d just put an order in to Designacable. Never had a failure with them.

randella

guitars4you said:

Super Leeds - Made in Yorkshire

If that's not already a going concern, it absolutely needs to be. They'd have my business.

Rkphilpot

guitars4you said:

Super Leeds - Made in Yorkshire

I live in Leeds, you may have given me an idea......

Chimpankie

I got sick of dealing with cables failing so just bought four mogami cables 3-4 years ago. Expensive upfront but haven’t caused me any problems. Sure they’ll fail at some point but we’ll see.

The longest lasting cable I ever had was a Venom cable, not sure what model either cobra or python, that lasted me 17 years (including some periods of heavy gigging). Outlasted every other single cable I bought in that period including various flavours of Fender.

guitars4you

randella said:

guitars4you said:

Super Leeds - Made in Yorkshire

If that's not already a going concern, it absolutely needs to be. They'd have my business.

Rkphilpot said:

guitars4you said:

Super Leeds - Made in Yorkshire

I live in Leeds, you may have given me an idea......

Around 22 years ago I had a senior role within the Academy of Sound - At the time we had 10 stores, more in the midlands/north - As was common with the likes of Dixon's and PC World and now the likes of Thomann etc, we looked at the idea of our own 'brand name' on all the cables 

Midi, mic, guitar, patch, speaker etc etc - 2 price points - mid/low and top quality - Low end we looked at Stagg and top quality we had 2/3 meetings with Horizon, a USA brand of similar quality to Whirlwind - As such all cables would have been branded with a corporate name, be it AOS or Academy of Sound etc - As a big Leeds fan I proposed a play on words based on Super Leads

As it happens it never got off the ground, in part as I left AOS and shortly after they sold out to Sound Control  

FelineGuitars

In the past I always used to use Whirlwind Leader cables , or made up my own with Whirlwind cable and Neutrik plugs.

More recently I have simply made my own with Evidence Audio Forte cable and Neutrik plugs.

As an affordable option we stock the MXR cables in the shop, which is good thing for local players since the other local music shop closed down

ElectricXII

I like Fender Deluxe fabric covered cables for the reasons that @BillDL does, but my longest lasting cable to date is a 20' Klotz which I've had for 10 years and gigged plenty. 

For a lot of gigs I use a Line6 G30 between guitar and pedalboard, and I can't say I ever noticed a difference in tone going from cable to wireless. Having said that, a lot of people notice significant "tone suck" from non true bypass wah pedals, and I don't. My ears are nearly 58 years old, which probably has a lot to do with it.

the_jaffa

I make my own using Neutrik jacks and Van Damme Pro Grade cable

Litterick

Van Damme/Neutrik