I never knew cords made such a difference

pdadda

pdadda

Captain Sea Boots
I was messing around playing guitar the other night and noticed my tone seemed muddy. I messed with the guitar and amp tone controls, but couldn't fix the problem. I swapped out the tube sin my amp. Still muddy. Then I thought, what the crap, I'll try changing my guitar cable. Night and day difference. The highs came back and I had a much more crisp tone. I knew a cable would make some difference, but I was amazed how much the tone changed, especially considering they are only about 10 ft cables.
 
What kind of cord did you have and what did you swap to? Most cords would not be night and day difference unless one was bleeding off some of your highs. If you have a digital multimeter you can check the resistance of both cables. I bet one is higher than the other.

I just checked mine for fun.

Standard 10' Fender cable was .2 ohms. .2/10 = about .02 ohms per foot
20' Prolink Monster Standard 100 cable was .3 ohms. .3/20 = about .015 ohms per foot.

You really don't need to break it down to the foot, but its something to keep in mind when comparing what length does. Plus you might want to know what the difference is between a nice cable VS cheap cable, but the cables are different lengths. But also keep in mind the connections for the wire to the plug might be a chunk of the total resistance, and that most DMM's don't read past .1 ohm increments. So you don't get exact ohm readings that small, but if one is .1+/-, and one is .2+/-, there is some difference.
 
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Wouldn't capacitance be the issue? I realize resistance plays a part; lowered input to the amp, thus .......... maybe less response, lower gain. Butt Mud? That (capacitance) would seem to influence the frequency response to a greater degree creating a more muted tone. Donno. My .02 with ?
 
Thurgood said:
Wouldn't capacitance be the issue? I realize resistance plays a part; lowered input to the amp, thus .......... maybe less response, lower gain. Butt Mud? That (capacitance) would seem to influence the frequency response to a greater degree creating a more muted tone. Donno. My .02 with ?
Click to expand...
Yep ....... capacitance is the more likely culprit.
Most people don't seem to realize that, by definition, a cable is a capacitor. And some amps can be more sensitive to that than others and some amps are very sensitive to it.
 
Yes, a cable can make a significant difference to the worse if it is a really crappy cable. A word of caution, though; lowering capacitance can only help up to a point. When you've raised the high frequency rolloff point up to where it's above the hearing range of humans, raising it more by further lowering the capacitance won't buy you anything. I've got a raft of cables by a lot of different manufacturers, and they all sound the same to me.
 
Thurgood said:
Wouldn't capacitance be the issue? I realize resistance plays a part; lowered input to the amp, thus .......... maybe less response, lower gain.
Click to expand...

In context of the circuit cable resistance doesn't make any difference vs. the million ohms of the amp input.:)
 
i bring this thread back. I just had the exact same thing happen, as the OP.

I was re-soldering a cable. went and plugged it in and tried a different guitar. (there's always guitars and music amps laying around here from the kids).

mud.
MUD...no highs

Went back to my cheap, Fender cable...perfect!

the MUD-cable was a instrument cable & was longer.

I measured .2 ohm, on the good crystal clear Fender cable, G and TIP.

The MUD cable .2ohm on G and .8ohm on the TIP wire.

So I figured maybe a contact issue.? My poor soldering? So I got another cable and it measures .2ohm G to G, end to end...and about .8 or 1ohm on the tip to tip.

So if the ohms/resistance is the same on two cables I'll test next, capacitance would be the culprit...and I don't have a capacitance meter. We have one at work though......:D
 
damn... i really dont want to start any thing but a cable is not a capacitor... it does have capacitence in the interelement sense... always look for low capacitence cable...
 
I just tried a 3rd cable, guitar cable..Lyon...on sale at Target 50% off..$3.

It was all treble and no lows.

It measured the exact same resistance as the "good one" at .2ohms both the g and tip.

I must have missed that day at Guitar class where they said cables make that big of a difference. wow?

My "good one" by the way, was a cheap, Fender California clear coated cable. $8
 

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so i make a 10ft from this 20ft, instrument cable.

plug it in and its "muddy", go back to my Fender California and its louder and brighter...both the same length.

So at this point I'm thinking it must be the diameter or quantity of the wire strands.

The funny thing is my kid came in and I played them each cable.....

she liked the "muddy" one and said the other (Fender Cali) sounded "trebly"....

so I give up at this point.

Moral of the Test:
One mans sparkly-tone is another mans ear-bleed tone, and another mans "mud tone" is someone's preferred tone.:rolleyes:
 
the most basic definition of a capacitor is two conductors separated by a dielectric (insulation), thus by definition, even though it's not what we consider a capacitor, a cable is in fact a poor quality capacitor. A cord can't store much electricity because there's not enough plate (conductor) area; that's why capacitors are wound or folded to get lots of conductor in a small space but nonetheless anytime you have two conductors separated by a dielectric, it is a cap. Maybe a crummy one but it fully fills the basic definition.
 
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Lt. you made a comment some amps are very sensitive to cables.
Apparently mine is, its extremely noticeable...and I'm really not a severe tone gear head... and even I notice this change.

my best description is its like someone turning the tone knob on the guitar, from full treble to full bass.


what causes this sensitivity to cables?
 
COOLCAT said:
Lt. you made a comment some amps are very sensitive to cables.
Apparently mine is, its extremely noticeable...and I'm really not a severe tone gear head... and even I notice this change.

my best description is its like someone turning the tone knob on the guitar, from full treble to full bass.


what causes this sensitivity to cables?
Click to expand...
well, I only know in general terms since I rarely try to look up specific figures or numbers BUT, in a guitar circuit, the tone control usually works by having a cap from one terminal to ground. As you turn the pot that way it shunts high freq's to ground because only high freqs will pass thru a cap ..... it's a high pass filter allowing highs to go thru but blocking lows.
So if a cable has a relatively high capacitance compared to other cords ..... well, the cord runs to ground so it's similar to a gits' tone circuit and will roll off highs.
Why it's more noticeable in some amps than others doesn't seem so clear to me since the effect I'm talking about all takes place at the guitar&cord end of things and it seems like it should be similar in any amp. But obviously some circuit designs are less affected by it. I'm sure someone who likes to look up circuit designs will be along to point out some specifics as to why that is.

I've also read about power amps being majorly affected by capacitance in speaker cables. Especially in S.E.T. amps, (Something we don't usually find in guitar amps), the frequency response curve of the amp can be very different with different cables specifically because of different capacitance. So one set of cables might make the amp sound really forward and bright and another set might have it sounding dark and muffled. Once, again, I used to know why S.E.T. (Single Ended Triode ) amps are so affected by it but I forgot the specifics. While S.E.T. amps seem to have the most drastic reactions ..... it can be a factor in more conventional amps also.
I seem to remember it's connected to negative feedback or lack thereof also.
 
Lt. Bob said:
Why it's more noticeable in some amps than others doesn't seem so clear to me since the effect I'm talking about all takes place at the guitar&cord end of things .
Click to expand...

The pickup, cable, and input of the amp form a circuit. Change any of them, the characteristics of the circuit change. Amps have different input impedances, therefore will have a different results.
 
Lumpy said:
I'm not sure what the "interelement sense" is. Should I work on
developing that..;-)

Lumpy

In Your Ears for 40 Years
www.LumpyMusic.com
Click to expand...

dont worry lumpy either ya got it or ya dont... and i'm not sure it's not more of a hinderence...


by interelement they mean parasitic loses caused by things like poor board layout and lack of detail in wiring in say hard wired tube amps...


"the most basic definition of a capacitor is two conductors separated by a dielectric (insulation), thus by definition, even though it's not what we consider a capacitor, a cable is in fact a poor quality capacitor"


but that's not the definition most of us use.... beacause it's not conductors in the sense of 2 paralell connections as in a cord... it's more a matter of 2 plates which have only 1 connection each separated by the dialectic such that DC voltage is blocked from passing but fluctuations (our signal) on one of the plates then induces movement on the other.... a cable does have some capacitence... inthe interelemental sense by virtue of having 2 conductors running paralell separated by dialectics... but having capacitence in the quality sense does not in and of itself make it a capacitor....



"The pickup, cable, and input of the amp form a circuit. Change any of them, the characteristics of the circuit change. Amps have different input impedances, therefore will have a different results. "

move to the head of the class....

and if we cared enough to anaylize the circuit and looked up the RC time constants... i'ld be willing to bet that the inputs where the cable is problematic has a lower impedence (roughly 10k verses 100k-1meg) .... so the highs end up being rolled off....
 
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