Members strtdv Posted November 16, 2011 Members Share Posted November 16, 2011 I tried George L's, didn't like the sound and then changed to Klotz La Grange, and have stuck with them. Either was an improvement over the no-name cheap ones I was using before though. I challenge anyone to plug their guitar straight into the amp with a 10-15' cable and not hear a significant difference between cables. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BoneNut Posted November 16, 2011 Members Share Posted November 16, 2011 If you want a huge laugh you should find some thick guy that thinks home audio cables and guitar cables are doing the same job. Yes - palm your face in shame because you know not... Who the {censored} said that? Besides, you've been impatiently waiting since last night for some one to argue cable audio quality with you. Sorry Koi, it won't be me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members PrawnHeed Posted November 16, 2011 Members Share Posted November 16, 2011 If you want a huge laugh you should find some thick guy that thinks home audio cables and guitar cables are doing the same job. Yes - palm your face in shame because you know not... Maybe someone could educate us on the differences in the job done by an instrument cable and an audio interconnect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members photon9 Posted November 16, 2011 Members Share Posted November 16, 2011 Thanks for the vids. Turns out I've been doing it the right way all along (time permitting of course, if I'm sandwiched in a multi-band gig I'm just trying to get off stage as fast as possible... I hate those). I think I will start trying the over-under way though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BlueSteam Posted November 16, 2011 Members Share Posted November 16, 2011 Monster may be overpriced in the minds of some, but I buy their cables because I know what I'm getting and I trust them. I've got a few hundred dollars of cables in my home studio and it was one of the most worthwhile investments I've made. Everything sounds better when you're using great cables to carry all of your signals. I use Monster Rock cables for guitar, Monster Bass for bass and Performer 500 for all of my speaker and mic connections. There are other brands out there that are just as good, but I don't want to have to think about it or do research every time I need a new cable. Monster makes a lot of different cables and they've always had what I needed with one exception. In that case I had a custom cable made with Mogami wire and Neutrik jacks. I've been using the same guitar cable for about 10 years... It was 35-40 bucks... but it has definitely been a great investment. No matter what you go with, always use the shortest cable possible. And remember, every cable in your signal path needs to be a good one... one crappy patch cable will ruin your whole chain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Grant Harding Posted November 16, 2011 Members Share Posted November 16, 2011 Maybe someone could educate us on the differences in the job done by an instrument cable and an audio interconnect.Impedance. http://whirlwindusa.com/support/tech-articles/high-and-low-impedance-signals/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members PrawnHeed Posted November 16, 2011 Members Share Posted November 16, 2011 Impedance. http://whirlwindusa.com/support/tech-articles/high-and-low-impedance-signals/ But a typical moving magnet turntable cartridge has a similar output impedance to a guitar pickup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Grant Harding Posted November 17, 2011 Members Share Posted November 17, 2011 But a typical moving magnet turntable cartridge has a similar output impedance to a guitar pickup.Yep - and a typical receiver that has a Phono intput has a preamp built-in. You wouldn't want to run 20 feet of really cheap cable between a turntable and the amp either. I realise that there's a whole bunch of cable voodoo that gets spread around in an efffort to sell mega-buck gold-plated oxygen free cables to vulnerable types, but if you're taking a high impedance signal a decent distance the cable does make a difference. It's not voodoo, it's science and you can hear it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jimash Posted November 17, 2011 Members Share Posted November 17, 2011 They REALLY hammer the home audio guys.http://www.spearitsound.com/siltechsale/siltech_classic_anniversary.htm It would take some very powerful science to convince me that $1000 for 4 6ft hunks of wire and 4 rca type plugs, was reasonable . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BoneNut Posted November 17, 2011 Members Share Posted November 17, 2011 They REALLY hammer the home audio guys. http://www.spearitsound.com/siltechsale/siltech_classic_anniversary.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Gumkick Posted November 17, 2011 Members Share Posted November 17, 2011 I realise that there's a whole bunch of cable voodoo that gets spread around in an efffort to sell mega-buck gold-plated oxygen free cables to vulnerable types, but if you're taking a high impedance signal a decent distance the cable does make a difference. It's not voodoo, it's science and you can hear it. Look, it's well understood that a cable with high capacitance will cut off high end. The one thing that I take issue with is that you're implying that's there's a strong correlation between the cost of a cable and its capacitance and I don't think that's true. Here's a chart where some guy measured a bunch of cables: http://www.ovnilab.com/articles/cablechoice.shtml I think there's a stronger correlation between price and quality of construction, both ruggedness and shielding, but generally I think your argument is pretty weak. When you get into the supposed benefits of the super premium cables generally it's a lot of subjective weasel words similar to what you get in audiophile circles and honestly I don't think it's possible to make a counter-argument. My position is that there's a lot of magical thinking involved, I don't think we can even trust our own ears, and we certainly can't trust the subjective opinions of third parties so we all have to make up our own minds as best we can. Guitarists and audiophiles are alike in that there's a way of thinking where if two components sound different--whether it's cables, capacitors, or fretboard wood--that the more expensive or harder to obtain choice always sounds better and I just think that's empirically untrue. Although it's almost entirely subjective so it's impossible to ever settle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members crashclc Posted November 17, 2011 Members Share Posted November 17, 2011 Look, it's well understood that a cable with high capacitance will cut off high end. The one thing that I take issue with is that you're implying that's there's a strong correlation between the cost of a cable and its capacitance and I don't think that's true. Here's a chart where some guy measured a bunch of cables: http://www.ovnilab.com/articles/cablechoice.shtml I think there's a stronger correlation between price and quality of construction, both ruggedness and shielding, but generally I think your argument is pretty weak. When you get into the supposed benefits of the super premium cables generally it's a lot of subjective weasel words similar to what you get in audiophile circles and honestly I don't think it's possible to make a counter-argument. My position is that there's a lot of magical thinking involved, I don't think we can even trust our own ears, and we certainly can't trust the subjective opinions of third parties so we all have to make up our own minds as best we can. Guitarists and audiophiles are alike in that there's a way of thinking where if two components sound different--whether it's cables, capacitors, or fretboard wood--that the more expensive or harder to obtain choice always sounds better and I just think that's empirically untrue. Although it's almost entirely subjective so it's impossible to ever settle. +1 I ran much the same test a few years ago with a signal generator and an oscilloscope on a lot smaller set of cables. I did it electronically to eliminate my own ear from the equation. My conclusion was that capacitance was the only thing that made ANY noticeable electronic difference (where I define noticeable as significant difference between input and output traces on the trusty old Tektronix scope) The big predictor of capacitance was length and it turns out that at the same cable length, there's almost no electronically measurable difference at all which means the marketing claims are bogus. Face it guys, the marketing myths are busted. A cable is a cable is just a cable - as long as it has decent construction, especially connectors. And btw> subjectively there's not a lot of audible difference between 25Pf/ft and 50Pf/ft. Electrons don't lie. Sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members PrawnHeed Posted November 17, 2011 Members Share Posted November 17, 2011 Yep - and a typical receiver that has a Phono intput has a preamp built-in. You wouldn't want to run 20 feet of really cheap cable between a turntable and the amp either. I realise that there's a whole bunch of cable voodoo that gets spread around in an efffort to sell mega-buck gold-plated oxygen free cables to vulnerable types, but if you're taking a high impedance signal a decent distance the cable does make a difference. It's not voodoo, it's science and you can hear it. The typical input impedance of the phono preamp is about 50k. Much lower than a guitar amp at 1M. The bull{censored} spread about audio cables is the same as the bull{censored} spread about guitar cables. The truth, as Gumkick says, is that only the capacitance matters. The effect it has is not quite as simple as rolling off high end as there is an LCR resonant circuit formed by the pickup coil; the tone cap and cable; the pots and amp. Changing the capacitance of the cable, like changing the tone control, will change the position and height of the resonant frequency, but in effect this will sound very similar. Now, the capacitance added by any half decent cable is still pretty tiny in comparison with the tone cap in the guitar. If you factor in that the manufacturing tolerance on caps is pretty bad (+/- 20%), you'll discover that two otherwise identical guitars from the same run, in the same factory will sound more different than two completely different cable types. Then if you factor in that the input impedances of amps vary widely between a vintage tube amp, a modern tube amp, a true bypass pedal, a buffered pedal and a SS amp, then you'll discover that the effect of the additional capacitance of the cable may or may not be actually measurable. As to whether any effect can be heard, as far as I know, not one single cable manufacturer has ever come up with a proper scientific study showing that it can. This would be very easy to do - it is simple science, but clearly not in their interest to do it. I know that in my rig, with my guitars, I cannot hear any appreciable difference between the free cable that came with one of the guitars a homemade cable, Klotz and Ernie Ball cables I also have in various lengths. That's not to say that you couldn't hear a difference in your rig. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kit_strong Posted November 17, 2011 Members Share Posted November 17, 2011 Monster may be overpriced in the minds of some, but I buy their cables because I know what I'm getting and I trust them. I've got a few hundred dollars of cables in my home studio and it was one of the most worthwhile investments I've made. Everything sounds better when you're using great cables to carry all of your signals. I use Monster Rock cables for guitar, Monster Bass for bass and Performer 500 for all of my speaker and mic connections. There are other brands out there that are just as good, but I don't want to have to think about it or do research every time I need a new cable. Monster makes a lot of different cables and they've always had what I needed with one exception. In that case I had a custom cable made with Mogami wire and Neutrik jacks. I've been using the same guitar cable for about 10 years... It was 35-40 bucks... but it has definitely been a great investment. No matter what you go with, always use the shortest cable possible. And remember, every cable in your signal path needs to be a good one... one crappy patch cable will ruin your whole chain. I view Monster in the same way i view Bose. They aren't bad and they get the job done and are reliable. Like Bose they have done a great job of marketting so they have a lot of name recognition. There are much better values to be had for sure but for someone who doesn't have the time or desire to investigate their options and has the money to spend it's a fine choice as the end result is a solidly built product. Me, i'm in front of the computer all day anyway so I have tons to try and look for those under-the-radar products that have a higher price to performance ratio. But on the flip side of things I buy all my gear (guitars, amps, etc...) new so I do more than my fair share of overspending. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Grant Harding Posted November 17, 2011 Members Share Posted November 17, 2011 I agree completely that it's not the price or brand that makes the difference, just the capacitance. My whole point is that people shouldn't just buy on price or brand, that they should use their ears. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BoneNut Posted November 17, 2011 Members Share Posted November 17, 2011 I agree completely that it's not the price or brand that makes the difference, just the capacitance. My whole point is that people shouldn't just buy on price or brand, that they should use their ears. ...and that I can agree with you 100%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members El Glom-o Posted November 17, 2011 Members Share Posted November 17, 2011 So, am I OK using Canare GS-6 cable for interconnects between stereo components? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members PrawnHeed Posted November 17, 2011 Members Share Posted November 17, 2011 So, am I OK using Canare GS-6 cable for interconnects between stereo components? Yes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members diceman1000 Posted November 18, 2011 Members Share Posted November 18, 2011 i like live wires, cheaper than Monster and the same lifetime warranty... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members cincy_cosmo Posted November 18, 2011 Author Members Share Posted November 18, 2011 One thing I got reminded on in this thread was 'the limited lifetime warranty'... I have two Fender cords that have gone bad, but no receipt, therefore no warranty. Bummer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Strenge Posted November 18, 2011 Members Share Posted November 18, 2011 I like the cables (mic and instrument) I got from audiopile.net. I heard a lot of recommendations for them on these forums. I also took a flier on mic and balanced (25') instrument cables from monoprice, which is known more for hdmi and usb cables. They are very thick and the connectors look nice...hard to beat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kid Klash Posted November 18, 2011 Members Share Posted November 18, 2011 George L for me. Great sounding, nice company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members J-E-M Posted November 18, 2011 Members Share Posted November 18, 2011 So, am I OK using Canare GS-6 cable for interconnects between stereo components? You should be fine.I'm using Canare GS-6 for my guitar gear. A lot of people say it's a dark sounding cable - I don't hear it; my tone is still very bright (so I have to roll my guitar's tone control almost all the way down.) For me, capacitance comes into play according to how much cable is used. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members steve_man Posted November 19, 2011 Members Share Posted November 19, 2011 i like live wires, cheaper than Monster and the same lifetime warranty... I have a few of those...not bad cables! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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