Guitar Cables

A

adferrendelli

New member
What are some good electric guitar cables. i usually just go with the normal store kind, but they aren't very reliable and usually end up breaking after a while. I want somthing that i wont have to keep replacing every couple of months.
 
Get raw cable and decent 1/4" jacks and build you're own-its simple to do. You will also know how to fix them if they do give you trouble later, its the best way to have enough cables for a home studio anyway...:cool:
 
George L's - you can buy them premade or buy a roll of wire and solderless connectors. They are top notch and much less expensive than the other "high end" brands. Great for making short cables to go between effects pedals too.
 
Get some 1/4" Switchcraft plugs, some top of the line Beldin microphone cable and some heat shrink. You will need a 40w soldering iron and I also recommend a coax cable stripper. Make the damn things. you can make them any length you want and they usually perform as well as store bought.
 
Henry Mars said:
Get some 1/4" Switchcraft plugs, some top of the line Beldin microphone cable and some heat shrink. You will need a 40w soldering iron and I also recommend a coax cable stripper. Make the damn things. you can make them any length you want and they usually perform as well as store bought.
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Exactly! If you need a 6" or 6' cable you build it to suit the need-not having to use a bunch of 15 to 20' cables. I've built my own for at least 25 years and it's the only way to go! Build them carefully and solder cleanly and they will function great!
 
Dont Buy into the botique cable Hype just buy a good 20 foter like this one from MF

these cables will last a very long time and will not break the bank.

however the best cables are the ones you build yourself.

I make all my own audio cables which is also very cost effective.
 
Store bought cables are fine, just learn to resolder them yourself. Also, they will last a LOT longer if you learn to over/under wrap them, which relieves the twist on the solder joint (which is usually what makes them fail in the first place).

If you really want to get durable cables, get any of the ones with the woven cloth jackets (Spectraflex were the first ones I saw - and what I have - but just about everybody is making them these days), and learn to over/under. A bit spendy, but they will last a long damn time.

Don't buy Monster. Their cable sucks, and they are major league assholes. Complete and total pricks. Cock sucking dick shits of the highest order. Absolute motherfuckers. The way they treat other people is the pinnacle of numbnutsery. I'm not even going to tell you what music stores margins are on their shit, but no customer in their right mind would pay a mark-up that high if they knew about it (which is why so many store spend so much time pushing an inferior product). You want to talk about a company using marketing to sell cheap shit, that's the one.

Just don't buy anything from Monster cable, ever.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
I've used all kinds over the years, including making my own and the only ones I have had for over ten years (actually almost 15) are . . . Whirlwind Leaders. Never let me down and, as long as you coil them up properly after use they never twist or tangle. Expensive? Yes. Worth it? Every penny.
 
Light said:
Don't buy Monster. Their cable sucks, and they are major league assholes. Complete and total pricks. Cock sucking dick shits of the highest order. Absolute motherfuckers. The way they treat other people is the pinnacle of numbnutsery. I'm not even going to tell you what music stores margins are on their shit, but no customer in their right mind would pay a mark-up that high if they knew about it (which is why so many store spend so much time pushing an inferior product). You want to talk about a company using marketing to sell cheap shit, that's the one.

Just don't buy anything from Monster cable, ever.
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I think you should open up and tell us how you really feel, Light. Don't hold it in! :D
 
adferrendelli said:
where is the best place to buy the raw materials. can you only get them online or would they have them at a music shop
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here is the best online merchants for building audio cables and snakes

besttronics has the best cable selections for instrument cables and redco for the best prices on Nutrick connectors

wholesale has the best prices on bulk connectors.

http://www.best-tronics.com/guitar-cable/index.aspx
http://www.wholesaleaudioaccessories.com/
http://www.redco.com/
 
Light said:
Don't buy Monster. Their cable sucks, and they are major league assholes. Complete and total pricks. Cock sucking dick shits of the highest order. Absolute motherfuckers. The way they treat other people is the pinnacle of numbnutsery. I'm not even going to tell you what music stores margins are on their shit, but no customer in their right mind would pay a mark-up that high if they knew about it (which is why so many store spend so much time pushing an inferior product). You want to talk about a company using marketing to sell cheap shit, that's the one.

Just don't buy anything from Monster cable, ever.
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:agreed: I refuse to buy anything from them. Their habit of suing anyone who uses "Monster" in their name, from "Monster's Ball" to small time snowboarding schools, is disgusting.

I've had good luck with George L's, if you want to pay a little more than "store brand" cables, which are well made, reasonably affordable, and (the biggie) since they're solder-less easily "at the show" serviceable.

That said, most of my cables are store brand, anyway. :lol:
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
:agreed: I refuse to buy anything from them. Their habit of suing anyone who uses "Monster" in their name, from "Monster's Ball" to small time snowboarding schools, is disgusting.
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+3 Monster cables are nothing but hype!
I can build just as good or better cables at a fraction of the cost of a monster cable.
You can buy enough raw material to build 3 15 foot cables compaired to the cost of one 15 foot monster cable.
 
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NO MONSTER CABLES!!!!!!!!!! I can't tell you how irritated I get when I go to buy a cable and some salesman points me directly to a $150.00 monster cable! I've been told they make my guitar signal louder, make my pickups hotter, total BS! I pissed a salesman off once because he told me they reduced noise and would even elimanate single coil buzz, so I grab a strat, plugged it in and proved him wrong of course, then I went on to ask him why monster cables are pushed so hard, why can't I just buy a regular cable?(This store had next to nothing when it came to regular cables mostly monster or brands like monster)and he told me they were liftime guaranteed, when it broke all I had to do is bring it back and they'd hand me a new one, It sounds too easy and it is!

A friend of mine bought a monster cable, had it 6 months and it shorted out, he brought it back to the store and was told he had to send it to monster, paying postage and handling himself, after 2 MONTHS they sent the cable back repaired, not a new cable but the same cable, soldered back to the jack. My friend felt really pissed and ripped off and will never buy their crap again.

In my experience of testing them by my own ears I hear no difference in the signal, I look at it this way, My favorite musicians don't use them, and there's nothing wrong with their tone, so why should I?.....
 
I've been using George L's and Kordex cables lately. On the high end, a buddy of mine swears by lavacables.com and Analysis Plus. Actually, the latter is his holy grail.
 
All that stuff about cables is a bunch of hype. They all break eventually. I prefer to make them myself. On the other hand any store bought cable of reasonable quality will do just fine.

There is an outfit around here called George's music. Their store brands are cheap and as well made as anything.
 
By the by, you can expect that cable costs will be going up by a LOT in the next few years. The price of copper has gone up 70% in the last 18 months or so (or so one of the major string manufacturers tells me), and that is seriously effecting the cost of strings and cables. And other metals have been going up just about as quickly. Silver is up something like 90%, which isn't that big of a deal, unless like me you are trying to be RoHS compliant (even though I don't really need to be), and are using silver electronics solder. (Fortunately, I bought a big ass spool a while back, which should last me a few years; or if you play any classical instruments (guitar, violin, etc.), which use silver wrapped strings.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
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