Huge Cable Upgrade

A

adweiss

Member
Yesterday my order from lava cable was finally delivered, including an EA lyric hg guitar, 2 lyric hg mic (axe to poweramp), and 2 EA siren for speakers. I have to say the change from my old cables (monster prolink mic, "georges music" speaker, and planet waves instrument) is really drastic. I can really tell a difference in the clarity and the shielding from these cables (i live in an apartment complex, so lots of RFI around), as well as a better dynamic range and even a clearer difference when i switch pickups or split coils. Another huge difference was the speaker cable, which really brought out a lot of definition in my sound, particular clearing up mid to high gain patches. Often with my old cable they would get a bit muddy sometimes, particularly when being played hard. Perhaps not muddy, but more that i lost note definition, for instance if i held a chord and then arpeggiated on the high e and b strings they would be a bit less chime-y and blend in to the mix. The eq could help a bit, a compressor helped a bit but i didn't like the effect on my overall tone, but the switch to these cables has made a huge difference.

So, anyone running on budget cables, particularly between you and the axe and between you amp and speakers I can't recommend highly enough that you look at some higher quality cable. Running a system like the axe loosing a bit of definition because of a budget cable really takes your sound from that wonderful in the studio hifi sound down to somewhere around a budget home studio/ plugged straight into a pocket recording device type sound: it still sounds pretty good, but just not on the same level.
 
Differences due to guitar cabling are audible, because guitar pickups are extremely high-impedance sources and therefor sensitive to shunt capacitance. Differences in speaker cabling - assuming adequate wire gauge - are inaudible and cannot be reliably identified when the listener has no knowledge of which cable he is listening to. Differences in properly-designed (i.e., shielded twisted pair) line level cabling are also not detectable by human hearing, no matter how golden the ears.

Audio mythology, no matter how widely propagated, is still mythology.

The best (most transparent) guitar cabling is that with the lowest shunt capacitance. You can always reduce shunt capacitance by shortening the cable. The greatest differences among different cables for other uses all relate to reliability (quality of connectors, insulation, etc.) and ease of use (flexibility).
 
Jay Mitchell said:
Differences due to guitar cabling are audible...Differences in speaker cabling - assuming adequate wire gauge - are inaudible...Differences in properly-designed (i.e., shielded twisted pair) line level cabling are also not detectable by human hearing...
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Gotta love it, Jay. So true, and I can't imagine how it could be stated more succinctly.

What do you recommend for good quality, bulk cable suitable for use in guitar cables?
 
The first time I tried Vovox cables between my guitar and amp (the days BF - before Fractal) - it was an epiphany - I'd never thought such a difference possible.
 
Jay Mitchell said:
Differences due to guitar cabling are audible, because guitar pickups are extremely high-impedance sources and therefor sensitive to shunt capacitance. Differences in speaker cabling - assuming adequate wire gauge - are inaudible and cannot be reliably identified when the listener has no knowledge of which cable he is listening to. Differences in properly-designed (i.e., shielded twisted pair) line level cabling are also not detectable by human hearing, no matter how golden the ears.

Audio mythology, no matter how widely propagated, is still mythology.

The best (most transparent) guitar cabling is that with the lowest shunt capacitance. You can always reduce shunt capacitance by shortening the cable. The greatest differences among different cables for other uses all relate to reliability (quality of connectors, insulation, etc.) and ease of use (flexibility).
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Awesome so good to know! I had always heard this but from folks i wouldnt really trust opinions of. Thanks Jay!
 
Is there a consensus for a guitar cable (lava or otherwise) with the lowest shunt capacitance, then? 10ft a reasonable length?
 
Differences in speaker cabling - assuming adequate wire gauge - are inaudible and cannot be reliably identified when the listener has no knowledge of which cable he is listening to. Differences in properly-designed (i.e., shielded twisted pair) line level cabling are also not detectable by human hearing, no matter how golden the ears.

Audio mythology, no matter how widely propagated, is still mythology.


this simply is not true
 
sjaak said:
this simply is not true
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It is true, and there is a body of scientific subjective testing (as opposed to story-telling) that definively bears it out.

Presenting audiophool myths as proven fact, while widely practiced elsewhere, will never go unchallenged here. If you can cite evidence of the truth of your assertion, you are welcome to do so. Vigorous assertion alone is inadequate.
 
Jay Mitchell said:
It is true, and there is a body of scientific subjective testing (as opposed to story-telling) that definively bears it out.

Presenting audiophool myths as proven fact, while widely practiced elsewhere, will never go unchallenged here. If you can cite evidence of the truth of your assertion, you are welcome to do so. Vigorous assertion alone is inadequate.
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you say no I say yes
based on my own experience I can tell it's not all make belief
 
Jay Mitchell said:
Differences due to guitar cabling are audible, because guitar pickups are extremely high-impedance sources and therefor sensitive to shunt capacitance. Differences in speaker cabling - assuming adequate wire gauge - are inaudible and cannot be reliably identified when the listener has no knowledge of which cable he is listening to. Differences in properly-designed (i.e., shielded twisted pair) line level cabling are also not detectable by human hearing, no matter how golden the ears.

Audio mythology, no matter how widely propagated, is still mythology.

The best (most transparent) guitar cabling is that with the lowest shunt capacitance. You can always reduce shunt capacitance by shortening the cable. The greatest differences among different cables for other uses all relate to reliability (quality of connectors, insulation, etc.) and ease of use (flexibility).
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Sometimes I'm pretty sure that I love you man. :)

But seriously what Jay said is absolute fact. Guitar cable capacitance is the key here. I believe they call it a cylindrical capacitor (or is it coaxial capacitance)? But regardless of the specific terminology you are using a capacitive device in conjunction with an inductive device (the pickup) in order to carry the signal. Now if we were talking about significant voltage levels there wouldn't be much roll off of the high end, but PASSIVE guitar pickups will react to the cable and whether people will admit it or not is almost like a filter and should be considered a device in your signal chain and not just a 'wire' or something.

The OP is not mistaken one bit about a difference in overall sound quality improvement. I think that he is mistaken about where that improvement is coming from.

I think that where his ears are being decieved because his source (guitar in this case) is so much clearer that the rest of the signal chain is improved because of the better frequency response of the guitar cable. There is a simple electronic formula one can use to calculate this phenomenon. Crap in = crap out. I think that Einstein came up with this after the theory of relativity. :)

Now my own personal hatred lies in $120 guitar tone pot capacitors. That's where the snake oil and flat out theivery takes place IMHO. It's not the capacitor type; it's the capacitance itself that makes the difference in that specific circuit. Now different types of capacitors in other circuits can make a world of difference (preamp buffers, power supply caps, etc), but inside a guitar which is just a simple shunt circuit with no active power source the value is what will change the tone. The reason that so many do hear a difference is because capacitor values can range anywhere from +/-20% upwards of +/-80% when new. As they age the dielectric material changes and at the end of the day without a capacitance meter you have no idea what value you are really putting in there. You can take 2 ceramic disc caps out of the same blister pack and probably hear a difference between the two. And most people don't have a capacitance meter laying around so it's even harder for the end user to check.
 
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sjaak said:
you say no I say yes
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I can cite a number of double-blind studies that support my statement. How about yourself?

based on my own experience I can tell it's not all make belief
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The "experience" of one person (or even a group of persons), without the requisite double-blind conditions and control of unintended variables, is at best highly suspect and at worst, just plain wrong.

When "personal experience" is directly at odds with scientific fact - e.g., differences in speaker cabling in the lengths used for guitar will cause response differences of less than .01dB and have no effect on nonlinear behavior - then it must always be the "personal experience" that is taken with a grain of salt. If there is support for your assertion, either in the form of a valid circuit model that shows the potential for audible differences, or a properly-conducted double-blind study published in a technical journal, please provide it. Otherwise, all you are doing is what I like to call "proof by vigorous assertion."
 
An audiophool buddy of mine bought some high-buck speaker cable for his home system and claimed it made a huge difference. I asked him if he would be interested in bringing it over to my studio for an evaluation and he jumped on it. Using a speaker selector we rigged up an A/B comparison (to the same speaker) so that Button #1 was house cable and button #2 was his high-buck job. Knowing what cable was what, he switched them back and forth and claimed to clearly hear a difference in detail, stating the #2 cable was superior. The next day he brought over some of his buddy's and we did it again. They all claimed that #2 was superior.

What they didn't know was I switched the connections around inside the selector before they showed up.

I couldn't help but tell them what I did and they were quite sure that something must be wrong, that I must have screwed up something somewhere. After an hour of playing with a Fluke meter they gave it up. The house cable is Gepco GSC102OFC 10g at less than $1.00/ft. The other cable was a Monster Z-something that goes for almost 10 times more per/ft.
 
It's similar to those power bracelets....the mind is a powerful tool that can play tricks on us...and it goes both ways too. If you've got a predisposition of doubt or bias your subjectivity is going to be shaky at best.

Double blind and scientific measurements are about the only thing that you can do to try to get a clearcut answer. And spitting out technical data about .001% higher tolerance or clarity or whatever isn't even really measurable.
 
ninja9 said:
Is there a consensus for a guitar cable (lava or otherwise) with the lowest shunt capacitance, then? 10ft a reasonable length?
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The guys over at Steel Guitar Forum all seem to use GeorgeL cable, and I've seen some reviews that confirm it has (or had, at one time) the lowest capacitance. Compared to some premium brands the price is pretty reasonable as well.

I've been using it myself, but all I have to compare it to are the "low-capacitance" cables I made back in the early 70's, which are high capacitance by todays standards. I don't use the GeorgeL solder-less connectors.

As far as length, shorter is better (unless you are looking for a "vintage" sound :twisted); my longest cables are 10ft and I've always considered 20ft the workable maximum (common wisdom only--no hard data).
 
shasha said:
It's similar to those power bracelets....the mind is a powerful tool that can play tricks on us...and it goes both ways too. If you've got a predisposition of doubt or bias your subjectivity is going to be shaky at best.

Double blind and scientific measurements are about the only thing that you can do to try to get a clearcut answer. And spitting out technical data about .001% higher tolerance or clarity or whatever isn't even really measurable.
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+1000

I've followed some of the studies over the years, and the impact of expectation on actual perception is astounding.
 
LMO said:
The guys over at Steel Guitar Forum all seem to use GeorgeL cable, and I've seen some reviews that confirm it has (or had, at one time) the lowest capacitance. Compared to some premium brands the price is pretty reasonable as well.

I've been using it myself, but all I have to compare it to are the "low-capacitance" cables I made back in the early 70's, which are high capacitance by todays standards. I don't use the GeorgeL solder-less connectors.

As far as length, shorter is better (unless you are looking for a "vintage" sound :twisted); my longest cables are 10ft and I've always considered 20ft the workable maximum (common wisdom only--no hard data).
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Yeah, cables are like anything else where the tone is subjective to a point. I had some 'quality cables' and for some reason I plugged in with a cable that one of my friends left at my place one night. I thought that something was wrong with my gear because all of my stuff sounded really bright and shrill. Turns out that it was a pretty low capacitance cable (and like 5 foot long) and that my 'quality cables' were straight up hot garbage. I'd been using them for everything so all of my stuff was EQ'd to compensate for it.

George L's are very low capacitance, but to me they're a bit on the pricey side (I think that Mogami?? is another). Rapco makes cable that has only a bit more capacitance per foot and it's significantly cheaper, it's just a matter of finding it without having to buy a 1000' of it at a time. Right now I've been using Livewires (the cheap ones from Guitar Center). They're spec'd pretty well and they're easy to replace if I need a new one. They're not the end all be all, but they're better than about 90% of your standard stuff out there IMO and like I said price and availability are good.

Bill Lawrence sells low capacitance cable and connectors on his website. If I was in the market for cables I'd be looking here.

Dimarzio also sells a low capacitance cable (I believe it's the one that Vai uses or something). Never tried it, but it's spec'd good and in a cable shootout a few years ago it was up there.
 
I buy a lot of mic cables and such from audiopile.net, and on the last order got some guitar cable as well. Haven't tried it yet and don't have any specs for it, but everything I've gotten from them has been high quality.
 
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