Do leads make a difference?

robgilmo

I know the HIFI community can debate till the cows come home about leads and cables making a difference in sound, but with guitars is it more a build quality thing between cheap and expensive leads?

ICBM

No - guitar cables do make a significant difference to the sound, because they have capacitance large enough to interact with the output impedance of a guitar pickup, in a passive guitar. (Little to none with an active guitar with something like EMG pickups, though.)

Cable capacitance is also dependent on length, so a longer cable will also affect the tone more than a short one even if the same quality.

Cable capacitance takes away top-end, and also lowers the resonant peak frequency of the pickups, so it has a very real effect on the tone of the guitar - not quite as simple as just rolling off treble.

No other property of the cable matters for the tone, though - not resistance or inductance, they are far too small to have any effect.

You don't necessarily want the lowest possible capacitance though - that can give an overly shrill tone which some people don't like. You can always turn down the guitar or amp tone controls, but it isn't quite the same effect, because of that interaction with the pickup.

robgilmo

Thanks, is there a recommended length? Obviously it depends on the guitar , Would a Squier standard Tele want a longer lead perhaps?

ICBM

Maybe. I find my Rickenbacker sounds better with a 10' cable and my Strat better with a 20', both of the same brand. Not a huge difference but noticeable if you swap them.

Usually you don't want anything shorter than about 6' (too awkward to move about with) or longer than about 20' (too much to keep from tangling easily), and at 20' you're going to get some treble loss with more or less any cable quality.

paulmapp8306

I always use 10' cables, but I make my own up. 

Thete is quite a difference between say sommer and van dam. 

I generally go for sommer, but My tele sounds better.which other makes.

Sporky

Also there is no correlation between cable cost and capacitance, other than that the very cheapest tend to be higher capacitance.

j_r

The effects of cable capacitance was discussed and demonstrated on That Pedal Show earlier this year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSWqLuXUfnY

Sassafras

All Jimi Hendrix's curly cables must've added up to about 3 miles of cable.
Not too many complaints about his sound.

robinbowes

Sassafras said:

All Jimi Hendrix's curly cables must've added up to about 3 miles of cable.
Not too many complaints about his sound.

Nobody has said anything about better or worse - just different.

WezV

Curly cables are odd though.  The best ones add a really nice warmth. The worst just sound very dull.  Depending on your perspective, and the rest of your rig, that may well be the same thing

ICBM

Sassafras said:

All Jimi Hendrix's curly cables must've added up to about 3 miles of cable.

Exactly - about 120', if you stretch out four 10' coily cables to their maximum length and add it up.

Sassafras said:

Not too many complaints about his sound.

If you duplicate his setup with modern low-capacitance cables and don't use those nasty treble-sucking non-true-bypass pedals he did, then play a Strat on the bridge pickup through it at the same volume he did, you will not only get complaints, you'll probably be in breach of several Human Rights treaties...

rawk100

So do leads deteriorate over time with use (a bit like valves)......is it good to renew them periodically?....

ICBM

rawk100 said:

So do leads deteriorate over time with use (a bit like valves)......is it good to renew them periodically?....

Not really, although they can go crackly and microphonic as they get old sometimes, which is actually a sign that they're probably about to fail.

I've been using the same set of Horizon cables for about twenty years now though - no problems other than having to resolder a few of the plugs and replace a couple that actually wore out, on my most-used one... through to the brass and not making such a good contact.

robgilmo

As far as I'm aware curling cable effects capacitance

ICBM

robgilmo said:

As far as I'm aware curling cable effects capacitance

Only if it squeezes the dielectric into a thinner layer, which it shouldn't if it's a decent cable.

Voxman

Interestingly, I recently bought myself a Line 6 G10 relay wireless system, in which the capacitance is pre-set to a cable length of 10ft. (with the more expensive Relay units you can actually adjust the capacitance cable length equivalent). When I first heard it at home volumes I could immediately hear better clarity than with my cables (I use a Vox curly lead and straight Pirhana cables of around 20ft). In a band mix at volume the difference is much more subtle, but it does help cut through the mix a smidgeon better, re-affirming its 10m cable capacitence setting. Very slight tweaks of the amps tone control get you back to longer cable feel. I also have a 10ft Pirhana cable, and its almost identical to the G10 Relay tone which suggests Line 6 has got its pseudo 10ft setting about right.  

These things are always personal, but the G10 did open my eyes/ears to the treble roll off you do get with cables. Some folk like quite a relatively high level of treble loss, which they perceive as warmer, others don't. But your ears do tend to get used to less treble roll off very quickly. As I mentioned the differences you hear at gigging volumes in a band mix are much more subtle than at lower home volumes.

But the theme of cable capacitence, alternative wireless solutions etc is an interesting one. Not a matter of better or worse tone, just slightly different.      

ICBM

For a long time, the fact that wireless manufacturers hadn't woke up to the cable capacitance issue was responsible for the "wireless sounds thin, nasty and artificial compared to a cable" idea - which is wrong, a decent wireless outputs a signal identical to the one that goes in.

Sassafras

Always amazes me how those Pedal Show guys manage to cram 3 minutes of subject material into half-hour video clips.

Voxman

ICBM said:

For a long time, the fact that wireless manufacturers hadn't woke up to the cable capacitance issue was responsible for the "wireless sounds thin, nasty and artificial compared to a cable" idea - which is wrong, a decent wireless outputs a signal identical to the one that goes in.

And I think that's spot on. Initially I thought that the wireless tone wasn't wholly accurate...until I realised it was actually giving me a purer more direct quality tone and it was the cables that were colouring the tone!  

pintspiller

When I started 30 years ago, all I could get was curly leads. Cheap ones. Then the shop started to stock straight leads. Cheap ones (it's one of those shops that makes its living on student equipment). 

Anyway. Curly lacked top end for me. Bit like a blanket over the amp.

I mostly use Kotz at the moment. Better than Stagg, not sure about Planet Waves.

Deadman

I know one thing. I went through shitloads of cables until I got my Kabl!