2 audio cables walk into a bar...

[marcus]

But how does the actual wiring method matter? Hot and Ground is Hot and Ground, whether it's a side-by-side format or "pig-in-a-blanket", correct?

Or does the act of braiding a cable in such a manner have a specific effect on the signal/current/impedance/etc?

I'm not an amp/speaker guy - never have been - so I don't know all the minutiae.

I would guess that the wire is braided for flexibility - it makes it easier to wrap around the signal wire, and makes the resulting coax more flexible. Wrapping the ground around the signal wire shields it from interference. Since instrument cables are carrying a high-impedance signal, resistance is not much of an issue, so they are built this way to mitigate interference, and use higher resistance wires (higher gauge) to decrease capacitance. This is what makes these wires a problem for use as speaker wire. Speaker wire is designed to have very low resistance. There is really little else that goes into the design of these things, which is why you can use lamp cords as a replacement if you want to. Balancing (at least in the way suggested above) really has little to do with it.

[Spivonious]

Ok, I see.

On a related note, one of the local guitar shop guys (not a GC idiot ) said a friend of his once made a speaker cable out of a real lamp cord - the kind you can see through - and when he fired the amp up, the cable would glow

Does this story involve firetrucks?

edit: 2000th post

[Newc]

I would guess that the wire is braided for flexibility - it makes it easier to wrap around the signal wire, and makes the resulting coax more flexible. Wrapping the ground around the signal wire shields it from interference. Since instrument cables are carrying a high-impedance signal, resistance is not much of an issue, so they are built this way to mitigate interference, and use higher resistance wires (higher gauge) to decrease capacitance. This is what makes these wires a problem for use as speaker wire. Speaker wire is designed to have very low resistance. There is really little else that goes into the design of these things, which is why you can use lamp cords as a replacement if you want to. Balancing (at least in the way suggested above) really has little to do with it.

Ah, ok, that makes more sense - speaker cables are thinner and have less resistance than guitar cables. Gotcha.

[Rsmacker]

No, speaker cables are thicker because they are handling lots more current.

Your speaker cable will have both cores with csa of probably 1mm sq upwards, an instrument cable will have a conductor csa of half that, and the braiding screen will be somewhere in between.

The reason, as has been explained above, is down to the fact that unbalanced signal is susceptible to noise and loss. (These days high-end signal cables also have a synthetic covering to the conductor core, and then a conductive sheath over that - lots of people don't realise this and don't strip it back when making/repairing leads!)

Newc, the cable the bloke used must have been bell-wire for it to actually glow, but he was going down the right road for his speaker cable. Use twin core electrical flex of 1 or 1.5mm sq conductor, and you can't go wrong. Forget all the anal hi-fi buffs who tell you that you must use gold plated 154 strand cable made from Tibetan monk scrotal hair. For a guitar rig, you need to make sure it is flexible so as not to damage, and capable of handling the load (oo-er) of the amp at full pelt. Electrical flex is more than acceptable to use - speaker cable is exactly the same but with "Speaker Cable" printed on the jacket, for which you pay 3 times the price!

Signal cables are different beasts. Right now some boffin is sitting in a lab trying to come up with the perfect guitar cable, one that is noiseless and 100% signal transfer as if there were no cable between instrument and amp. Of course, this is bollocks, another example of disappearing up your own arse, but it is more relevant than with speaker cable, there is some basis in science for using different cable types here.








Hmmm, now if I say that I have some co-axial speaker cables, will it muddy the waters? Probably, so he he, never mind. (For those interested, it is because standard flex/speaker cable with core csa of 2.5mm sq won't fit into a 1/4" jack plug so Canford Audio do a coaxial cable for this purpose - much thinner overall)

[Rsmacker]

I've been reading too many RSmacker posts, I guess.
Brit analogies get pretty funny.

I tried, anyways...

Hmmm, not bad, I'd say 5/10. Keep trying, and one day you'll get there, you are showing promise Glasshopper.

Hint : Use the word "Bollocks" a lot more, and make reference to bum-sex a lot more

[Joelski]

Absolutely correct (Extra style points for the ho references)!

Guitar cable carries a very small load, yet the length of the cable fed to an amp is nothing more than a large antenna picking up all the interference it can on its way to the amp. Hence the shielded core, or Coax.

Speaker cable carries a much higher load, yet requires virtually no shielding as the amplification is already done. Therefore it's necessary to carry the hot and ground to the cab with a heavier, balanced cable.

The difference is thus:

Just like a push-pull amp, the speaker cable has to carry both sides of the load at equal capacity. So, next time Mr. Coax cable gets involved in a ping-pong threesome, trying to push the same load on the ho in the middle of the action, then one will wear out much faster than the other. But, it will be very quiet about the whole deal. But, the load will be blown, the ho will ditch one for the other. Ho ends up being dissatisfed, and bails out on the whole deal. (Blown output transformer).

When the speaker cable twins get in on the same action, the ho will never stop, because the load is equal. They can both push and pull at the same rate. Happy ho keeps going until someone cuts the power.

So...in tech terms...the difference is that the speaker cable is designed to apply equal amount of impedance (load) on each to the output transformer. An unbalanced condition puts all kinds of stress on one side, or the other. Best to keep things matched.

For the instrument cable, it's less important to balance that load, it's more important to cut the interference. So the coax braided negative cancels out hum that is built up in the primary signal, which is the core. We need both, but it gets balanced out later on.