Cable Static

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pchorman

pchorman

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During last practice I had all sorts of annoying noise coming from a fairly new Monster cable everytime I moved. (I forget the cable type but it is the one that costs $40 for a 12' run and is supposedly designed for Rock.) Even when I unplugged the instrument and moved the cable it induced all sorts of pops and cracks.

Since this seems to have vanished a few minutes later, I concluded that it was not an internal cable defect but static build up on the exterior of the insulation. This makes me wonder how much consideration has been placed on reducing electrostatic charges on the outside of the insulation. Is this less prone to happen with the cloth braided cable types than rubber/plastic coated? Are some materials better than others here?

Thanks
 
Just rim the cable with a green-colored marker....

Bruce
 
Tee Hee, Thats prety funny Bruce.

In reference to your question pc, I can't answer it directly but can only offer a suggetion. If static is a problem, you may want to consider some grounding techniques. You may want to try having your cord in a place that is less likely to generate static. The only other think I can recommend is to wait until the static goes away before pushing the record button.

Peace
Joe
 
OK. It just seems like any good cable manufacturer would want to use a material that's less likely to allow electrostatic charge build-up, assuming that's the culprit. I do think a grounding arrangment might help, but I don't want to have to play guitar with an ESC strap on my wrist or ankle, like an electronics circuit card assember.

As for the bear's joke, sorry but that went clear over my head. If you mean chalk it up as a shot cable, then green would not be my color of choice to mark it dead.
 
OK. It just seems like any good cable manufacturer would want to use a material that's less likely to allow electrostatic charge build-up, assuming that's the culprit. I do think a grounding arrangment might help, but I don't want to have to play guitar with an ESC strap on my wrist or ankle, like an electronics circuit card assember.

As for the bear's joke, sorry but that went clear over my head. If you mean chalk it up as a dead cable, then green would not be my color of choice.
 
Hey pc. The joke Bruce was refering to has to do with a thread that doesn't want to die about greening the edge of a cd to make it sound better.

With reference to grounding, is all your equipment properly grounded. I don't blame you for not wanting to make yourself a circuit board.
 
It was the "cable geared for Rock" statement that caught my attention and made me think of it!!!

Bruce
 
You could always build a giant faraday cage like Gene Hackman in Enemy Of The State!

Tom
 
Monster cable is rated to be one of the top of the line, cable manufacturs known. You have several options here. Get a refund, a new cord, make sure your properly grounded, (Ever get small shocks when you touch your amp)? or take the green marker advice this guy tried pulling on me, as well as anyone with a cord comment or question will get.
Good Luck dude
 
epnotrem said:
... or take the green marker advice this guy tried pulling on me, as well as anyone with a cord comment or question will get...
Click to expand...
Ha! You ain't seen nothing yet, epnotrem........

:D

Bruce
 
Hmm...

Run it through the dog's water dish?


Seriously, in the winter low humidity can make everything start jumping with static electricity. Try a cheap room humidifier left on all night before you play. It may help.
 
Yea, now I recall the green marker thread. Didn't that rumor stem from a quality assurance color coding scheme for CD-Rs? I read somewhere (not on this forum) that the writeable side of a disc is color coded (green, silver, gold) for reliabilty and portability to other players. Did someone try to put 2 and 2 together and make after-market green CDs?

As for the real issue, here's an interesting finding: I just plugged the Monster cable into the amp without the guitar, cranked it about half way and noticed lots of noise when I tapped ANY part of the cable! I then tried 2 different Conquest Sound cables and another cable of unknown origin and they were much quieter. Now I don't know what I just tested or proved, but I would expect the Monster cable to produce less nose even when open-circuited. If there were a defect or electrical intermittency it would be localized, not distributed, right?

Static? Maybe not. Seems more like a grounding problem. I'm sure that if the cable were replaced it would exhibit the same thing (mine is 3 months old, so I'd have to argue with MARS music over it.). Now where's that marker?

Can anyone suggest a more meaningful test method or way to improve the grounding?
 
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hey, i ran a thread similar to this one regarding monster cable. I was wanting to know where to purchase some studio pro 1000 instrument cable for cheap. I need about a 12 footer and the cheapest price i can find is 100 bucks!

As far as your test goes. I tested some cables at mars the same way. I tested a mars cable, horizon, and the rock monster and the studio pro 1000. Plugged all of them into a cheap little amp they had in their pedal fx room and left the other end open(no guitar) and cranked the amp volume up to full. There was very interesting results. The loudest cable was the mars cable ,then the monster rock cable, then the horizon and the studio pro 1000 was silent. The only thing i could hear was the hiss of the amp. It's a different noise than the other cables were producing.
Then, I touched the other end of the cable to hear the thud that you hear when you touch it. And some other interesting results. The mars cable was loud but the horizon was louder, then the rock monster and the studio pro 1000 was about 2x's as loud as that. So i take it that the Studio pro 1000 is super silent and has the best signal purity. This is just my cheap test but it definitely convinced me.
 
shafted

$100 for a 12' run of studio pro 1000 is about the best price I've seen as well.

I do think the tests were meaningful; there seems to be correlation between how much noise is generated while open-circuited versus closed, with a guitar in the loop. I'm pretty dissapointed in the rock Monster performance and your results confirm this, so a replacement probably won't help. As predicted, MARS did give me a hard time because the item is 2 months old rather than < 30 days. I wish I had turned up the volume to discover it earlier.

What ever happend to Conquest Sound cables? Mine were purchased 20 years ago and still go strong, but they don't make them like this any more. The Conquest cables I see available today are not in the superior category.

How does Pro Co rate among them?
 
Well, I don't have any cute animated icons (I guess my wife really does love me for myself) but Bear's green CD joke ultimately refers to an outfit that sold green markers to coat the edges of CDs so the laser light would be coherent and not bouncing around the disc. In other words, pretty scientific. Seems like they sold for about $20 and all the high end stereo mags had their panties in a wad about the dramatic improvement in sound you got by using them.
Back the subject at hand: I use a Monster cable I bought in a weak moment a few years ago but I have to say it doesn't generate noise. Do you play in any fields that generate spikes? Light dimmers are notorious and even AC cords running parallel to your cord can do it. And don't forget our beloved computers: when I play a single-coil pickup ax in front of my monitor is sounds like bacon frying. Flourescent lights do the trick also.
John
 
John: I just added the little stomping cartoon today after feeling like the only kid on the block without one. I can't say how much better I feel.

Regarding the interference issue, I usually practice in front of the computer which can induce all sorts of noise through the humbuckers whenever the guitar faces the monitor, so I'm familiar with that problem. I'm also aware of the effects of flourescent lighting, AC power cords and such, but the problem I described with the noisy cable is independent of all that. It was tested under different environments and locations, both open and close circuited using two different amps (tube and digital modelling) and with different p/u settings.

The bottom line is that my "rock" Monster 500 cable is noisy when I move it or even tap the thing almost anywhere along the cable. All cables have some susceptability to this, it seems, just crank the amp loud enough with an open-ended plug and it's audible. I'm just amazed that the mid-level Monster cable that cost $40 for a 12' run would be so much noisier than cheaper products. Defect? Can't say til I get a replacement, but I'm doubting it. What can go wrong inside a coaxial type cable, away from the plugs? That takes a serious manufacturing screw up.
 
The fact that the Monster folks charge a lot of money doesn't really change the fact that it is just a guitar cable: center conductor, urethane insulation, shield braid, urethane insulation, a pair of Switchcraft 1/4" TS plugs. The same triboelectric effects (which are largely responsible for handling noise in high-Z use), termination effects from bad solder joints, corrosion effects from surface oxides on the plug interfering with the high-impedance signal connection, and all the _other_ ills that wire is heir to, affect the Monster stuff as any other maker. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch: or in this case, there ain't no reason for that lunch to have been so damned expensive.

Fact is, they just charge a lot of money for the same basic guitar cables that everybody else sells: and you can get a noisy one, or an intermittent one, from them just as easily as you can from anybody else. They buy their wire from the same manufacturers, solder on the same connectors, and you're just paying for the packaging- and the VP of marketing's salary. Feel free to do so if you like, but I have to differ.

I make my own cables, most of the time- primarily because I usally need a 3-foot 3-and-a-half inch cable now, and a four-foot-seven-inch cable tomorrow. All I know is that I pick guitar cable that features braid over conductive fabric shielding, and a capacitance of 20pF/foot or less, for high-Z use- so that the cable doesn't get as much chance to kill off the high frequencies in the instrument's output. And I buy 500 feet at a time.

I also live in the static electricity capital of the country, and I have never experienced static buildup on a cable when it was plugged into a grounded termination like an amp. I have, however, heard the effects of a slightly corroded plug/jack pair, and I can well imagine that you might mistake the one for the other. I'll put my money on solder joint troubles or corrosion *long* before I'll buy the static thing...

Just my opinion, but one based in long experience of looking at the emperor's new clothes and seeing a moderately hairy, not-particularly-attractive, naked, pimply bum. Your mileage may vary.
 
Thanks for the inputs skippy. I am dealing with a pristine set of gold plated plugs on a 2 month-old cable showing no signs of oxidation. I've opened the plug sleeves and examined the solder joints, which appear to be fine (although it's not like one can eyeball a cold joint, my years of working QA overseeing wiring harness and circuit card assemblers in a manufacturing plant gave me some sense of good versus shabby workmanship there.)

I must rule out oxidation, cold solder joints and cable intermittencies. Those problems would all be localized. This is not.

You are right in that I should not buy into the marketing hype and the false notion that if it costs more, it must be superior. Only their profits are superior. I was under the impression that the Monster coax would have been better shielded and exhibit lower characteristic capacitance.

What cable do you use when you assemble yours?
 
I remember chasing crunchies one time, thinking it was the cable- and it turned out that the problem was corrosion on the spring fingers of the jack. The reason it only affected that particular cable and not others (until I cleaned up the jack) was that that cable had a mil-style PJ048 plug, with the round ball tip, rather than the Switchcraft-style conical tip. So when it was in place, the tip-contact spring in the jack came in contact with the tip in an area that was not properly wiped clean by the insertion, and the crud made it crunch. Cable was fine, jack wasn't. Tough lesson.

Any chance that these gold-plated connectors have tips that are a slightly different shape than the old cables you used to use?

I'm not as ready to aquit the cable itself, either. It's not unheard of for cables to have intermittencies out in the middle of the run, and it is very difficult to localize them. Especially in high-Z use, small changes in conductivity can yield big noises, and tweaking the cable 3 feet away can shift conductors around enough to be audible. Good luck finding it.

These days, I've pretty much been converted from Belden 8410 to Canare GS6 for raw guitar cable, although I've now talked to several folks here and elsewhere that seem to prefer the Gotham Audio GAC-1. I haven't had enough chance to play with it yet to have a real basis for the opinion, but the two appear to be pretty equivalent- and I just flat love my Gotham mic cables. I need to make a bunch of high-Z interconnect, so I'll probably call Mouser and lay in a 100-meter spool: I'll think of something to do with it...

I wasn't able to find any actual concrete specs on the capacitance of various Moster products, so I can't help there. Canare GS6 is 46pf/ft, Gotham GAC-1 is 48pf/ft. Both are pretty damned quiet for handling noise, but both are higher capacitance than I really like. Gotta use what you can get, though. Ten years ago I *used* to use Belden 8401, which is 28pf/ft, but it does have a lot of handling noise and is fragile. Belden 8410 is 33pf/ft, 8401 is 28pf/ft, 9798 is 45pf/ft, and 9394 is 55pf/ft(!). Betcha the Monster stuff is actually one of those, repackaged...
 
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