Your guitar cables are an integral part of your rig. Not only are they needed for everything to work, they affect your tone in many different ways. Upgrading your cables is a bigger deal than many people think, and in this post I want to share with you some reasons why and where to get them at affordable prices.
A guitar cable is like the veins that move your tone from your guitar, through effects, and eventually to your amp and speakers. It’s important that your cables are of high quality, but not so high end that you go broke trying to upgrade. The biggest problem that people run into while doing this is that they upgrade one cable and expect big results, but that won’t happen unless you upgrade all of them, including the guitar pedal cables. It’s like a chain that is only as strong as its weakest link, and if you have a few crappy cables in with the quality ones, you’ll never reach the tone that you want.
The construction of the cables is what determines tone and price. High end cables have a core that’s constructed from copper or silver, which are great at conducting your signal but very expensive. You want to avoid cheap alloys and nickel when shopping for your cables, as they are prone to interference and distortion. The cable’s insulation is what prevents interference from outside sources (home wiring, power lines) from entering into the cable, keeping your sound purer.
If you want to find cables that are high quality, but affordable you should buy them online. Prices are much cheaper there. In order to determine which are the best for you, you should go to your local guitar store and try a bunch of them out (the salespeople will open them up for you) on a rig that is similar to what you normally play on. You’ll be able to notice small differences between cables, and once you find the one that you really like go buy it online!