Monster Bass Cable

[nextlife]

My buddy gave me his 12' monster bass cable because he sold his bass. I am a guitar player and am wondering if I could still use this cable for electric guitar? It does say on the cable "bass guitar cable", but can they really specifically make a cable for bass only? I haven't tried plugging in the guitar with the cable yet, cause I really don't want to ruin any of my gear. Thought maybe I could get some of your opinions on this.

Thanks

[Mike Brown]

You'll be fine. There is 0 chance of it ruining your gear. It will probably sound exactly like your other guitar cable.

Try it and use your ears! If it sounds good use it, if not dump it.

Check this out: Audiophiles can't tell the difference between Monster Cable and coat hangers - Engadget

[nextlife]

Originally Posted by Mayor999

You'll be fine. There is 0 chance of it ruining your gear. It will probably sound exactly like your other guitar cable.

Try it and use your ears! If it sounds good use it, if not dump it.

Check this out: Audiophiles can't tell the difference between Monster Cable and coat hangers - Engadget

Thanks, Cool article!

I kind of agree, but I do use George L's. However I am still looking for a quiter cable, and am hoping "monster cables" may kill more of the noise in the signal than the george l's.

I'll test this cable out first thing in the morning

[peeder]

If it doesn't sound good, get out a soldering iron and repair it.

[analogjeff]

try it but it won't sound good... monster cables do sound different, and on some sources they can be good, but i often greatly prefer coat hangers...

[wheever]

...I've been using chicken entrails as a guitar cable for years. Sounds WAY better than regular cable, and even better than coat hangers. Maybe a little messy, but y'know, it's all about the sound.

[2xBassist]

In defense of Monster cables...

I don't think they necessarily sound better than any other good cable... but personally I like the fact that they're kind of thicker, and less flexible, so they never tangle. There's just enough flex to be functional, but not enough to tangle easily. They also coil very nicely and neatly

I've had the same 2 monster Bass Cables for about 10 years now, and they've survived hundreds of gigs...

[peeder]

And still no one has demonstrated sonic differences in guitar cables reproducibly...

I've been offering to do so for months, as soon as someone sends me a guitar pickup driver coil to do so with.

I conclude that they all sound the same and will reverse that conclusion only when presented reproducible, falsifiable evidence.

[Confusionator]

Peeder, I suggest that you experiment with various cable capacitances in relation to passive-pickup electric guitars, especially those with humbuckers. It's in those varying capacitances that you will hear significant differences.

[Sensual Ears]

CABLES ONLY MATTER IF THEY DON'T WORK!!!

[Mike Brown]

Originally Posted by wheever

...I've been using chicken entrails as a guitar cable for years. Sounds WAY better than regular cable, and even better than coat hangers. Maybe a little messy, but y'know, it's all about the sound.

That is the most metal thing i've heard in a month!

Rock on brotha!

[peeder]

Originally Posted by Confusionator

Peeder, I suggest that you experiment with various cable capacitances in relation to passive-pickup electric guitars, especially those with humbuckers. It's in those varying capacitances that you will hear significant differences.

I'll experiment with everything I can get my hands on...over a dozen different types of each pickups, amps, DI's, stompboxes with whatever cables are available...I can do the whole matrix looking for a difference...any difference that can be plotted visually (so we can't argue about whether we hear it or not).

The thing I need to do this reproducibly however is a device that can play a tone into a guitar pickup from a position I can clamp in place so it doesn't change when I switch cables. I know the pickup manufacturers have these to develop/test their pickups with but I'm not going to buy one just to run these tests. I would like someone to send me one to borrow and I will return it. No one has ever taken me up on this, but if I was a cable manufacturer and there is in fact a difference in sound, I'd be right on it, so that my product wouldn't be viewed as snake oil.

It's possible that a speaker voice coil would generate the proper magnetic field to be picked up in full-spectrum at the pickup, but I don't have broken speakers lying around to experiment with. The idea is to run test tones, sinewave sweeps and the like through the pickups and out the amp's effects loop and plot the results.

I have already offered to buy $400 worth of the cable that sounds best (I think $400 would buy one 3 meter "Van den Hul Integration" cable, which sure sounds sexy, if it actually does sound better than a $10 Radio Shack special from the '80s). However, only wire, solder, and connectors may be included in the test...any resistors or boxes or whatnot will be snipped off.

And no, playing the guitar doesn't work as a reproducible test.

[Sensual Ears]

i also agree with whoever said that Monster cables are nice in that they don't get tangled the way that Mogami cable will... Canare is pretty good about tangles too.

[Vogon]

Originally Posted by peeder

The thing I need to do this reproducibly however is a device that can play a tone into a guitar pickup from a position I can clamp in place so it doesn't change when I switch cables.

You may find this of interest...
The Secrets of Electric Guitar Pickups by Helmuth E. W. Lemme

About 4/5ths down the page. It looks like a partially wound HB bobbin. Maybe larger gauge wire to keep it lower-z/cleaner. I s'pose he hooks it up to a flat amp and turns it up (a little) till he gets a good signal (?). Don't know what the plate is, maybe just a stabilizing device or clamp. I dunno, I'm not an EE, just fascinated by it.
Hope it helps.

[Vogon]

Originally Posted by Sensual Ears

i also agree with whoever said that Monster cables are nice in that they don't get tangled the way that Mogami cable will... Canare is pretty good about tangles too.

The Klotz cable types I use are very twist-proof. Cheap well-made stuff.

[peeder]

Originally Posted by Vogon

You may find this of interest...
The Secrets of Electric Guitar Pickups by Helmuth E. W. Lemme

About 4/5ths down the page. It looks like a partially wound HB bobbin. Maybe larger gauge wire to keep it lower-z/cleaner. I s'pose he hooks it up to a flat amp and turns it up (a little) till he gets a good signal (?). Don't know what the plate is, maybe just a stabilizing device or clamp. I dunno, I'm not an EE, just fascinated by it.
Hope it helps.

Wow thanks for that link!!! While I'm not an expert on guitar pickups and cables, this is the very first thing I've read that has any basis in scientific reality. To wit:

This complete measuring arrangement is now available as a commercial instrument. With this, you can easily see what a pickup does with the sound material it gets from strings and body. This is the end of wandering around in the fog. The Pickup Analyzer© (Fig. 9) determines the frequency response, it shows which frequencies are emphasized and which are attenuated - objectively, independent of strings and body, with mounted or loose pickups. How it works: A transmitting coil radiates an alternating magnetic field into the coil(s) of the pickup. While the frequency is varied over the entire audio range, the instrument measures the output voltage of the pickup. The external load conditions can be varied over a wide range: 11 capacitors from 40 pF to 10 nF and four resistors from 125 kOhm to 1 MOhm. Also, the combination of a pickup with a guitar cable can be measured, the influence of different cables on the response is plain to see.

[Emphasis mine]

Of course the article doesn't detail what those differences are. It also doesn't explain whether those differences could easily be duplicated or compensated for by EQ/filters, perhaps even the tone knobs on the guitar itself. Those are things I would have to plot test. He does say that his apparatus isn't an effective test of humbucker pickups due to their having certain notches in frequency response from the string vibrating over two sensors at once.

Now if someone wants to send me one of those hookups and the instructions for running tests with it I will be happy to run through a variety of cable and pickup and amp and stompbox brands and provide plots of what the combinations are doing to the signal in practice. With the cable plugged into a real amp or stompbox or DI, not into some analyzer thing of who knows what impedance.

It sure would suck to discover that the $400 cable is just one tone knob tweak away from the $10 cable.

[Vogon]

Originally Posted by peeder

Wow thanks for that link!!! While I'm not an expert on guitar pickups and cables, this is the very first thing I've read that has any basis in scientific reality.

My pleasure.

Originally Posted by peeder

He does say that his apparatus isn't an effective test of humbucker pickups due to their having certain notches in frequency response from the string vibrating over two sensors at once.

Well, for a string (mechanically) that's true - and the relative freq's will change as one plays up the neck, the appertures are relatively "wider" apart with the shorter string length than with an open string, they're slightly closer to the (active) string mid-point too. FWIW. (possibly one reason the variax's etc. arn't totally convincing yet?)
But for the actual freq. response of the unit, I think this is still relevant, (if not a watertight methodology with "guitar tone" being the object). ie. for measuring *differences* this could be a good aproach, once the best specs for the coil, signal level etc. are found.

It sure would suck to discover that the $400 cable is just one tone knob tweak away from the $10 cable.

I must admit, that's always been my take on things. On long cable runs I can start to hear things, but all my short cables are just "decent" with the onus on manufacturing quality. The mind can impose far more "depth, bloom and transparency" than OFC copper.

[Unclenny]

I had my Monster guit cable and my Monster bass cable hooked up to my RNLA the other day.....can't recall why that was.......but I searched around for a cable to run the EB3 and ended up using the original (1971) thin gray cord that I found in my SG case when I rescued it from the attic.

The bass sounded fine.....FWIW.

[Sensual Ears]

Originally Posted by Unclenny

The bass sounded fine.....FWIW.

[big country]

Originally Posted by Vogon

You may find this of interest...
The Secrets of Electric Guitar Pickups by Helmuth E. W. Lemme

About 4/5ths down the page. It looks like a partially wound HB bobbin. Maybe larger gauge wire to keep it lower-z/cleaner. I s'pose he hooks it up to a flat amp and turns it up (a little) till he gets a good signal (?). Don't know what the plate is, maybe just a stabilizing device or clamp. I dunno, I'm not an EE, just fascinated by it.
Hope it helps.

[CompEq]

Originally Posted by nextlife

I am still looking for a quiter cable, and am hoping "monster cables" may kill more of the noise in the signal than the george l's.

Have you considered that the noise may not be generated by the cable?

I've used George L cables with great results and the times that there was noise, it was traced back to faulty wiring in the electronics of the guitar. A fix is usually a small soldering job away.

[lordwesley]

Originally Posted by peeder

And no, playing the guitar doesn't work as a reproducible test.

Could you put a guitar on a stand in front of an amp and use some feedback as a test tone? If nothing moved the only variable then might be if one cable was transmitted less signal the feedback might be different. If it's all identical though would the results would show that?

[RCM - Ronan]

I did a few double blind shoot out with a few guitar cables. The results were repeatable and consistent in various test. In our test George L's were the winner and the monster cable tied for last place with a cheap generic cable I found on the floor of some club I was playing at in Italy several years ago.

[peeder]

Originally Posted by lordwesley

Could you put a guitar on a stand in front of an amp and use some feedback as a test tone? If nothing moved the only variable then might be if one cable was transmitted less signal the feedback might be different. If it's all identical though would the results would show that?

No feedback wouldn't work. And feedback isn't usually that stable in practice. I need to be able to run a sinewave sweep I can plot. One of those driver coils is the way to do bidnes.

[peeder]

Originally Posted by Ari-M.

it seems to be a recurring theme on this website that people want to argue differences, now I see why my friends and peers told me to stay away from here....

Admit it, it was the guys who sold you the $200 guitar cord that told you to stay away from here. tutt

One thing I am convinced of is that the debate is killing the industry....

Dude you are lost in the woods.

[Francis Vaughan]

would an e-bow work??...

An e-bow is similar in concept but is really a sort of magnetically coupled feedback device. It relies upon the vibration of the string as part of the system resonance. I would worry that it would not be constant enough.

(isn't the pick on the string a huge part of the tone??)

Absolutely, but what is needed here is to eliminate all extraneous things that can affect tone so that they don't obscure the effect of the cable.

also wouldn't the different gauges of the strings cause a huge difference???

To the guitar's tone yes, but again we need to eliminate this so we can concentrate on the manner in which the energy gets from pickup to cable.

this test would have to be run on quite a few different gauges of strings and pickup variations to be truly valid

Again, string gauges no, pickups yes. Only if you felt that there was a physical interplay by which a cable changes the string's movement that matters. Yes the strings affect the tone, but lets face it the most important aspect of tone is in the hands. If the question is "does the cable make a difference" we try to eliminate everything that can possibly also effect the sound that the cable cannot reasonably directly influence. So eliminate the effect of the hands, the pick, the strings. Just drive pure energy into the pickup and see how the remaining system responds. There is an underlying assumption that there is no causal mechanism by which the cable modifies the way the eliminated components act, and in the grand scheme of things the cross product of all such things might be tested. But we have a pretty good idea about the physics involved, and can be very confident that it isn't going to matter.

[Francis Vaughan]

maybe I am one of the few people that likes the direction that gear is going??? One thing I am convinced of is that the debate is killing the industry....

I will confess I can't make any connection between these statements.

Technological advances have been stunning in the last decade. The nature of the digital chain has become so capable and so cheap (relatively) that it is almost free compared to the rest. A consequence, perhaps, is that it has freed people to explore the artistic merits of gear that has otherwise poorer technological capabilities. This I would say is very healthy. Unlike the HiFi audiophool arenas you won't find claims that some ancient technology is intrinsically more "accurate" than the new fangled stuff. (Well most anyway.) But you will get clear appreciation of exactly why a particular device or design is valuable - with an artistic and technological reason.

The importance of the debate is to constantly cajole the justification and understanding to avoid things where the sonic merits are only in someone's head, and are actually a waste of time and effort and do not translate to the sonics of a final product. In a profession where artistry and technology merge, and you are expected to provide expert advice and services to customers, you really can't do otherwise.

[matt thomas]

oh, ari deleted his comments, so that saves me a bit of typing, anyway..

its a pity that article about the coat hangers doesn't give any evidence of that test actually taking place. Although I wouldn't be suprised if it did.

My other thought is that given what audiophiles claim makes a good cable, a coat hanger should sound quite good, being solid conducter of a decent diameter.

And Peeder, have you ever tried testing other types of cables? I mean testing guitar cables attached to a passive pickup poses a few difficulties, wheras many other types of cable tests would be much easier.

I have thought about organising a cable shoot out at my studio and inviting some audiophiles, I'm sure it'd be quite fun

For everyone else: when running a shoot out, as well as being double blind, you should remember to try each option a number of times, for instance when testing two cables you could connect each one five times, for ten total (randomly ordered) listens. This way the probability of getting it "right" by chance alone drops from 1 in 2, to about 1 in 120.

narco

btw. James Randi offers people a million dollars if they can demonstrate such things as being able to tell the difference between different types of cable (seriously!!) James Randi link. there seem to be a few people here who would be a shoe in for the prize !

[Vogon]

Sorry, Double post.

[Vogon]

One thing I am convinced of is that the debate is killing the industry....

A *debate*? about *truth*?
That has a "religious logic" quality to it. Wow.

There are thousands of people who buy cables monthly, that have no advantage over their existing ones - there will be for a long time.

It's a shame you retracted all your posts, I thought there was a sensible discussion going on here. And here.
It will have ruined the read for anyone interested.
This is after all a discussion forum (for audio professionals) - having a tantrum and slurring everyone who doesn't tow-the-line is pretty poor form, I'm sorry to say.