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Patch cables.


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I'm posting this here to take advantage of your expertise...can Coax (cable tv) type wire be used to connect units together...ie: preamp to power amp...effects loop in and out..etc etc....I'd heard somewhere that if you solder 1/4 " ends to this kind of cable, it makes a great and quiet connection..

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Difficult to work with, more prone to breakage owing to the solid center conductor.

 

I've never tried it in a PA, but tried it in a hi-fi and was not please with the results (and no, I was not using Monster or other BS gucci cables as my comparison standard:))

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I hate to disagree but I made 5 of them about 3' each....2 from my preamp to power amp...3 for effects unit in and out of the preamp...they work great...almost no noise...good o/p ...made a noticable difference for the better....I was using HOSA pacth cables before...my homemade coax's are better.

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There should be NO noise. None.

 

You may disagree, but you obviously are not in the business of making cables and supporting your products over the long haul.

 

Hosa isn't a product to be proud to compare to BTW. That's like saying my cooking tastes great using spoiled meat... compared to bear {censored}.

 

Coax cable has about a 70% shield coverage and a solid center conductor (most) which is not suitable for portable pro audio applications. Shield coverage should be ~98% braid and the center conductor should be stranded 22 gauge or larger. You have made a sub-standard cable that will work sort of ok for a while. If it works for your lower standards of performance, then it's a good choice for you. It is not a good choice in general.

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this is way over my head .... a 3ft monster patch cable costs over 25.00..

I made a cable that costs nothing and to my ears sounds as good...Am I messing with the laws of nature? ....Maybe some folks out there do not want the usually broke musician to ear about this....

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andy is saying so long as it's not going to be moved or abused it should work fine.

 

but for those of us who need to use these cables every day, these kind of things would cause problems later on, and it'd be a problem that's tricky to diagnose in a hurry.

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got it....I have these cables in my rack ...does not move much really ...I misunderstood what you guys where saying but at 50cents an end and free cable tv cable ...not a bad deal you think?..I would never use it as a 20ft guitar cable ...not flexible at all really ...

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I dont really get it. Off the reel, in my shop at least, the brown '{censored}ty' cheap coax isn't much different in price than the '75 ohm' (the cable you should be using) cable. How is it cheaper in the long term to use the wrong cable?

 

I've got probably about the same amount of spare phono leads lying around as I have coax leads, if I were going to recycle I'd rather use the cable from the phono leads for your application.

 

One wont 'sound' better than the other any more than your monster patch lead will sound better than any other mechanically sound lead.

 

Steve.

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I should have clarified, '75 ohm' is just the term we use to describe general audio/video cable (a pretty thin gauge flex, usually twin with red/white internal insulation).

 

I dont know of a better descriptive name for it, sorry. Obviously I'd rather use microphone cable for this purpose but if I were going to substitute for something I'd find lying around the house for free, I'd much rather use that than hard coax and its just as cheap.

 

Conversely, out of curiosity, are there any pitfalls in using this type of cable instead of hard coax for aerial cable? Aside from the fact that in most cases the connector probably wont grip the cable...

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75 ohm is specifically video cable and has the specified characteristic to match with source impedance and termination for kinimum reflected signal. This is important where the electrical wavelength is short compared with the cable length and becomes a transmission line.

 

You probably don't want to use 75 ohm for arial cable, generally that cable has a characteristic impedance of 50 ohms.

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OK now you all have me worrying that by using cable tv coax I may be damadging something...please let me know if this is the case...I also have lots of broken guitar cables lying around too ...and I can make my 3foot patch cables from that if that is the case.

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OK now you all have me worrying that by using cable tv coax I may be damadging something...please let me know if this is the case...I also have lots of broken guitar cables lying around too ...and I can make my 3foot patch cables from that if that is the case.

 

 

No, You're just kinda buying into some snake oil that is rampant through our biz.

 

Monster cable anything is a complete and utter ripoff.

 

Todd A.

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I'm posting this here to take advantage of your expertise...can Coax (cable tv) type wire be used to connect units together...ie: preamp to power amp...effects loop in and out..etc etc....I'd heard somewhere that if you solder 1/4 " ends to this kind of cable, it makes a great and quiet connection..

 

 

Are you making a Guitar rack? IN that case, just get George L's. Work great, field repairable, sounds good, and is reasonably priced!

 

Todd

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OK now you all have me worrying that by using cable tv coax I may be damadging something...please let me know if this is the case...I also have lots of broken guitar cables lying around too ...and I can make my 3foot patch cables from that if that is the case.

 

 

No, you are not damaging anything. I would have used guitar cable.

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