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sadowsky used to recommend a cable made for a bass player i think by klotz - can't remember exactly - its got kind of bronze coloured jacks. anyway the point is i've got it and its a highly thought of cable for under 100 bucks.
i recently got a vovox sonoros cable - i'm sure they do a bunch and i've forgotten which exact one it is
i never use any pedals - i just plug straight into the amp
my point is just this:
the vovox cable is fantastic - it returns a whole dimension of the sound of the guitar to its proper place coming out of the amp's speaker. the good klotz cable deadens the sound very considerably.
i only noticed this the other day after using the cable for months - because it was only the other day that i tried them one after the other. maybe its the new evans amp that is good enough to make the difference jump out - don't know.
but i'm very glad i'm not losing all that definition and range in my tone. the guitar cost too much to mess with details like this.
i don't think the short length vovox sonorous cables are much over 100 bucks...
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11-26-2015 12:25 PM
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A friend of mine brought a Vovox cable to compare with a 30€ Cordial cable.
Blindfolded we could not tell wich cable we actually heard. We both transcribe a lot and have good ears.
We made recordings with these two cables and checked by ear and with the frequency analyzing tool of my DAW - no audible difference and the freq. Analyzer confirmed what we heard, no difference!
That´s what I think about the Vovox hype...any good cable does the job.
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These have served me well: Death Valley Cable Company, the world's best guitar cable, handmade one at a time
[I ignore the "world's best" part, but otherwise they're great.]
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Apparently not.
Originally Posted by redwater
Groyniad has ears too. He stated that one cable performed differently from another. Are you claiming that he is wrong because you have tested 2 cables out of the whole universe of cables?
That's some leap.
I have played many cables too. My ears are sensitive to changes in tone and response (without testing devices that measure SOME aspects). I will testify on stacks of bibles that cables respond differently and do sound different.
I've had two identical cables that were slightly different.
I know that EQ's can be tweaked to make up for small differences, that maybe an audience does not ever notice, but some cables perform so poorly that they just DULL the guitars' tone.
Give me the good cable, not that it has to be expensive, but quality is the deciding factor.
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Hmm, I really don't think "redwater" was making those accusations, and I'm also guessing he'd agree with your last comment, too. Originally Posted by Jimmy Mack
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+1 Originally Posted by Jimmy Mack
I did not intend to offend anyone! If I did, I am sorry for that.
I think that a 30€ Cordial cable is in the upper range of the cable universum.
So I just wanted to say, that you don`t need to spend 100€ for a cable.
Edit: I did not say, that cables cannot sound differently! And I know that cheap cables are tonesuckers!Last edited by redwater; 11-26-2015 at 03:00 PM.
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I've been perfectly happy with George L's for many, many years. But I'll also happily use a Fender branded cable when I need to. It's all about the capacitance and what you want to hear!
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different cables do sound
more or less bright ....
its very noticable with different length cables
of the same make too
try it !
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more or less bright - that gets it about right.
it would be hard to prefer the duller or deader cable though - so it doesn't seem to me a live question which cable sounds better. its obvious which one sounds better.
certainly a significant improvement in the way the guitar works over the klotz cable
'significant' here is meant to imply that you don't have to be a total gear-nerd to be very keen to have one cable rather than the other
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I've had tons of cables over the years. The ones who had the most obvious sonic impact were George Ls, and not a good one. Very bright...
Most of the good cables sound similar to me. The best ones I found are Sommer Spirit XXL, quite cheap on Thomann and very good.
As for the high end cables, never tried Vovox but I have a Evidence Audio that I was able to buy for 30€ (costs 100€). It doesn't sound anything special, I think I like the Sommer more actually, if there's a difference.
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Proves the point: A good sounding cable is better than a poor sounding one.
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Not really relevant to the point, but I have tried pure silver hifi interconnector cable as a guitar cable.
Audio Note AN-V and Cardas rhodium plug, with some silly silver/gold solder.
I even did the cryogenic treatment as well. The cable cost me about $2,000.
Of course, I didn't mean to use it as a guitar cable, I ordered for my audio system.
With high hopes for the cable, I hooked my Moffa Maryan to tweaked Fender PRRI (EV 10" speaker and Baxandall tone stack) with the cable.
I wouldn't say it was bad, or maybe I am declined to say it because of the $$$.
It was actually too bright! The sound was piercing through my ears.
All my friends, not guitarists nor jazz musicians but classical musicians, agreed too.
I was trying to get used to it, but instead, I turned them into interconnector as it should be.
It was a good try-out anyway. Otherwise I would be haunted by the idea of using a hifi interconnector as a guitar cable.
Well, with some experiences (silly even), now I am a satisfied Vovox user.
But I don't think I will ever stop trying out different cables.
Last edited by mincheol.seo; 11-26-2015 at 07:07 PM.
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The differing capacitance of various cables in combination with passive (Hi Z) pickups can affect the sound, generally in subtle ways. Capacitance affects the high end. With active pickups, or some sort of active buffer in line, these effects are largely eliminated. Really long cables with Hi Z pickups will roll off some highs and change the resonant peak of a pickup. Bill Lawrence wrote a lot about this stuff (link below). He claimed that Hendrix's use of a really long coiled telephone-type cable shifted the "chimey" resonant peak of his strat pickups further down, provided a perceived midrange emphasis akin to a boost. Albert Collins used something like a 50 ft cable and got the same kind of effect. I guess in theory you can get any sound you like if you start with the cleanest clearest signal you can achieve -- tweak with different caps for different effects on your pickups or your tone and volume controls etc.
I don't worry about cables personally. In a band setting I just use a run of very modestly priced cables. I also make all my own patch cables from pancake connectors and regular instrument cable cut from an old guitar lead. I do have a set of Bill Lawrence low capacitance cables and solderless jacks though (essentially the same as George Ls) that I generally use for recording and playing at home -- where my ears can appreciate the slightly better high-end response, especially with finger-style playing. However, the moment you play next to a drummer in a loud context their cymbals pretty much wipe out or mask your top-end hearing and your real world guitar sound (=that space which is left for you in a mix) is all about the midrange.
Bill Lawrence WebsiteLast edited by wildschwein; 11-26-2015 at 10:42 PM.
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There is plenty of evidence that 99% of the music cable industry hype is pure BS designed to part the buyer from their money. Cable capacitance is an actual thing, although barely noticeable if at all in the short lengths that are usually used between a guitar and the amp. If you play with your tone control all the way up it may help to have a lwoer capacitance cable, but if you play with the tone control rolled down probably it won't make much difference. With the lower cap cable you'll just roll the tone off a smidge more!
I switched from a generic 10' cable to a 15 foot Monster cable a few years ago; there was some difference but that seemed at least in part due to the old cable having some damage as it developed an intermittent connection. I placed the Monster with a George L; it's maybe a little brighter.
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Cunamara hype is a very real thing and lots of people fall into it - thinking they're listening stuff they're not. But our ears are all different and I believe some people really can hear a difference in cables and others not.
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I've been using these for many years, they sound good and have been very durable for me. None broken so far which feels like a miracle! Originally Posted by jorgemg1984
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i'm using an evans amp and an L-5 guitar
tone controls are at about 8 or 9 on the guitar and the amp is very fresh and clean
there's no background noise
the difference between the two cables is like the difference between a nice amp setting and a bad one - a total no-brainer difference
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this is about the most boring topic in the world - more boring by far than pick-talk (which i often quite dig)
i'm sorry i started it
i know which cable i'll be using (but i'll very happily try some way-cheap ones to see if i'm wasting my money getting another, if i have to replace it)
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i have one of these. its solid. been so for years. clearly better than your average store bought cable, but i'm not sure how it stacks up to the fancy pants ones. my only gripe is that it is super, super twisty. it always gets coiled up and snagged on things (or itself). sounds great but it can be annoying. Originally Posted by marcwhy
i wonder if there is an inherently less twisty cable out there.
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1) I seem to remember that Joe Bonamassa uses (used?) Klotz cables. He is famous for
being on the "dark side of the tone." (Yes, I am now ashamed.)
2) The "Twister"cables have been promised for about a year now, maybe someday, feet, maybe:
https://orangeamps.com/products/cables/twister-cables/
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i have an empress buffer plus on my board (which shouldn't surprise some of you that have seen the boards i chained together). one of its many ingenious features is a little knob that introduces (or simulates, or whatever) extra capacitance into your signal, in effect, darkening your sound (and also making itself sort of redundant). so you could have it both ways with something to that effect; it can brighten or darken your tone, as needed.
orange cables pros- at least they're trying
cons- they are orange, i don't know what the hell the giant thing is suppposed to do and they don't exist
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Oh, yeah, people hear differently. A simple standard hearing test will show that- especially at high frequencies some folks are more sensitive than others. I am sometimes surprised to hear someone describe something as "clear" or even "warm" and it sounds like ice picks to me, or "muddy" and it sounds only warm at most. All of us folks over 50 have lost some top end compared to our teenaged years (which is my I now wear hearing protection at all gigs and rehearsals, when vacuuming, avoid earbuds as much as possible, etc. I know a lot of older folks with bad hearing and I don't want to be one of them). Originally Posted by jorgemg1984
One of the things I have noticed is that as many guitarists age their tone often gets brighter. Jim Hall is a great example of this. Now, maybe he wanted his tone brighter or maybe it sounded the same to him as his hearing changed over the decades; by the time he had his Sadowsky I hear an unpleasant set of high, harsh overtones and can hardly listen to some of those later recordings (These Rooms, for example). You can also hear this with Bob Weir whose tone is now often painfully screechy and a little bit with Pat Metheny, who is also getting some of those same harsh overtones as Jim Hall.
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I'll second the Death Valley cables. I've used them for years and sold all of my "big-name" cables after having the Death Valleys for a few weeks and noticing a huge difference, especially with upper notes.
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I just bought a Lava cable. It was highly reco'md on another thread, thru a link that evaluated various cables.
Right out of the box, it sounds almost as good as my Evidence cable ( and better than 3 or 4 others I have). Nice and flexible, but tough feeling. Will report back after playing it a bit.
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It's difficult for me to A-B cables at home, as the short interruption when changing cables takes longer than my aural memory would last...
Anyway I mainly use MTI cables (from Switzerland as well), which offer a very very low capacitance at a ridiculously low price point.
Still I would consider the Vovox Sonorus to sound more "3D", have more texture in the high frequencies, low frequencies with slightly ore definition and to have a a better string separation when playing chords. The difference however is far less than when changing from a 1.5mm to a 1.14mm pick.
It's looks are 376% better than standard cables though, so it may stay in the living room, together with my (only slightly more expensive) Yamaha THR10 ;-)
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There was a time that I thought these discussions total bs. Not anymore.
Some years ago I build up my rock rig at home for a gig after some months pause. I had been playing with a 2 meter long cable at home and now my 6 m guitar cable, a reasonable pedal board and 6 m amp cable made the sound as muffled as turning the tone pot totally down. I was shocked.
This started a some month test round and studying the subject. Capacitance is the reason to this phenomena. So I started to look after low capacitance cables. But cheap. Only site I found (those days) that had any 'scientific' facts was this:
http://www.ovnilab.com/articles/cablechoice.shtml
I tried some half dozen brands. Most sucked tone apparently. Then I tried one of the lowest capacitanced cables, Elixir. It was too bright! What a relief. Then I found Klotz La Grange cable cheap ordered by meter (I like to solder my cables myself) and they were enough objective for my rock rig. Very happy with them.
But during these tests I had made two cables from Sommer branded cable. They were darker than Klotz's but fitted perfectly to my jazz rig. (Is a guitar-cable-amp a 'rig'?)
Stevie Ray Vaughan's tech brought once new cables for Stevie. He played a bit in a sound check and finally told the tech to buy cheaper sounding cables from a nearest music shop.
So even the cork sniffing varies!
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