Fancy Cables

This is a fairly hot subject and I've gotten into some ill-advised arguments over it in some forums. The arguing part seems unnecessary and I'm going to try to explain my opinion clearly and in a way that avoids stepping on anybody's toes.

A solid basic guitar cable made of reliable, quiet and relatively low-capacitance cable with reliable, high-quality plugs can be had for about $30 from any number of sources. This is all you need. Look for cable with Mogami or Canare wire and Neutrik or Switchcraft plugs. There are other brands, but these are the standard. And again, this is what you need, quiet, reliable, low-capacitance. Without that basic functionality a cable is not worth considering.

You can pay more and get additional features if you like, pretty jackets that do actually help protect the cable and gold plated ends are both popular and pretty. No reason to not have them if you like. But look at these as optional features that are added to what is essential; quiet, reliable, low-capacitance. If a cable lacks those things there is no added feature that will make up for it.

There are "premium" cables out there that are objectively, measurably, statistically and factually inferior in reliability. Some have terrible failure rates and a few have terrible failure modes.

Quick example that hit my bench, a customer using one "premium" cable had the tip of the plug come off inside the jack of his amp. Being a PCB mounted TRS Cliff jack there was no way to remove the tip without destroying and/or replacing the jack. The customer ended up with a repair because of this inferior cable with inferior plugs that had been sold to him for five times the cost of a cable that would never have had this problem. Sure the "lifetime" warranty of the cable got him a brand new one, just like the old one, but it sure didn't pay his repair bill or make up for the time without his amp.

This is unacceptable.

I don't want to hear the argument that these cables sound better - broke cables do not sound good. This industry has had reliable cables for about 30 years now. If someone presents a cable as being an improvement it must do everything those cables did, plus. Not instead.

That is all. Make sure that you are getting something that will get the job done. Then, if you can afford it and it sounds good to you upgrade however much you like. Just don't get suckered into thinking that because something is more expensive that it is automatically better. It has the potential to be better, but not all of them are.

That $30 cable I was talking about is better than what you heard on your favorite albums of the past. It really, really is good enough. And if someone wants you to pay more insist that he give you everything that you get in the low priced cable plus whatever added features he's advertising. There is no excuse for accepting less.

There are a lot of guys out there building fine cables at all price points. These are good guys selling a legitimate product. I am not criticizing them for offering something better and more expensive. On the other hand there are companies with nothing but a huge endorsement / advertising budget who sell unreliable gold-plated crap. You deserve better than that.