When can you hear cable quality

[GuitarStv]

Would having a treble bleed in the guitar make a difference?

Not really.

Capacitance in a cable reduces the highs produced by a pickup. Cables also have impedance . . . which reduces the lows produced by a pickup. A treble bleed shunts some treble to the jack at full volume as the guitar volume is rolled back and reduces volume of all the other frequencies.

The treble bleed will change the character of the signal that goes into the cable to be brighter at lower volumes, but it's still going to have the highs and some lows lopped off by the cable, and this tends to be more audible when the signal from the guitar is lower.

[Gtrjunior]

Not really.

Capacitance in a cable reduces the highs produced by a pickup. Cables also have impedance . . . which reduces the lows produced by a pickup. A treble bleed shunts some treble to the jack at full volume as the guitar volume is rolled back and reduces volume of all the other frequencies.

The treble bleed will change the character of the signal that goes into the cable to be brighter at lower volumes, but it's still going to have the highs and some lows lopped off by the cable, and this tends to be more audible when the signal from the guitar is lower.

Agreed.
I good buffer is the ideal solution.

[eclecticsynergy]

Would having a treble bleed in the guitar make a difference?

Not really.

Capacitance in a cable reduces the highs produced by a pickup. Cables also have impedance . . . which reduces the lows produced by a pickup. A treble bleed shunts some treble to the jack at full volume as the guitar volume is rolled back and reduces volume of all the other frequencies.

The treble bleed will change the character of the signal that goes into the cable to be brighter at lower volumes, but it's still going to have the highs and some lows lopped off by the cable, and this tends to be more audible when the signal from the guitar is lower.

I hear more difference between cables using a PRS with a bleed cap than I do when playing a Les Paul without one.

I agree differences between cables are more readily apparent when rolling the guitar volume back.
Treble bleed keeps the tone brighter when rolled back, so there's extra treble happening for a high capacitance cable to lose.

It's not that the cables actually are behaving any differently, there's just more treble for them to mess with.
So IMO the losses are more obvious.

[esandes]

Cables make a huge difference. Shielding, capacitance, gauge, solder, copper quality, oxidation resistance...overall, tone.

[Erlend_G]

Once heard a difference-

Between a ultra-cheap cable (that came with a china guitar+amp starters kit), and a premium one .

As long as it works, and is sturdy; I don't care much. I.e. I would never pay 2-5x bucks for a "high end" one.

rock on!

[80's_Thrash_Metal]

I buy good and expensive cables because the internet tells me I should.

I don't think most people can hear the difference, outside of the studio engineers and the audiophiles.

I think of it as general noisiness from a cheap cable or no noise from a quality cable.

[NegativeEase]

I may be old fashioned, but have always figured that men shouldn't need bras.


Even of the tone strap variety.

A tone manssiere.

[NegativeEase]

I think of it as general noisiness from a cheap cable or no noise from a quality cable.

Exactly, if you are playing live or jammin, there is no reason to worry about ultrapremium cables and nothing EQ cant augment if you thought you needed a little more of something.

In a recording environment at the multitrack, yeah some people may hear it, but then I have to ask several questions:

• What guitarist actually needs more 8-15k in their tone? (that's where most people can hear the difference)
• If you hear a real tightness in the lower bass, do you think that is going to survive the VCAs and compression over the dither to a final mix with other instruments?
• What is your tracking sample rate and bit depth and what is your consumption format and sample/bit for that and do you think an ultra premium cable's capacitance difference makes it to that phase?

Point is, if you like premium cables.. great -but nobody should be FOMOing that their tone is suffering without.

I would argue the connector quality, ultra low profile angles on a pedal board, custom lengths etc are the better reason to use the expensive stuff over the "sound"

[Top-L]

High impedance (passive) signal will lose high frequencies in proportion to how long the cable is. Playing passive pickups through a short cable in the studio is best case scenario; you probably won't hear much loss.

I haven't read much about it, but its conceivable that different gauge wire presents more or less resistance. A high quality thicker gauge cable might preserve tone better on a long run. Or the opposite might be true. I suspect the answer is that all well designed cables will sound identical; its possible that cheap cables could lose more signal.

Low impedance (active) pickups maintain sound quality on much longer cable runs.

[Ewizard]

I believe that many cables are designed to sound a certain way. Mogami for sure. Their shortest cable sounds just like their longest cable. This is because they engineer a certain amount of capacitance into each cable. I believe that Mogami in particular actually has a bit more capacitance than your average cheap cable, this makes it so that the cable sounds less brittle, bright, or brash when you have the volume all the way up as most guitarists do. They engineer more capacitance into each shorter length of cable to match the sound of their longest one. I am pretty certain other higher-end brands are doing this as well.

If you think about it, if you buy a cheap cable and it sounds really bright, or brash, it is probably because it has little or NO capacitance in it. This makes it as clear and real as it gets. It doesn't sound good, to most players because it sounds brighter. Just my theory anyway.

[beaubrummels]

People always tout George L's for their clarity. When I tried them, while it was brighter with a lot of pedals, a significant amount of bass was gone from my sound. Redoing the board with other brands of regular patch cables brought the bass back and didn't darken it so much on the top end that I felt I was missing anything.