• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

bass cables!!!

Status
Not open for further replies.
#61
ehque said:
Funny how this extremely complex passive signal filter doesn't screw up the intarweb.
Click to expand...

it does more than you know. we have just engineered our way around it.

if you are using extremely long lines, or have many effect in the chain, you will have a degredation of signal.

but IM(educated)O a short guitar lead or a bass lead will not effect the sound you will get out to the point of it being audible. I politely disagree with those who say otherwise and I am out.
 
#62
Jonyak said:
it does more than you know. we have just engineered our way around it.

if you are using extremely long lines, or have many effect in the chain, you will have a degredation of signal.

but IM(educated)O a short guitar lead or a bass lead will not effect the sound you will get out to the point of it being audible. I politely disagree with those who say otherwise and I am out.
Click to expand...

At least go back and read my post. ;)

Like I said there, I'm 90% in agreement with you save for some cases involving passive pickups and high capacitance cables.
 
#63
Mark Reccord said:
... You can really see the HPF made by the cable capacitance and the series impedance of the pickup and the resonant peak caused by the inductance of the pickup interacting with the DCR of the pickup and the capacitance of the cable as well as the input impedance of the measurement system. Note that lowering the amp's input impedance damps the peak.
Click to expand...

Plus jon's math was wrong.

+1 except:

HPF?
 
#65
ehque said:
Funny how this extremely complex passive signal filter doesn't screw up the intarweb.
Click to expand...

Signal loss is an issue with anything over any lengths of wire. Even cable TV. Why would you say such nonsense? Did you ever hear of a repeater? If you have poor quality cable going to your DSL or cable modem, you will not get the highest speeds.

This is why they use digital signals instead of analog. They are easier to reconstruct back up to normal levels. This is why all TV broadcasts in the US are going digital.

Everyone... do some reading before you comment. These discussions become heated because people don't think any of this is true, but then never really bothered to research any of it.

Lets look at some facts. It's established that audio cables should be low capacitance. Everyone in the industry knows this. So all these companies making the cables you buy try to use low capacitance wire. Why? High capacitance cable shunts the high end of the signal, and yes, it does this at audio frequencies.

Here's a link to a site that has some information and even sound clips.

Invalid Link Removed

Yes, they sell cables, but the information is still valid and not marketing.

Another good article from someone not selling cables:

Invalid Link Removed

"All manufacturers spec their cable at some number of picofarads per foot, conductor-to-conductor and conductor-to-shield." Michael Laiacona, president of Whirlwind Cable, explains the audible result. "The lower the capacitance, the better the frequency response of the cable. If the capacitance is too high, you start hearing a high-frequency loss."
Click to expand...

He said hearing, so we aren't talking RF here.

Perhaps the most difficult factor to optimize in audio cables is inductance, which arises when current flows through a conductor; the resulting electromagnetic field interacts with the current in that conductor and any nearby conductors. Unlike capacitance, inductance resists abrupt changes in current. For low-impedance, high-current sources, such as power amplifier outputs, minimizing the cable inductance is of primary importance. This is often accomplished by separating the conductors as much as possible.
Click to expand...

From Craig Anderton:

Invalid Link Removed
Any cable exhibits some capacitance—not nearly as much as a tone control, but enough to be significant in some situations. However, whether this has a major effect or not depends on the two other factors (guitar output impedance and amp input impedance) mentioned earlier.
Click to expand...


Another article:

Invalid Link Removed
Every cable has a set of electrical properties that can be
measured using standard electrical testing equipment. The
three most basic properties are resistance, capacitance and
inductance. While a detailed description of these three
different electrical properties is outside the scope of this
article, a basic description of the relevant effects of
these three properties can be given.

- Resistance opposes current. The higher the resistance the
greater the amount of energy that is removed from the current
and turned into heat.

- Capacitance opposes changes in voltage. If a voltage is
increasing, capacitance will cause the voltage to increase
more slowly. If a voltage is decreasing, capacitance will
cause the voltage to decrease more slowly.

- Inductance opposes changes in current. If current is
increasing, inductance will cause the current to increase
more slowly. If current is decreasing, inductance will cause
the current to decrease more slowly.

The final piece of background knowledge that is needed for
this article is what the audio signal looks like. If one
were to take the speaker cover off a speaker to look at the
speaker cone while music is playing, you would see that it
is moving back and forth. In order to move the speaker cone
back and forth, the electrical signal must push and then
pull the cone in rapid and repeating fashion. This is
accomplished by having an Alternating Current, or AC.
Click to expand...

How a cable itself affects the audio signal

Now, going back to the ways that the cable itself can change
the signal going through it, let’s consider both types of
cables separately.

As stated previously, interconnect cables carry a very small
amount of current. Relative to the current the voltage is
large. Because of that fact, capacitance is important, but
inductance is relatively unimportant. As the voltage
oscillates between being positive and negative, the
capacitance slows the voltage changes down, and causes
delays. This can cause audible distortion in the sound.
Because interconnects have very little current, resistance
is not much of a factor. Even an interconnect with extremely
high resistance will only remove an infinitesimally small
amount of energy.
Click to expand...
 
#67
I wish I had the $350+ I foolishly spent on a Van den Hul and a TaraLabs cable. Yes, I spent that much for two cables. Complete waste of money. Both are too bulky and stiff for practical stage use and the sonic differences were so insignificant as to be totally useless in a live band situation, which is where it matters most. Oh and I also bought some Evidence Audio speaker cables (another $200 or so), and there is absolutely ZERO difference between them and the cheapest Musician's Friend specials I could find. I switch back and forth from time to time to remind myself what a putz I was.

I did all this ridiculous spending to answer for myself the questions argued in the infamous, completely unsatisfying and mercifully closed "TaraLabs Challenge Thread". :rollno:
 
#72
Don't know if this has been posted or not but try guitar-cable.com's cables. I use them and they're great. Lifetime warranty like you're looking for and you tell them the length you need and that's what you get. Here's the link:

Invalid Link Removed
 
#75
Mark Reccord said:
You're looking at it slightly wrong. The capacitance of the cable is between the hot conductor and ground, not in series. The filter in question is the series impedance of the pickup (resistance and inductance) with the capacitance of the cable to ground, which is essentially a lowpass filter with a resonant peak. In this case, if you have a high capacitance cable and a high impedance pickup, it is possible to get the filter acting well within the audio band.

However, if you're using an active instrument with low source impedance, the inductive element effectively goes away and the corner frequency of the filter moves up into the hundreds of kHz or the MHz range, where it is in no way audible....
Click to expand...

Taa daa! Very well said.

jmac said:
Wow, I'm surprised that this thread hasn't been closed yet; as this topic has been covered so much.

I mentioned this in a previous thread. I used to think a cable was a cable. However, a few weeks ago a cable comparison was done at my local bass boutique store (Bass Specialties). I was surprised at how much better the bass sounded with the Mogami platinum cable. It was clearly better than all of the rest. There were about six other cables; though I don't remember what they were (one was oil filled).

Now for live sound it probably doesn't matter as much, but for studio it makes a world of difference.
Click to expand...

And that, my friends, is the bottom line. If you don't believe it, try some of these cables out with your own ears.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back