Hi @NorthTexasBass , there's quite a bit to unpack in your post here.
I went back through this thread and you seem to be the type of guy who makes the internet a bad place.
That's a real shame that you got that. I think that people who (probably unknowingly) spread misinformation, half-truths and even outright lies are the people who do that. For the record, I'm an educator. I spent most of my early career as a science teacher in secondary schools and now I do e-learning consultancy. I have also worked for the Institute of Physics and I have a volunteer post as an Ask for Evidence Ambassador for Sense About Science. If you [This invalid link has been removed], I'm the pin just west of Newcastle. Basically, I care a LOT about people being able to make informed decisions based on the facts. Look around the world today, the fact that 'fake news' and 'alternative facts' are even terms will tell you how much of a mess we're in. You will not find me this animated on a thread in the composition sub-forum because I am a decidedly average bass player. However, I am an excellent experimental designer.
When I taught I would ask my GCSE students to design an experiment to prove that those magnetic sports bracelets didn't work. The next lesson I would ask them to prove to me that they did. I also used to do the much-overused experiment of giving everyone in my class their horoscope, asking them to rate how accurate it was, and then revealing that everyone in the class has the same horoscope. This goes some way to proving that humans are superb at pattern-recognition. We see the things in the horoscope that apply to us and we disregard the bits that don't. It's why we can see shapes in clouds, hear ghosts in the wind, and it's why
Instrument cables rated and compared. A buyers' guide! | TalkBass.com. Why does this happen? Because, as we all know, one of the most reliable (not) patterns in capitalism is that expensive = better. And I'm just saying that if you can actually be fooled into healing faster, then you can definitely be fooled into hearing a little extra bass in a cable.
To address that point:
I am pretty sure that when I mute my tuner, change a cable and 10 seconds later notice 2 cables are quite a bit different than 2 other cables with no other settings changed it's the cables.
I am telling you that that is NOT the case.
The fact that humans are fallible, squishy, unreliable, biased, messy creatures is why anecdotal evidence is treated as being essentially "trust me, bro". As I said in my post, I am absolutely not doubting that you heard a difference. But, at the moment, we don't know if that difference was actually being created by the cables or by your own psychology.
I can think of two ways to test that, there might be more. Firstly, you could use mechanical device to measure the properties of the cable. If me and you are looking at two different trees that both look taller than the other depending on where you stand, the way to settle that would be to use a tape measure and measure the trees. An oscilloscope would be able to tell you the frequency response, or you could do similar to @bongomania did and measure capacitance. The danger there is deciding what measurable differences on the scope are meaningful and noticeable by human ears. You could correctly argue that a cable that had -0.2dB at 50KHz is technically different from a cable that didn't, but then you also correctly argue that nobody could ever hear that difference.
The other thing that you could do would be what we call a double blind study. In this case you would not know which cable you were listening to. If you could reliably and statistically pick out which cable was which under those conditions then again we could be sure that the difference really was the cables rather than the psychology.
About the other bit:
You are convinced that there is no difference whatsoever in any cable, it doesn't matter if a cable is 5 feet or 50 feet, and anyone who says differently is a liar.
...
There is a sticky at the top of the Accessories sub forum by the great @bongomania.
Instrument cables rated and compared. A buyers' guide! | TalkBass.com He does a much more scientific analysis than I did and there are definitely some differences in cables. Towards the end of the thread someone else posted an article where several pros compare different cables. A manufacturer I was shopping points out that his coiled cables tend to darken the tone a bit due to the longer length. He says it's not necessarily a bad thing if that's what you are going for, but wanted to be clear with his customers. Are all of these people full of crap? Are you the only honest person out there?
You're putting words in my mouth there. The original post asked if there was a "material difference ... that blew you away". That's what I responded to. And I maintain that the answer is 'no'. Yes, if you've got a faulty cable, or a cable that doesn't make proper connections with your jack (a trick that Monster used to use) or if you have a passive bass and you swap from a 1m cable to a 50m cable then of course you will notice a difference between cables. I was operating under good faith and I thought we were talking about broadly comparable cables from across brands. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps I should have written a 12000 word thesis as my first post, I thought my post was snappier though!
My actual thoughts on cables for anyone interested:
- Cables are passive, they can't (by definition) add anything, only remove. If one of your cables has more treble then it's actually either got less bass, or your other cable has less treble.
- Stick with as short as you can if your instrument is passive. Passive basses and true-bypass pedals have been responsible for many a frustrated musician.
- Anything to to with time or phase alignment should set your alarm bells ringing.
- Once you've bought cables with oversized jacks (at least Planet Waves and Monster used to do this, don't know if they still do) then going back to normal cables will sound worse as you'll have stretched the jack and it won't make good contact. Get some pliers and squeeze it back together.
- It's no so bad with musicians as we're a pretty educated bunch on the whole, but hifi and audiophile cables are a massive pile of snake oil. Stay away.
- Cables are two jacks with some copper between. Just make your own. Or don't. I buy Thomann own brand as they're cheaper than making my own. Are they holding my tone back? Nah. Like I said I'm a decidedly average bass player.
very cool! 
same.
