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Does a high-end pedalboard necessitate equally high-end cabling? Adrian Thorpe takes the lead…
THE BACKGROUND
HAROLD JACKWORTH, Via email
I recently decided to invest in a full dream pedalboard. Now, my other hobby is high-end audio and the rule of thumb for that endeavour is that you should spend roughly 10 per cent of your system budget on interconnects/cables. Would there be a sensible rule for my guitar pedalboard? How crucial are high-end guitar cables? Is solderless cabling inferior to soldered cables? My pedalboard total is roughly £3,000 and so that would leave me with £300 for cabling.
THE QUESTIONS
1 WOULD 10 PER CENT OF MY PEDALBOARD BUDGET BE A SENSIBLE AMOUNT TO SPEND ON GUITAR CABLES?
2 HOW CRUCIAL ARE HIGH-END GUITAR CABLES?
3 IS SOLDERLESS CABLING INFERIOR TO SOLDERED CABLES?
THE ANSWERS
Thanks for the question, Harold. I’ll try to provide some insight based on facts. Let’s start by talking about some of the craziness I see in highend audio. The biggest one for me is the ‘high-end’ IEC cable to plug the stereo into the wall. My fundamental distaste for this comes down to the fact that the £500 cable plugs into your house’s wiring, which is approximately 25p per metre. Any perceived improvement is let down by the weakest link – your house wiring, in this case. Insanity. Let’s bust some myths!
01.
Setting a figure of 10 per cent of your total budget on cabling seems a little crazy. Guitar cables are tools to pass signal: they should be robust, easy to coil, non-microphonic, and shielded to prevent radio frequencies interfering with your audio signal. The ability to meet all of these criteria has nothing to do with how much you’ve spent on your pedals. Guitar cables, like all consumer products, are governed by the law of diminishing returns – that is to say, the increased benefits become exponentially smaller as the price increases. In short, 10 per cent of your budget may be too much, or too little. What’s important is that the quality of the cable matches your needs.
02.
Guitar cables in general need to be robust and functional. They can be as cheap as a pint of beer or as expensive as an iPad. There is, however, a good place to be price wise, and that is directly linked to your budget. I personally have spent as much as £70 on a guitar cable, but it was extremely high quality, low noise with regards microphonics, and it had a low capacitance and resistance per metre. I felt the money was well spent. Now, with regards to cheaper cables, I personally find myself in the £35 zone for a five-metre guitar cable, because this seems to get me the biggest performance-to-price ratio. In summary, high-end cables are not crucial, but well-made, robust cables are vital in order to have a trouble-free guitar rig. The same can be said for patch cables, too.
03.
Solderless versus soldered cables is a relatively new battle in the guitar pedalboard world. I used to sit on the side of soldered cables (purely for robustness and longevity), but with the quality of solderless cables now available, I always choose solderless for my pedalboard builds. For my guitar cables, to the ’board and amp, I never go solderless as these cables move around so much; a physical soldered connection is preferable for me.
In summary, buy your pedalboard cables and guitar leads with quality in mind and you won’t go wrong!