hi,
I never gave much important to guitar audio cables, but apparently they do make a difference on the sound.
I was wondering which cables do you use and which do you suggest.
What do you think?
Thanks.
Seeing that you asked, be prepared for a long answer. If you don't want to read it all, you can jump to the last part (that I have highlighted to spot it easier) but understanding context is important.
Cables can, and will, make a difference in situations where all else is equal. However, there are factors that need to be taken in to consideration.
The main difference in cables is between a cable that is faulty or uses defective parts against a cable that is well made, not broken and uses parts of a reasonable quality.
The next main difference between cables is how well they deflect interference from themselves. In the case of a guitar or bass cable, 99.9% of these use a coaxial layout where the outer shield (used as the ground) protects the inner core (the positive) from eloctromagnetic interference (EMI). Over long runs, or when running close to other sources of EMI, the coaxial set up, using unbalanced signals (so just positive and ground), is not great at this. It is possible to use certain weaves and braid layouts to help combat this, but in this case it involves moving over to things like quadstar configurations (used for microphones) which are no longer simple positive and ground set ups. Moving over to balanced configuration is as simple as using a DI and then running XLR cables which work much better than simple unbalanced configurations. They are still not perfect and should still be kept as far away from EMI sources as possible, but they are much less prone to interference than unbalanced guitar cables.
Finally, on the simple differences categories, length can also play a big part as the longer the run the higher the voltage drop, causing signal loss that can not be recuperated and resulting in distortion when trying to amplify the low signal that arrives (in the best of cases it will just be too quiet, in the majority of other cases it will also sound like crap). This can again be combated by using a DI box and balanced cable runs. Again, the balanced runs cannot run forever and some kind of signal boot will be needed over longer runs, or just convert them to digital and run them over network.
Those are the most common differences between cables but I am guessing that you are not referring to those simple, common, differences, but rather to the actual materials and other expensive things that are promoted...
Ok, so once you have a decently made cable, with decent parts, of the correct length and away from EMI, the next steps to differences between types of cables are pretty far off on the radar.
The build style and the capacitance (along with resistance and inductance) of a cable can (and does) affect how a cable transmits the electrical signal that is being transmitted through it (remember sound is just electricity until it hits something to convert it into air movement, such as a speaker). A cable with high capacitance can cause a roll off in the higher frequencies of the signal. These roll offs are minimal, even to a trained ear, but they can be heard if the system it is being used on is capable of allowing you to hear those minute detail changes (and I am not talking about a 1k€ guitar amp vs a 300€, rather systems that are in the tens of thousands) and of course your hearing needs to be able to spot the differences which may be something like the treble rolling of at 19890Hz instead of 20000Hz (the majority of the world population will not even be able to hear that high, never mind tell the difference).
Maybe one of the most common and exaggerated cable capacitance differences are between the coiled cables (the Fender spring style ones) and normal straight cables. If the cables conductors are thin enough and there are enough coils, the capacitance can increase enough to actually cause roll off around 18kHz, which is still inside the hearing capabilities of a lot of humans between 15 and 50. This is sometimes referred to the cable giving a "warmer" sound, although it is doubtful that anyone will notice unless it is someone who knows their rig very well and is perforrming an A/B test against a straight cable, and even then the majority of the time the "hearing a difference" will be confirmation bias more than anything else.
So, what about materials used?
Well, the most commonly used and referred to for cables (and connectors) are Copper, Silver and Gold. While it is normal to see the prices rank Gold > Silver > Copper, the fact is that gold is not a very good material for conducting electricity. In fact, on a scale of conductivity, Silver is the material that defines conductivity, scoring 100 (full marks), with copper being the next best at 97 and gold only 76.
So, that first fact wipes off gold from the list of upgrades. So we are left with copper (used in 99% of cables) and silver. While silver does have good conductivity, it has other trade offs such as it being very soft and expensive. So, yes, silver is better but is far more delicate (not a good ooption for any cable that is going to be moved around, such as one hanging from a guitar).
So why is gold plating and silver plating an option on inexpensive connectors such as Neutrik? Or even things like Rhodium or Brass in expensive connectors (which are both terrible conductors in comparison to copper or silver)?
The fact is that the surface of the connector that is used to conduct the signal is so tiny, and the frequencies of audio are so low, that the plating of the connector is almost irrelevant and is in fact there to protect from oxidation or corrosion more than anything else.
There are other many factors that can be used (both in construction and in sales pitch) to make a cable perform better, such as oxygen free (reducing the possibility of corrosion inside the cable) different geometries, high purity of the materials used (such as high purity copper) electron-beam irradiation (to improve flexibility and reduce microphonics) etc. etc.
However, while all of these make a difference, we go back to the actual size of difference made. Maybe the purity of the copper between two cables may change the capacitance of that cable (all other things being equal) by 0.00001%, causing a the higher frequencies to roll off 3Hz earlier.
Conclusion (and "skip to here point" for those who don't want to read the wall of text above):
Yes, cables can make a difference. However, outside the cable being of decent quality and well made, the differences are only noticeable in the best of cases to those who have amazing hearing and an amazing rig to use them on, and in other cases they are only able to be measured by scientific results (which is sometimes all someone needs to believe they need that cable).
Using my headphone rig, I can tell the difference between some cables when using ultra sensitive IEMs or high quality headphones and headphone amplifiers. However, in the majority of cases I cannot tell, unless of course I am expecting a difference, because the brain is very good at making you think you hear something because you are expecting to hear it. And I am referring to headphone cables of all kinds, some of which cost over a thousand euros (for a headphone cable!!!).
When using live rigs (note that the live rigs we use are of high quality, such as Meyer Sound, L-Acoustics etc.) I cannot tell the difference between any of the cables used in the whole rig (as long as the all function correctly), much less the guitar cable being used. That doesn't just go for me (a nobody in the audio world) but also for some of the best FOH sound guys in the world. I have yet to meet a FOH sound guy that tells me that the guitar cables doesn't have enough silver in it, much less an audience member.
Long story short, the prosnake cables from Thomman will be fine, unless you feel that they aren't, then the only option will be to buy whatever you are conviced is fine, whatever that may cost!
