Which cable do you trust to run your rigs?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Matt300ZXT
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pipelineaudio said:
Did the periodic table of the elements or ohm's law change in the last 30 years or something?

To me the big deal today are the jackets. They can make really supple, yet coilable and durable cables now that aren't just a long line of unrollable kinks

Is there any place for solderable really small flat jacks like on the Ernie Ball patch cables, but that you can take apart if need be?

I love this style but I want to make my own lengths. The Squareplug brand is a lot wider, so won't fit as easily as these types do

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david57strat said:
I love my EBS Gold cables. I use them almost exclusively (with a few Mogami/Rean, Rattlesnake, etc) on all of my boards.
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I bought a pair of Monster Performer 500 cables for my Strat, back in 1996 (for the front and back end of my rig, and used them for years, on countless gigs, with no issues. They always delivered. They look somewhat tarnished, but still do the job.

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Monster made these insert cables, and I had four 1-meter (used on my old 1604 VLZ analog mixer effects sends/returns), and 4 4-meter (some of which were used to run my stereo effects from the amp to the board and back. Also, never a problem, except for one of the 1-meter return cables that had a faulty connection at the plug. I walked into Guitar Center, and they swapped it out with a new one, no questions asked. Had to fill out a brief card, but that was painless.

All of these cables still work flawlessly. They must be doing something right.

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I used many different brands of microphone cables, but I came to really love Canare Star Quad cable, using Neutrik connectors. They came in multiple colors and were extremely flexible, reliable, and quiet. Again - they worked beautifully, day in and year out.

But what I probably used the most were Spectraflex cables (Original, Vintage, and Fatso Flex Series), and those, to me, have been flawless. Never a failure. Well....I did have a vintage series connector (which I think was was brass...?) go microphonic on me, and I contacted Spectralfex and they quickly replaced it with another one, free of charge.

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I kind of amassed a large selection of these cables since, when I wasn't gigging, I used to do sound jobs for small bands on some evenings and weekends.

The color-coded jackets really made it easy to trace down a cable - aside from just looking cool LOL.

I've had many of these since the mid-90s. They just work, and they sound great!

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These little 10-foot cables were just purchased from Spectraflex. I see they're still using G&H plugs on these ones. I love those plugs. Rock solid construction, and these cables come in an almost limitless choice of color and jacket pattern. It's mind-boggling.

They're not cheap, but you can expect them to sound great and last a lifetime. Spectraflex customer service is stellar.
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stratjacket said:
I use the EBS cables on my pedalboard.

Over the last couple years I’ve slowly replaced everything in my studio (a shitload of cables) with cables from Castline.

https://castlineusa.com/index.php/instrument-cables

It’s a little shop in Ohio that makes cables using Mogami wire. They offer Silver (Mogami 2582 wire) and Gold (Mogami 2524 wire) in just about any length and connector you need. It’s a fraction of the price of Mogami.
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EBS tested pretty poorly too and just as bad or worse than Mogami cables...... and again other cables that cost as much or less perform better as well.


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I have 3 nice low capacitance cables with fancy jacks (Some Neutric) that I don't use much... Good stuff If your worried about a very tiny bit of signal loss..
A bit of loss of highs or 1/1000 loss in gain....
What I really like is Canare GS6 or Mogami 2524 with Switchcraft Jacks.. Make em' myself.....Brick Shithouse solid...Never fail.....
I have 20' of the skinny Mogomi 2319 for pedal interconnects but haven't made any.... Mostly using the D'Addario ones you get free with other purchases. or 3 for 12 bucks. That and Canare GS6 I made myself...
 
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pipelineaudio said:
What’s that test from? Looks interesting
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Yeah pretty good stuff and a lot of the cables that do much better than Mogami, EBS or others cost the same or less....... go figure...... people have been buying garbage/trash like Mogami/EBS for decades upon decades now thanks to marketing or the fact that they simply just don't know any better :dunno:






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The~Kid said:
Yeah pretty good stuff and a lot of the cables that do much better than Mogami, EBS or others cost the same or less....... go figure...... people have been buying garbage/trash like Mogami/EBS for decades upon decades now thanks to marketing or the fact that they simply just don't know any better :dunno:
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Its been a while, but for the most part this test shows just what math itself would predict. They didn't really go into the threshold of audibility unless I missed it. Both Canare and Mogami trade ideal theoretical capacitance for durability, but give you the lengths at which this would be enough capacitance to be audible. This is for line level signals and often mic signals, so I'm not sure how it would translate to guitar. Hopefully someone can do the math there. Just know that lower capacitance is only "better" when it is past above the threshold of audibility.

More oxygen is much better than no oxygen, but you would die if you had a whole room's worth of oxygen forced into your lungs with a normal breath.

If the trade offs are below audibility and give me something concrete in return (durability, coilability, EZ-ID, etc) I'll trade it in a second.

But for all I know these could be in the audible territory, maybe I missed it in the video
 
pipelineaudio said:
Its been a while, but for the most part this test shows just what math itself would predict. They didn't really go into the threshold of audibility unless I missed it. Both Canare and Mogami trade ideal theoretical capacitance for durability, but give you the lengths at which this would be enough capacitance to be audible. This is for line level signals and often mic signals, so I'm not sure how it would translate to guitar. Hopefully someone can do the math there. Just know that lower capacitance is only "better" when it is past above the threshold of audibility.

More oxygen is much better than no oxygen, but you would die if you had a whole room's worth of oxygen forced into your lungs with a normal breath.

If the trade offs are below audibility and give me something concrete in return (durability, coilability, EZ-ID, etc) I'll trade it in a second.

But for all I know these could be in the audible territory, maybe I missed it in the video
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On all levels Mogami performed below standard and below average expectations in terms of actual capacitance and measured capacitance nvm noise floor, EMI/RFI and mechanical noise as well.......


Not just theoretically...... but with actual measurements where other cables costing the same or less did much better in all regards tested.


Mogami and EBS for example tested in the bottom 10 of all the cables tested.
 
The~Kid said:
On all levels Mogami performed below standard and below average expectations in terms of actual capacitance and measured capacitance nvm noise floor, EMI/RFI and mechanical noise as well.......


Not just theoretically...... but with actual measurements where other cables costing the same or less did much better in all regards tested.


Mogami and EBS for example tested in the bottom 10 of all the cables tested.
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:dunno:
 
I thought the mogami performed alexactly as you’d predict. Everything that makes them absolutely excellent for balanced mic and line cables turns them into noise antennas for unbalanced signals the same way all the other similar cables tested did for noise. I don’t think anyone should be surprised that the skinny and the coiled cables performed so well on the noise test and that the “obviously bigger is better” oversized cables did so poorly.
 
pipelineaudio said:
I thought the mogami performed alexactly as you’d predict. Everything that makes them absolutely excellent for balanced mic and line cables turns them into noise antennas for unbalanced signals the same way all the other similar cables tested did for noise. I don’t think anyone should be surprised that the skinny and the coiled cables performed so well on the noise test and that the “obviously bigger is better” oversized cables did so poorly.
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Nope Mogami performed worse and no better tha. Rockboard, Monster or other high priced Radio Shack cables in the test and again scored and ranked in the bottom of 10 of all 79 cables tested......... one could probably use a coat hanger and have as good or better results.......


Its all there and per the numbers using actual measurements.....


The test showed Mogami cables are actually pure trash relative to others cables costing as much or less.......and its all shown in the test and measured by a 3rd party.
 
The mogami noise antenna style cable got -30 in the noise test, which was significantly better than a lot of the noise antenna cables tested, such as Fender's -6, HOSA at -12 and -6, or the Lava Blue Demon, but of course worse than the best non-noise antenna cables like the Lava coil at -49

I bet if you ran the test with line level high impedance inputs you'd see the results flip here. Don't run the wrong type of cable for the application.

This test mostly just showed exactly what you'd expect, noise antenna cables are noisy, quiet cables are quiet. You could look at the cable itself and accurately predict just by jacket size which side of the noise curve these would end up on
 
I’ve had Solid Cables Arc Ultras for nearly 20 years. I swear by them. JLB at Blues City Music probably still has some.
 
I have mostly mogami gold, great cables
What I really like is the original purchaser can go into any mogami dealer and exchange a defective cable hassle free
 
Just to say it again - Buy the BTPA cabling and ends you want and make them yourself. Instrument and patch cables. Will not disappoint.
 
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