deeaa said:
This topic just screams for a virtual blind test. If I could score a bunch of cables more I could make a vid where you can't see the cord used and record the same riff thru a semi-clean all-tube amp using stuff ranging from lamp cords to super-expensive cables and see if people can tell a difference, and if, what would it be, and record them with the 414 and analyze the sonicgrams... Hmm...now where can I find some Monsters etc. for testing....
Frankly I think you'd be wasting your time. It's a good idea, don't get me wrong, but:
1. There are too many variables.
a) A guitar cable isn't a complete circuit but rather a component of a circuit. Whats on either end of the cable makes a difference. Even if you eliminate the tone cap and pots in the guitar and run pickup into cable, the effect of a cable with say 200pf capacitance on a high impedance pickup will be different to the effect on a lower impedance pickup. Then there is the frequency response of the pickups themselves. As you sweep up and down the range of frequencies a guitar pickup produces, the response won't be linear. It'll also be different from one pickup type to another. This will effect where in the spectrum the capacitive load of the cable has an effect and by how much.
b) At the other end of the cable we have the input impedance of the amp to consider. It's not a standard value and therefore the effect will be variable based on the amp used. Add effects pedals into the chain and any sort of standardized testing becomes basically impossible. A good buffer for example should negate the effects of cable capacitance. All true Bypass? Well hello EXTRA load on your signal due to the increased signal path though all kinds of cables and components.
c) Noise rejection/Hum rejection and handling noise (microphonics). I see it like this. If your environment is NOT conducive to hum, meaning your area is (relatively) free of both RF and LF sources. You might not even notice that cable "X" has poor shielding. Conversely if your are near a radio transmission tower in a room with air conditioners and refrigerators and the like, your poorly shielded cable will hum like a high dollar hooker.
With regard to whats known as handling noise or microphonics, again the usage model will effect the users experience. High gain, High volume users will notice it, bedroom players will not.
d) The Human Factor. Hearing degrades with age and environment. A 15 year old can hear more high frequencies than a 40 year old, even without adding in environmental influences (working with machinery/loud music etc). Thats not the end of it though, whilst hearing loss is a quantitative measurement and could be factored into an experiment, the purely subjective nature of "what sounds good" can't be measured or accounted for in an experiment.
A personal example is my cheap curly cord. I know it's a high capacitance cable because even I can hear it rolling off my extreme high frequencies compared to my usual home brew cables, but you know what? I LIKE that sound with one of my guitars and for certain types of music. My Peavey tube amp has an active EQ on the drive channels anyway so I can just turn up the treble a notch if I decide it's too muddy. Another variable!
2. Who are you? I mean no disrespect, but unless your name is David Gilmour or Eric Clapton, or you share their level of fame, then you could publish completely accurate data and guitarists would STILL buy from the vendor their hero uses (or is endorsed by....) and people will still talk smack online to back up their favorite brand.
3. Intended use. What a regularly gigging pro musician looks for in cable (or what his tech looks for) is different from the studio guy, the jam guy or the bedroom guy. This is where we get into things like durability and warranty as influencing factors as well.
4. Personal bias. A personal example is Planet Waves. I've seen a lot of people rave over them, but I've had one of their cables that failed on me after only a month or so and even before that their secure plugs were unscrewing my guitar jacks and shorting the jack to one of my control pots. For that reason I got the sh*ts with them and wont buy any more. All over one single cable. Sure it's ridiculous to slag them off (and I don't) over one bad experience, but I know that whilst they are a good fit for many, they aren't for me. I'd suspect this scenario is repeated all over the world with all different brands of cable.
Anyway, hopefully I've illustrated my point. It is my opinion (and thats all it is, an opinion), and all I'm trying to do here is go some way toward explaining why, whenever the question of cables comes up, almost everyone has a different opinion on what works and what doesn't. There IS no right answer, there is only what works for YOU.
Anyway, that took me two beers to write, hopefully it makes sense...
DISCUSS
