How much difference does a cable make?

[Ezmar]

I paid out for some Van Den Hul cables because, sadly, I would never keep track of my cheapo cables. They would walk off after shows. I guess spending needless $$ on cables is what it took for me, 4 years now with the same cables.
Discipline through spending. Wait, what?

Holy Balls, man, those puppies are expensive. I'm happy you're doing well for yourself in life!

 

[wraub]

I used Armored cables until the ones I have failed. They looked cool.

For recording I use EarCandy cables, 6 ft length.

Live, lately I have been using LiveWire cables.
The LiveWire cables have a free replacement warranty. I will use that.

I have a couple of speaker cables-
One's a Conquest, one's a Monster. They sound totally different, with the Monster being noticeably brighter and clearer, and the other one being more attenuated in the highs. It's a noticeable difference, and has been remarked on by others.

I use the Monster with my active basses, and the others with my passive basses.
Works out well.

wraub

 

[SurferJoe46]

It wasn't bad enough asking about instrument cables - now you want info on speaker cables?

Lamp cord - or what I use is those 300' Lowes exterior extension cords that they sell by the mile at this time of the year for outdoor displays.

Cut them into convenient lengths and add some 1/4" ends and have at it.

BTW: The Lowes cables are all Zero Oxygen, Ultra Non-Capacitive, Zero Loss and flexible. Plus you can get them in neat-o International Orange or BLAZE RED color.

If you're super paranoid and want the least amount of resistance, get the 12AWG size - but really, anything larger than 18AWG will work fine up to about 50 feet or so. .

 

[megafiddle]

Here are some things to consider.

The capacitance of an 18' cable can be about 850 pF.
The output resistance with a 250 kohm volume pot can be as high as 62 kohm, if it is set
to -6db.

This is not a typical condition as many volume settings would normally be at something
other than -6db. But this is possible, and if it is so, the affect on tone can be significant.

Anyway, with a 250 kohm pot at -6db and an 18' cable, the output resistance and cable
capacitance form a low pass filter with a cutoff frequency of 3 kHz. Well within the audio
range.

With a 500 kohm pot, under the same conditions, the cutoff frequency falls to 1500 Hz.
With a 1 Megohm pot, under the same conditions, the cutoff frequency falls to 750 Hz.

Now the question is about the difference between 2 different cables, and that difference
is typically not great. And even under the most revealing conditions, with the volume at
-6db, a change of the volume control will have a much greater effect on the tone than
the cable itself. And at a volume setting of "10", the effect shifts way up in frequency.

So the effect of "cable" vs "no cable" can be significant. Cable "a" vs cable "b", not so much.

The offer of "The Amazing Randi" applies to speaker cables, not guitar cables.

 

[bongomania]

Randi's specific deal is that he'll pay the mil to anyone who can prove having "paranormal" abilities such as psychic powers or conjuring spirits.

Someone proposed that, based on science, reliably hearing a difference between two speaker cords in a double-blind test would require the same sort of science-defying magic powers, and Randi agreed to that premise. To date, the one person (owner of a high-end cable brand) who initially accepted the speaker-cord challenge ended up backing out.

If someone wants to propose a similar ABX test with different brands of guitar cord and an active bass, or with a passive bass but where the cables have been cut and measured to have the same total capacitance, then Randi might agree to it.

 

[bongomania]

No one says this strap works for me and a bunch a folks start telling him it's the placebo effect.
"A strap is a strap".

That's because the physical differences between straps are easily shown to be real, and do not require magical thinking.

The cables we are using aren't that far apart in price to have to steer the unenlightened from spending too much on bad science.

I disagree. To a working-class Joe, the difference between $27 and $127 is pretty huge. Even $87 can seem painful.

What doesn't happen in the dble blind test is the reaction of your touch with your bass your strings your cable your pre/amp your settings your cab etc.

I cannot adequately express my feelings about the value of that statement, because I would get banned.

 

[cnltb]

I paid out for some Van Den Hul cables because, sadly, I would never keep track of my cheapo cables. They would walk off after shows. I guess spending needless $$ on cables is what it took for me, 4 years now with the same cables.
Discipline through spending. Wait, what?

Which Van Den Hul cables are yu using?
I have an integration hybrid and 'the second' and like both quite a lot.
Two very different cables but both nice.

 

[bassdude51]

"From the straight razor, to the safety razor, to the injector system, amd finally the highly acclaimed twinblade cartridge. Almost perfect, yet not quite the superlative groom. Introducing the Triple-Trac. Not just two blades in one system, but three stainless, platinum teflex-coated blades melded together to form one incredible shaving cartridge, easily fitted into your old twinblade holder. Triple-Trac's triple-threat cartridge, with more close shaves than ever before...Triple-Trac's third blade, a finely-honed bonded platinum instrument, cuts cleanly through the whisker at its base, leaving your face as smooth as a billiard ball,

The Triple-Trac. Because you'll believe anything."

I get excellent and better results with a triple track razor! This is true! (Gillette Turbo)

An instrument cable with higher capacitance is like playing a bass with some high end roll-off from the tone control.

Silver is the highest conductive metal and has the least resistance. It also costs $35 an ounce.

We can use any cable that we like. My 2 cents is that I can hear a slightly better sound from George Ls.

Differences in cables is going to be very slight and for some, no differences at all.

 

[chadds]

That's because the physical differences between straps are easily shown to be real, and do not require magical thinking.

I disagree. To a working-class Joe, the difference between $27 and $127 is pretty huge. Even $87 can seem painful.
I cannot adequately express my feelings about the value of that statement, because I would get banned.

The differences between cords and ends can be seen and measured. Many of the cords that folks typically discuss are in the under $50 range. I don't think peeps need to spend $127 unless the rest of their rig is comparable and they have the funds. I was never advocating such an expense.
Even in hi-end audio significant changes can be made even in speaker placement before you spend the big bucks on cables.

To your last comment:
In my checkered past I worked in a 3/4 way house for parolees. They were not allowed to threaten each other. Instead they would say, "I'm going to threaten you". Thanks for the deep belly laugh.

I appreciate your informative explanations of the scientific principles behind our craft. The preamp one, particularly voltage matching with power amps was right on time. The more we know the more we know.

 

[KJung]

Yeah, this all gets pretty simple. The tonal difference among cables is due to capacitance, and really only impacts passive instruments (once you put a preamp in the circuit, the capacitance differences greatly reduce).

All other things being equal, the longer the cable, the more capacitance, so cable length can have an impact (again, primarily if you don't have an onboard preamp). It is why many guitarists are fanatic about short cable lengths, since most guitars are passive, and of course, they have a LOT of upper frequencies versus bass guitar, where all this is not quite as much an issue.

The impact of capacitance strictly impacts the upper treble response. No cable can have more low end than another cable, but some cables do sound more 'full' because the higher capacitance of some cables reduces treble, resulting in the ear hearing 'more bass' (i.e., a psycho-acoustic phenomenon).

The best way to experience this, IMO, is to take the two 'capacitance extremes' of cables..... the George L's (EXTREMELY low capacitance), and the Monster Bass cables (EXTREMELY high capacitance). Make sure the cables are of the same length.

If you are using a 'full range' instrument with relatively new roundwound strings (i.e., where your signal source actually puts treble into the signal chain), you will hear the George L's sound 'brighter', and seemingly having a touch less low end (they don't), and the Monster bass sounding dull up top and seemingly having a touch more low end.

Even these two extreme cables result in a relatively subtle difference that mostly goes away once you kick a preamp in on an active bass.

Most other cables are within a capacitance range to sound literally identical to each other.

IMO and a lot of IME on this one. Bongomania has some great threads, tests, etc. on this topic if you do a search.

 

[fdeck]

An astute tube amp builder repairman guitarist said once that everything matters. Just to different degrees. What doesn't happen in the dble blind test is the reaction of your touch with your bass your strings your cable your pre/amp your settings your cab etc.

Well, if we agree that the effects we're talking about vanish under objective testing, that's progress.

The cables we are using aren't that far apart in price to have to steer the unenlightened from spending too much on bad science.

True. But good science and bad science are far enough apart from one another to warrant explaining the difference to people.

 

[bassdude51]

Yeah, this all gets pretty simple. The tonal difference among cables is due to capacitance, and really only impacts passive instruments (once you put a preamp in the circuit, the capacitance differences greatly reduce).

All other things being equal, the longer the cable, the more capacitance, so cable length can have an impact (again, primarily if you don't have an onboard preamp). It is why many guitarists are fanatic about short cable lengths, since most guitars are passive, and of course, they have a LOT of upper frequencies versus bass guitar, where all this is not quite as much an issue.

The impact of capacitance strictly impacts the upper treble response. No cable can have more low end than another cable, but some cables do sound more 'full' because the higher capacitance of some cables reduces treble, resulting in the ear hearing 'more bass' (i.e., a psycho-acoustic phenomenon).

The best way to experience this, IMO, is to take the two 'capacitance extremes' of cables..... the George L's (EXTREMELY low capacitance), and the Monster Bass cables (EXTREMELY high capacitance). Make sure the cables are of the same length.

If you are using a 'full range' instrument with relatively new roundwound strings (i.e., where your signal source actually puts treble into the signal chain), you will hear the George L's sound 'brighter', and seemingly having a touch less low end (they don't), and the Monster bass sounding dull up top and seemingly having a touch more low end.

Even these two extreme cables result in a relatively subtle difference that mostly goes away once you kick a preamp in on an active bass.

Most other cables are within a capacitance range to sound literally identical to each other.

IMO and a lot of IME on this one. Bongomania has some great threads, tests, etc. on this topic if you do a search.

Thank-you KJung for your intelligent comment on this somewhat trivial subject matter.

 

[KJung]

Thank-you KJung for your intelligent comment on this somewhat trivial subject matter.

Bongo is 'the man' on this topic!

The George L's are interesting cables. Really (other than that awful Monster Bass cable, which is 'different in a bad way'), the only cable that will at least provide a bit of difference in tone from other cables in general (but again, only if you play a passive instrument and have a lot of treble in your tone) is the George L. I dig the super thin wire of those cables, and the very small plug ends. Pretty cool cable, and 'average priced'.

I buy them more for the thin cable (three 15' George L's take up less space in a gig bag than a single 15' of another brand).

 

[turbo chicken]

wow another one of these...

i use guitarcenter livewire ... don't have problems with them at all ... at least under normal use.

go for reliable/durable over anything else... good insulation, good connectors, and reinforced at the ends with shrink wrap over where the connection is soldered.

there's also some good information in this thread and a good deal of misinformation...


could you not find the other 20 cable threads??? seriously

 

[RobbieNuke]

I can distinguish some audible difference between some cables; either signal or speaker. But for general purposes the best guide can be the connectors attached to the cable.

For signal cables, first look for the brand name on the connector (not the wire or the package it comes in). The most reliable connectors are Switchcraft, Neutrik, and G & H. If you see these brands your have a good indicator of a quality cable. Plus they are more easily serviceable should you have problems. As mentioned elsewhere, avoid the gold plated connectors and salesmen who recommend it.

For speaker wires, again the same criteria for brand names, but if you have the MDP (banana plugs) include either Pomona or Johnson. For bass amps/speakers I have went with 12 AWG SJT type power cordage for most applications.

 

[mambo4]

Yeah, this all gets pretty simple. The tonal difference among cables is due to capacitance, and really only impacts passive instruments (once you put a preamp in the circuit, the capacitance differences greatly reduce).

All other things being equal, the longer the cable, the more capacitance, so cable length can have an impact (again, primarily if you don't have an onboard preamp). It is why many guitarists are fanatic about short cable lengths, since most guitars are passive, and of course, they have a LOT of upper frequencies versus bass guitar, where all this is not quite as much an issue.

The impact of capacitance strictly impacts the upper treble response. No cable can have more low end than another cable, but some cables do sound more 'full' because the higher capacitance of some cables reduces treble, resulting in the ear hearing 'more bass' (i.e., a psycho-acoustic phenomenon).

The best way to experience this, IMO, is to take the two 'capacitance extremes' of cables..... the George L's (EXTREMELY low capacitance), and the Monster Bass cables (EXTREMELY high capacitance). Make sure the cables are of the same length.

If you are using a 'full range' instrument with relatively new roundwound strings (i.e., where your signal source actually puts treble into the signal chain), you will hear the George L's sound 'brighter', and seemingly having a touch less low end (they don't), and the Monster bass sounding dull up top and seemingly having a touch more low end.

Even these two extreme cables result in a relatively subtle difference that mostly goes away once you kick a preamp in on an active bass.

Most other cables are within a capacitance range to sound literally identical to each other.

IMO and a lot of IME on this one. Bongomania has some great threads, tests, etc. on this topic if you do a search.

Your IMO/IME sounds dangerously close to an informed, reasonable , and succinct summation.

 

[Big Brother]

Normally even the most tone deaf of listeners can tell the difference between copper types and can give a pretty approximate rating of the percentage of oxygenation in the copper, assuming that someone hasn't laughably used something less than 1" copper core for the cable.

However years of listening to and playing music over inferior copper cables has pretty much destroyed their brains ability to ever truly hear music again, those brain centers permanently shut themselves down in self preservation as a reaction to music transmitted over anything less than 1 foot core metal cable, and of a pure element.

Every scientist knows this.

Recent breakthoughs though have found that silver-colloid cables that have been forged in molten mercury and lunar meteorite dust have some unique tonal qualities that can transcend even the best solid-gold core cables and deliver rich undertones, resonances and harmonies that inferior cables leak out into space. And you can do it with cables as thin as 2". Incredible.

Keep in mind that these cables are time-correct. Anyone can rig the stats when the transmission of electrons is at random speeds thanks to quantum radiation leakage.

There is something about the moon dusts ancient and unspoiled volcanic mineral structure that allows for almost pure and loss-less energy transmission of electrical signals that correspond to almost exactly the human audible range, no more or less. This wipes out dissonance and brings out the complete aural stage that is crushed by typical layman cables sold for under $20K per foot.

Most amatures cheap out their stage sound with garbage but a real pro would never let wildly inferior equipment compromise the magic that he makes with his instrument.

I was once a doubter too but I asked the sales guy at the stereo store, he verified all of this.

 

[chadds]

Well, if we agree that the effects we're talking about vanish under objective testing, that's progress.

True. But good science and bad science are far enough apart from one another to warrant explaining the difference to people.

First point, all things can be explained by science. Sometimes we have to design the tech to measure or discern the effects we see.

Second point, absolutely! Didn't mean to infer that peeps should be kept in the dark because of a slight difference in cost. My point was about the difference being apparent between similarly priced cables.

 

[SurferJoe46]

I'll just stay with what I've got until the Nanotube cables come out.

 

[Big Brother]

The real irony though is why anyone is even rehashing this subject to begin with, it is completely silly.

Every scientist knows that we are on the verge of a revolution where we will be able to finally eliminate quantum dissonance in wireless transmission paths and finally deliver a jitter-free signal by sending the waves through the relatively contention-free 12th dimension.

Even in the 12th dimension there is the potential for interference but it is diminished to a factor of 12 KiloBose's of noise reduction. Once again science delivers.