A CABLES POLL OKAY (Ryan Summit Appreciation Thread)

[goroth]

Mogami cable + GLS pancake plugs FTMFW

yup.

[ryan summit]

HOLY SHIT I LOVE YOU GUYS
even if your all mocking me
we are summit
we are many

[stripes]

5 ft of cable

[Ancient Astronaught]

HOLY SHIT I LOVE YOU GUYS
even if your all mocking me
we are summit
we are many

Check my new sig.

[amorphous]

George L's all the way....

[transients]

5 ft of cable

I bought this stuff (and the exact same color! so snazzy) to make the custom lengths I needed, and used the pre-assembled black pancake cables mammoth sells too, and they sound great and NONE have failed me. I've tried lava's solder-less cables, the cheap multi-color patch cables from ebay, and other random cheap patch cables, and at some point most of them eventually start crapping out, especially the solderless ones. Also do not use switchcraft pancake jacks, they have this stupid coating on the metal that makes everything ridiculously hard to solder unless you have a very high-temperature soldering iron. The chandler pancakes from mammoth work great.

A good thing to remember when you're soldering the pancake jacks is to put electrical tape, gaffers tape, a piece of plastic or cardboard or whatever you have that's not conductive over the lead's solder joint & exposed cable so it never touches the back of the jack no matter how much you move it around. There's not a lot of space inside the pancake jacks once you screw on the back covers so if you don't have something protecting the lead from the back, it may eventually bend in such a way that it touches it and grounds or weakens the signal. When you're soldering the second jack onto the cable, make sure the cable is not twisted or else you'll have to jacks pointing in weird directions and a lot of tension on the cable once it's plugged in. It helps a lot if you get some scrap wood and make a little jig by drilling a couple of 1/4" holes (to hold the jack you're soldering) at the distance you want your cable to be so your cables will be nice and consistently sized too. Test every single cable before and after you screw the backs on so you'll know what's causing problems (if there are any)... and that's pretty much all the advice I can give off the top of my head, enjoy those awesome cables, I love mine!

And if you want more expensive "audiophile quality" stuff, then yeah, the evidence audio cables work and sound great. Either the Reveal or the Monorail are perfect for patch cables, monorail for tighter fits, reveal has better sturdiness/reliability but a little less flexy. For all it's worth though, unless you're running a lot of pedals and none of them have any form of a buffer, there's really not much of a difference in sound.

[Jake]

I bought the mammoth cables with pancakes and I love them. They really help me squeeze my pedals with side jacks together and they are super flexible.

[Casavettes]

new solderless cable on mammoth... stupid easy assembly, and not as expensive as lava. interesting
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pry-stgTIIk[/youtube]
http://www.mammothelectronics.com/Chandler-1-4-TS-Patch-Cable-Plug-Kit-p/1200-kit-clearfuse5.htm

kinda want to buy now
shipping is free and they're 10% off

[thegreatwent]

Klotz cable with G&H plugs is by far the best I've used so far.
Super low capacitance and good feel/weight/thickness.
I took a 15' and cut it in half. Keeps the length down thereby keeping the overall capacitance down.

I try and keep them as short as possible, although when playing out I use longer (12' or 15') Lave Blue Demon cables and a Klon buffer at the beginning of my effects chain to help the signal along.
The Blue Demons are also very good. Not as low capacitance as the Klotz, but super affordable and with a good clear and transparent buffer (like the Klon buffer), not much different than using a 4' Klotz cable.
Without the buffer using both 15' blue demons there is noticeable high end roll off. Depending on your set up, this could be a good thing.

[Chankgeez]

Klon & Klotz?

[dubkitty]

attorneys-at-tone.

[hbombgraphics]

Today's lawyer talk brought to you by the word capacitance!

[Chankgeez]

I use crappy cables (well, OK, they're not crappy. I like the Spectraflex, but they're not super high end or anything.), but I sometimes do utilize the Klon buffer.

[D.o.S.]

Fuck that noise buy 'em cheap.

[thegreatwent]

I use Klotz or Blue Demon cable.
On my pedalboard I use a Klon buffer I built on veroboard from tagboardeffects.blogspot.com

Capacitance isn't a mystery or necessarily a marketing gimmick although it has been used as such with cables and there is a lot gimmickry in general when it comes to cables and guitar gear.

A wire of any given length will have some capacitance. The longer the wire the more the capacitance which creates a low pass filter which means the lows are let through and the highs get filtered out.
Klotz capacitance is 22.5pf per foot. Blue Demon is 23pf per foot. Both quite low as far as instrument cables go.
There are certainly other factors to consider but capacitance can't be ignored.

If you were to take 40' of Klotz and 40' of a bargain basement cable or Monster, or even George L's you would hear a difference.

I used George L's for a long time, but they are bright, lacking in the low end, and not as open sound overall in comparison to the Klotz, and I've given up on solderless plugs. Lava, George L's - they all seem to come loose eventually.

I've got Lava ELC with solderless plugs on my pedal board and I'm about to swap out the solderless plugs for some pancake jacks and maybe even cut up one of my Klotz cables to make new patch cables. My pedals boards has stayed the same for some time so having more permanent cabling appeals to me. Something that isn't going to come loose..