cables?

[JacoSheehan]

after listening to my dad play guitar for my entire 20 year life (he has been playing for 40) i am a firm believer in the fact that good cables enhance your sound. i have been playing using some cheap crappy cable and i want to get a better cable...now i know that mogamis are generally accepted as the best but i dont have $200 for cables. i was only lookin to spend around 40....i was lookin at spectraflex....any thought?

[Jactap]

I've been using a dimarzio cable for over a year now and I've put it through hours of abuse.

http://accessories.musiciansfriend.c...ble?sku=332100
I have the vintage tweed one

[grovest]

Hi Jaco,

Mogamis are fine and aren't generally considered the best. I don't think there is one cable that is considered 'the best'. I have one of the 18' Gold series- it's $55. Spectraflex seems fine. Lately I've been thinking about getting an Evidence Audio cable. I agree with your dad that a nice lead is valuable. http://www.pedalgeek.com/ is a cool place with a variety of higher-end cables.

[JacoSheehan]

thanks guys...yeah i was lookin at evidence audio too...lol my dad showed me pedalgeek...they have some good stuff

[ggunn]

I have a raft of cables of all different makes and they all sound exactly the same to me. Buying high dollar cables is, IMO, a waste of money. There's a lot of snake oil out there.

YMMV.

[TheVoiceless]

Originally Posted by ggunn

I have a raft of cables of all different makes and they all sound exactly the same to me. Buying high dollar cables is, IMO, a waste of money. There's a lot of snake oil out there.

YMMV.

I don't think that you need to get the best/expensive cables to sound good. But I can't tell you how many musicians I know that just take their cabling for granted. Each type of cable WILL add some form of coloration. So if you are a blues guy with an open tone you will notice the difference. If you have Active EMGs I doubt you will tell. But I think that anyone one with a trained ear will tell the difference in their sound by switching the cables they use.

Ask a guy who is into high end home stereo's and they will tell you that they spend more on cabling the speakers. Same goes for an instrument. I think if you play a 300-500 bass a 25dollar cord will do. But if you have a custom bass and you play through dental floss cables you need to invest in the cables.

[davecheng]

I now make my own cables from Canare twisted pair microphone cable (L-4E6S) and Neutrik plugs.

They sound as transparent as any of the high end Monster, Planet Waves, and other cables I've somehow acquired over the years. But with one exception: The noise rejection and shielding offered by the Canare's twisted pair is better than anything I've ever used, period.

Relatively cheap, too. About $0.50 USD per foot.

[ggunn]

Originally Posted by TheVoiceless

I don't think that you need to get the best/expensive cables to sound good. But I can't tell you how many musicians I know that just take their cabling for granted. Each type of cable WILL add some form of coloration. So if you are a blues guy with an open tone you will notice the difference. If you have Active EMGs I doubt you will tell. But I think that anyone one with a trained ear will tell the difference in their sound by switching the cables they use.

Ask a guy who is into high end home stereo's and they will tell you that they spend more on cabling the speakers. Same goes for an instrument. I think if you play a 300-500 bass a 25dollar cord will do. But if you have a custom bass and you play through dental floss cables you need to invest in the cables.

Well, stereo buffs are crazy.

Seriously.

I read the results of a double blind listening test in Stereo Review a few years back, where they brought in a bunch of heavyweight goldenears to compare speaker cables. They compared several brands of exotically braided, low oxygen, hideously expensive speaker cable with zipcord bought from a hardware store. The result: not one of the subjects could discern the high end cables from the cheap stuff, or tell any difference between any of them, for that matter.

I'm not saying that you can't build or buy a cable that will detract from your sound, but I am convinced that "good" cables made from well shielded fairly low capacitance wiring and sturdy connectors will suffice for an instrument cable.

[hartke20g]

the only thing that makes one cable better than another is durability. a $200 mogami cable will send the exact same signal as insulating and shielding a wire clothes hanger. if you're paying over $40 for an instrument cable of moderate length (10-20 ft maybe) you're paying more than you could if you shopped around. an example of a good policy that i can think of are Monster cables. yes, they are expensive, but they replace them for free if they stop working. i'm probably going to start buying monster cables now that mine are dying. about 70% of my current cables are Livewire cables, which as far as i'm concerned are excellent products for the price. i bought all of them about 3 years ago, and i had never learned to properly wrap cables until this year. i'm sure that if i had always wrapped them properly they would still work perfectly.

[ggunn]

Originally Posted by hartke20g

the only thing that makes one cable better than another is durability. a $200 mogami cable will send the exact same signal as insulating and shielding a wire clothes hanger. if you're paying over $40 for an instrument cable of moderate length (10-20 ft maybe) you're paying more than you could if you shopped around. an example of a good policy that i can think of are Monster cables. yes, they are expensive, but they replace them for free if they stop working. i'm probably going to start buying monster cables now that mine are dying. about 70% of my current cables are Livewire cables, which as far as i'm concerned are excellent products for the price. i bought all of them about 3 years ago, and i had never learned to properly wrap cables until this year. i'm sure that if i had always wrapped them properly they would still work perfectly.

I'm pretty sure you'll pay over $40 for a 20 foot Monster cable, but I wouldn't buy Monster cables even if they did make a difference. If you google "monster litigation" you'll get lots of hits illustrating their business practice of attempting to extort money from anyone who uses the word "monster" commercially.