When do We(You) Draw the line?

[Ken Byng]

James is right - value for money wise I doubt if most of us would hear enough improvement (if any) to warrant spending that much on cables. A hi fi buff friend of mine spent £2K on speaker leads, and tells me that they are cheap. He would think nothing of spending a grand on couple of feet of mono screened cable. Is it a placebo effect that you have spent that much on a lead and it makes you hear a significant difference as a result.

George L's are excellent value for money, and most of the top pro's use them so I am happy not to argue with them.

[Zumbilly(Murdoch)]

Please permit Me to use hypoyheticals here,
If Buddy Emmons were to use his regular rig with all His cables and add ons He would sound totally astounding as usual.
If He wer to replace His cables with the "Best" I would guess He would tweak His amp to get His(previous) astounding sound.
Billy
P.s. I have a cushion on My pack seat which has been designed to muffle all those "Bum" notes

[Graeme Jaye]

A hi fi buff friend of mine spent £2K on speaker leads, and tells me that they are cheap.

Consider this and draw your own conclusions.

A top class recording studio can cost millions to put together, the mixer alone would cost more than most of us could ever consider spending. Now, with a budget that size, these expensive cables would represent a tiny proportion of the overall budget, so you would expect any good/expensive studio to be using them. All I have ever seen is good quality heavy guage copper wire - the sort of thing you'd wire a house with.

[Basil Henriques]

No matter what cable AFTER the guitar output, the ultimate determinate of the quality is the pickup, switching and wiring before the output jack. Silk purse and Sow's ear springs to mind..

Regarding sound in general as in final mixes etc., If some very tired studio techie listening too loud on near field monitors perceives a certain sound, how the heck can a Hi-Fi buff justify spending £4000-5000 on judiciously placed speakers and amplifiers to reproduce a sound created on very inferior gear and listening conditions.? Not all studios would be represented by this analogy but quite a few of the "Classics" have been engineered in similar circumstances.

[Shaun]

I sometimes wonder, when you get to using really expensive cables how much is in the mind?
Do you tell yourself it sounds better because you've spent a lot of money on these new cables or does it really make that much difference.
I'm not advocating using the cheapest cables you can find, but using a good quality cable IMHO will always suffice.

[bazzrd9th]

Hi Guys
I think what Basil says is pretty well spot on. Good pick-ups, good (good will suffice) screening and cables and very good switching. Those links between the various cables are very important. Don't forget a pot can be considered a type of switch/link, so if thats scatchy or worn, that will diminish the chain integrity (how many pots have you on your amp and ancillaries ?) A Current travels along the outside of the cable strands so a cable with sufficent strands is needed to carry a certain amount of current. Notice how fat your speaker leads are in the PA (or should be), that's because they carry a hefty current. Good quality cable is sufficient if it's matched to the current requirement. The cable from the pick-up doesn't carry a hefty curent so can be appropriately smaller, though it must be well shielded.
Don't fall for the hype.....Good Belden or Van damme cable is all you'll ever need and is reasonably priced and will last you for years. Couple it with Neutrik plugs and you have world class leads at a moderate price.
Barry

[Graeme Jaye]

A Current travels along the outside of the cable strands so a cable with sufficent strands is needed to carry a certain amount of current.

'Skin effect' - which is where only the surface of the conductor carries the current - only becomes of concern at radio frequencies, not audio. It is of no matter to anyone here. At audio frequencies, stranded cable is used primarily for its flexibility- In a fixed installation, solid cored cable would be just as effective.

[ZBSD-10]

As Billy said, " If you buy something a top player uses ,be it steel or guitar,you could sound just like him, well I
went out and bought a '52 re-issue Tele but do you think I could play like Jeff Beck ?? could I hell ! Oh well
From a sweltering (42C) Corfu
Frank. Corfu