The Boogie Board

Drat, there goes my secrets LOL

+1

Dennis

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Mark III no mark w Randy's initials & some IIc+ parts
50 Caliber (6BQ5) 4xEL84
Heartbreaker
Fender 75
Acoustic 165

1970 LPGT
1981 The Strat
1983 GZ-300
1983 (Elite Neck)/2001 FrankenStrat
1990 Firebird
more guitars, so little characters

Of course they make difference in sound. Just A/B some random Proel or other "basic" brand cables with any higher-end cables (Reference, PW, Monster, George L's) and you'll spot a huge difference on the noise a cable can add and the clarity, upper/lower frequencies it can cut off. Of course it also depends on the rest of you rig (any very bad element in your chain can ruin the whole sound despite of how good intrument/patch/speaker cable you use). I wasn't so aware about cables years ago 'till I started using more expensive rigs and a guitarist I was sessioning with asked wich cables I used and when I said "I don't know, I just buy random cables of the lenght I need" so he looked at me with a "you drink champagne in plastic cups?" expression

+1

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When Gibsons are outlawed, only outlaws will have Gibsons

Well... to be honest... I don't mean to be rude but I don't give a rat's a$$ about theorical stuff. I just go with what I hear, and if there's an audible improvement, then it's all good. I've done several A/B tests with the the standard AWG 18 cables and the thicker AWG 14 cable and it always makes the amp sound better, so there must be a good technical reason for that.

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"Louder is not necessarily better... it's jut louder... and better!!"

In that case, more power to you! If it sounds better to you, that's what matters.

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- 1999 Gibson LPC, lefty, SD JB/Jazz.
- Mesa/Boogie Mark III (blue stripe) --> Mesa Recto Standard 4x12
- TC Electronic Nova System

BAND

There is more to a cable than just its resistance, though speaker cables are more about resistance. I thought someone else would have mentioned it already, but the capacitance of the cable can have a large effect. A lot of cheap cables tend to have a high capacitance and this can roll the top end off quite a lot. Some people like that effect (Jimi hendrix) others don't.

Using shorter cable runs and a good buffer can do wonders.

Personally I am a little fussy with cables and so far the best cable I have used is the Dimarzio one, which also happens to be very low capacitiance.

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Triple Crown 50 combo
Electra Dyne and Royal Atlantic heads
Express 5:25 1x12 combo
JCM800 2203
Deluxe reverb reissue
Traditional 2x12, 4x10 and 23" 1x12 cabs.

All cables, by design, are capacitors. Could you please explain what makes one cable more capacitive than another?

Sure, its easily explained.

Capacitance is formed between the two conductors in a regular cable. The surface area, kind of insulation used (between the conductors)and thickness are the big variables that effect the capacitance value.

With all things being equal a cable that uses thicker insulation will have lower capacitance.

I just went and measured 3 cables I own, two 20 foot leads (one I consider very good and the other average) and a 10 foot lead that I don't like.

The good cable came to about 600pF, the average cable 800pF and the 10 foot 700pF. A good number of cheap multimeters can measure capacitance so almost anyone can check themselves.

I should also mention where the cable capacitiance comes into play. A passive guitar pickup will generally have a fairly high output impedance and when combined with the cable capactiance will form a low pass RC filter. So if you have a setup with 2 20 foot cables (say 1000pF each), a true bypass pedal in the middle and guitar with an 8k Ohm passive pickup the top will have rolled back 3dB around 10Khz, but will have started the roll off around 5Khz. A buffered pedal or active pickups in that situation diminish the roll off to almost nothing at the frequencies we expect to hear from guitar amps.

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Triple Crown 50 combo
Electra Dyne and Royal Atlantic heads
Express 5:25 1x12 combo
JCM800 2203
Deluxe reverb reissue
Traditional 2x12, 4x10 and 23" 1x12 cabs.

I dont think monster cables are any better than horizon or pro co or my planet waves. But I do believe in buying quality cables. There just seems to be a point where spending more than 30 bucks on a 20 foot cable doesnt get you anything more than your normal cable. But Ill tell you those thin cheap pedal cables with the non servicable ends are horrible. They shouldnt even make those things. They are simply create noise.

It does!! Honestly, the cables with the silver wiring and the gold jack makes a BIG difference. It's like plugging straight into the amp, without a cable. It's tonal modulation is just about as close as transparent as you can get!

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]v[ E G A D E T ]-[

ಠ_ರೃ

///M

Silver is a better conductor than copper in the ideal world. However, to purify silver is a more difficult task than copper, and much more expensive too. Also, the silver wiring would be more susceptible to oxidisation, whereas copper would be less so...

The conductivity of silver is higher than copper. BUT not by much. To use a guitar application, a 20-foot piece of 24-gauge copper wire is about 0.52 Ohms. For silver, the same wire would be 0.48 Ohms.

Driving that cable into a 1Meg Ohm guitar amp input will give a drop in signal of 0.000052% for Copper and 0.000048% for Silver. No way you'll hear that.

Driving into a really junky FX pedal with 20k input impedance, the drop will be 0.0026% for Copper and 0.0024% for Silver. No way you'll hear that.

For reference, 1dB is 10%.

Combined with 20pF capacitance to ground, 0.52 Ohms causes significant frequency change at 15.3GHz (15 BILLION Hertz). Combined with a 1uF coupling capacitor, the filter effect (assuming zero input impedance, which is impossible) is around 300kHz. For a real system it is in the GHz range again.

Copper and Silver both oxidize. This can cause MANY Ohms of resistance at the plug, and can also cause intermittent contact. Gold does not oxidize nearly as much, and can make a more reliable contact. Outside of plug/jack pairs, it is not so good because it is higher resistance than copper.

It is questionable whether or not gold is useful if the plug is gold-coated, but the jack is not. This is almost always the case when using gold cables. The jack still oxidizes.

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Electra Dyne Head
JP-2C WICKER, Baby!
Mini Rectifier blue LED
Recto 2x12 Horizontal
2x Recto 2x12 Vertical

I read through this whole thread and was surprised to see that no one mentioned Whirlwind cables. This may sound strange, but I haven't bought a guitar cable in probably 10 years (maybe more). All of my cables are either Whirlwind or custom made cables from a local guitar shop. None of these cables broke the bank, but they weren't "budget" cables either. I've had enough cheap, noisy and prone to short out cables in my time. I had one Monster guitar cable and it developed a short in no time at all. I'm sure this isn't typical of Monster cables, but it put a bad taste in my mouth after forking over some significant dough for what was supposed to be a good cable. No more Monster and no more cheap cables for me. The way the quality of things changes these days I don't even know if Whirlwind still makes a good cable, but I know all the wws I bought between 10 and 20 years ago are still going strong, and they get used heavily.

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60/100 Mark II C+ HX Head
100w Dual Rectifier Solo Head Rev G
Maverick 2x12

still using my .225 diameter George L's cables, and quite happy.
since 1980, haven't found another cable i liked better.
yea, there are better cables, if you've got money to waste.

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'81 Mark 2B head ~ 60watt-GEQ


BatsBrew
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/batsbrew
https://soundcloud.com/bats-brew

I've been through a bunch and I notice................nothing different in sound. I see the better
cables last longer is all.