I'm A Slow Learner

  • Thread starter Thread starter rayc
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rayc

rayc

retroreprobate
Having played bass since 1974 it may shock you to discover taht I've only recently learnt the difference between speaker cable & instrument cable.
Having learnt it I've now replaced all cables joinging amps to cabs with new SPEAKER cables.
It took a while but I learnt the lesson.
 
From my limited and rather recent elucidation I can offer the following:
Guitar/instrument cable is shielded and is a relatively small gauge as it only carries a small flow of electrons (electricity) from the pickup to the amplifier.
Speaker cable, (cable to carry an amplified signal to an unpowered speaker) - be it XLR/TRS/Nutriks or whatever that name is, carries a whole pile of electron flow (electricity/power) from an amplifier along a distance to drive speakers & so requires a heavier guage wire to facilitate the needed flow & ought not be shielded (though I don't know the why to that last bit).
Using instrument cable instead of speaker cable means the amp is trying to push more power along a guage that may not be capable of carrying it & this can cause problems for your amp. Perhaps not today, maybe not for the last 34 years but it can & probably will happen sometime.
Fortunately as speaker cable isn't shielded it's relatively inexpensive. I bought 2 x 6m jack ended cables & one 10m jack -> XLR for $65 delivered.
BUT
I'm a slow/late/uncorrected learner so the above may be codswollop.
 
If you are talking about a lot of power (wattage), an instrument cable used as speaker cable can even melt! Small gauge wire = more resistance (= heat) also means less power getting to the speakers.
 
Yeah, speaker cable is not shielded because the signal going through it is hot enough to keep interference out. Instrument cable is shielded to keep noise out because the signal passing through is very weak. To the best of my knowledge, which is rudimentary at best, it's really all about shielding and noise interference. If you used a run of speaker cable as an instrument cable your sound could be affected by noise penetrating the cable. If you use instrument cable as a speaker cable, it could technically work, but it could potentially damage your amp if there's a breakdown.

Cables are cheap. It's best not to interchange them.
 
mjbphotos said:
If you are talking about a lot of power (wattage), an instrument cable used as speaker cable can even melt! .
Click to expand...
yep, and when it does that you can get a direct short blowing the amp if the fuse doesn't catch it in time.

Greg_L said:
Yeah, speaker cable is not shielded because the signal going through it is hot enough to keep interference out. .
Click to expand...
well ..... more importantly the speaker cable isn't going to the input of an amplifying device.
It's going to the output of an amplifier so any noise that would be picked up by the cable still isn't going to be amplified because it's not going into something that can amplify.
And since a shield holds in the heat of the inner conductor, And the inner conductor is tiny and thus will heat up if presented with much juice, it gets prone to overheating and melting.
 
Lt. Bob said:
yep, and when it does that you can get a direct short blowing the amp if the fuse doesn't catch it in time.

well ..... more importantly the speaker cable isn't going to the input of an amplifying device.
It's going to the output of an amplifier so any noise that would be picked up by the cable still isn't going to be amplified because it's not going into something that can amplify.
And since a shield holds in the heat of the inner conductor, And the inner conductor is tiny and thus will heat up if presented with much juice, it gets prone to overheating and melting.
Click to expand...

Yeah, there ya go. :)
 
yeah, and if the little thread wire melts and the connection breaks, then there goes your output transformer
 
Maybe you're good basist?
Maybe you can play Mozart on the bass...
 
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