software

I have always wonder this and have talked to several people about this. Will cables affect tone? I have played with my first $2 cable and then compared it to my quot;best cable out there salesman talkquot; Planet waves with on/off switch. I'm honest i can't here any difference in tone and about 8/10 people i have asked including all my musicteachers and playing friends say's this hype over cables is just bull.

Should i/we care about what cables we use or is it just to plug and play?

no questions asked, hands down YES!

Cables are one of the most overlooked pieces of equipment out there...think about this, you have a good guitar, you put good pickups in it, you play through a good amp and you put good tubes in the amp, but you use a crap cord...

I won't tell you that a cord that costs a lot of money is the best you can get...I tried quot;Monsterquot; cables for a while and I didn't care for them at all...and I really didn't like the cost of them. After lots of looking around I have decided that George L's are (for me at least) the best cable out there...they seem to have the lease amount of signal loss, and the best freq response, add to that they they can be repaired in 30 seconds with out a soldering iron, and that when compared to other cables they really are pretty cheep...I like them a lot, I have a few other cables laying around, but I use George L's 100%, form guitar to pedal board, from pedalboard to guitar and all my patch cables as well.

I use a good planet waves cable, but that's for reliability rather than sound... after all, the short cord that connects v-amp to amp is pretty cheap, so I guess that negates the sound benefits of the Planet Waves...

PLanet waves are all over the shop.
I use planet waves too, but some say that the peavey ones are also good

Good guitar cables can make a subtle difference to be sure. If anything, they will last longer and take abuse better making them cheaper to use in the long run. I've got Specterflex cables that have logged hundreds of gigs over the last 10 years and are still going strong.

The signal coming out of a passive guitar pickup is very small. So it is this application where a better cable can be of the most benifit. Line level signals like out of a keyboard or a mixer are way more powerful and it's under an application like this where quot;cable mojoquot; is less critical.

But I think it's usually more experienced players that readily hear the difference because their ears just have more training.

As for speaker cables...thicker is better and cheap thin wire can really bog down tone and inhibit propper current transfer especially when a run gets longer than 10 feet or so. I use a 12 guage 4 foot cable to hook up my cab to my amp. Thicker speaker cables most certainly make a difference especially for low frequencies which need more power than high frequencies.

i use planet waves mostly for the reliability factor. i haven't actually used different kinds of cables back to back to see what sounds better, but the planet waves cables are very rugged.

As was said above, if you're using passive pickups the most important cable is the one attached to your guitar....it has the potential for the most loading down of the pickup, particularly if you use a buffered effect on your board (or go strait into the amp).

If you use all true bypass you have to keep using good cabling, otherwise you're waisting your money if you're only half and half (IMO).

Once you hit a buffer of some sort, the quality of the cable becomes slightly less important. That said, I can hear the tone suck off those little 6in plastic patch chords (they come in the multi-coloured pack) - even after a buffer - so I avoid them like the plague.

Personally I choose good cables, but I don't go off the deep end pricewise. If you compare the guage and type of wire, combined with the quality of the connector, you'll get a better indication of what you're actually getting than if you judge by price.

Also, don't judge by cable thickness.....some companies *cough*Monster*cough* like to put really thick rubber on normal sized cables because people see them and assume they're better, even though they have a normal sized conductor.

Also, I avoid anything that comes in a fancy package. Those packages are expensive to produce.....costs which they pass on to the consumer. There's plenty of professional grade cables that are just as good or better than Monster/Planet Waves that come in those cheap paper/cardboard sleaves....you just have to do your research and know what you're looking for.

Much info in such short amount of time, i love this forum!

Anyway, i wonder, has anyone tried the Fender quot;vintage voltagequot; cables? I like the look of them but are they of any quality?

Cables do make a difference but better specs don't necessary mean better tone. I find a lot of high end low-capacitance cables to be a bit trebly to my ear. I prefer the roll-off of my 20 year old Pro Co cables to the sound of most high end stuff.
What's most important to me, though is reliability and noise. I can still get quot;my tonequot; with high end cables. I can't get it if the cable doesn't pass tone, is noisy, or is microphonic, it's a lot harder to sound good.


Originally Posted by ThurisarzAnyway, i wonder, has anyone tried the Fender quot;vintage voltagequot; cables? I like the look of them but are they of any quality?

I have a couple of 'em. They're okay. I'd describe as middle-of-the-road in terms of quality. I wouldn't speculate as to how they'll last over the long haul.


Originally Posted by alecleeI have a couple of 'em. They're okay. I'd describe as middle-of-the-road in terms of quality. I wouldn't speculate as to how they'll last over the long haul.
Would you use them live on stage? What colours did you get


Originally Posted by ThurisarzWould you use them live on stage? What colours did you get

Mine are the basic silver/black ones. They seem to be of adequate quality though I'm not particularly fond of cloth-jacketed cables.
Since the ones I have are only 10' long, they're too short for me to use on stage.

If a cable has too much distributed capacitance, it will attenuate your treble response. Monster has tried to turn this into a selling point by offering quot;jazzquot; cables. As a marketing guy, I had to tip my hat to them by turning a negative into -- what they claim to be -- a positive.

The lowest distributed capacitance we've tested is in standard Mogami cable. It's not fancy or expensive. But it has the least coloring effect on your tone.

What do people think of these Planet waves cables, i have the one's with the on/off switch, are they any good? What do you prefer?

i use Dimarzio cables and im pretty happy with them altough i havent realy tested any other brands.. exept for a short peavy cable going from my amp to the pedals.

I've always wondered about George L's..... where's the best place to get them? I noticed a huge jump in tone when switching from prolinks to monster rock cables too. I'll have to agree with TGWIF.


Originally Posted by ThurisarzWhat do people think of these Planet waves cables, i have the one's with the on/off switch, are they any good? What do you prefer?

Prepare to buy new ones every 3-5 months. I had two of them that just want kaput after that length of time.

Personally, I prefer the Yorkville cables. The ones that come in the ugly cardboard package, plain black with silver screw of tips. Work great; easy to repair if you break 'em at the connection of the plug.

Those Peavey cables are decent, too. No, these el cheapo cables will not compare to anything that's high grade, but if you're not in the studio, why bother spending big bucks on cables?

planet waves cables are pretty nice, though one failed on me during a gig once. I'm a little iffy on that on-off switch thing, seems like just an extra thing that can go wrong.

I'm using spectraflex quot;fatsoflexquot; cables right now, I used to use George L's exclusively though. One day I did a side-by-side comparison of a 3 foot fatsoflex versus a 3 foot red george L's cable, And I ended up liking the tone of the fatsoflex more. It seemed that the George L's cable rolled off a bit of the highs. I still got 'em on my pedalboard though.

almost everything you use ends up having an effect on your tone, amp, tubes, picks, cables, strings, pickups, guitar shapes/woods, etc.

One thing's for sure though, you gotta have your amp tuned up LOUD to hear a significant difference between cables. At quot;apartment-levelquot; volumes everything's likely to sound pretty similar.


Originally Posted by the guy who invented fireno questions asked, hands down YES!

Cables are one of the most overlooked pieces of equipment out there...think about this, you have a good guitar, you put good pickups in it, you play through a good amp and you put good tubes in the amp, but you use a crap cord...

I won't tell you that a cord that costs a lot of money is the best you can get...I tried quot;Monsterquot; cables for a while and I didn't care for them at all...and I really didn't like the cost of them. After lots of looking around I have decided that George L's are (for me at least) the best cable out there...they seem to have the lease amount of signal loss, and the best freq response, add to that they they can be repaired in 30 seconds with out a soldering iron, and that when compared to other cables they really are pretty cheep...I like them a lot, I have a few other cables laying around, but I use George L's 100%, form guitar to pedal board, from pedalboard to guitar and all my patch cables as well.

I concur sir... I have been using George L cables for over 6 years. Never had any trouble with them. I just bought a few pre mad just to keep as spares.

I don't think cables make a difference in tone more than it makes a difference in clarity. Signal loss from cheap patch chords and cables are the biggest issue.

I have some 20' Conquest Audio cables with Switchcraft ends. They probably ran me $15 when I got them 10 years ago or so. I also have some Monster cables, which to my ears do not sound better than my old cables. The cheaper of the Monsters has less noise than the more expensive ones. I'm embarrassed to say I bought the Monsters back before I knew about thier hype and their litigation policy. I still use them, if just for the fact that I did pay for them and for the unconditional warranty. I WILL NOT buy another Monster cable.