Pod XT and speaker cable

[mr.L.]

Yesterday I incidently connected my POD XT to my computer using a speaker cable instead of the instrument cable that I normally use. It seemed to sound better. Now I'm wondering whether this would be good practice or whether this might damage things?

 

[Downtime]

I´m no expert, but I don´t see any reasons why it should damage things. Since it´s kind of a higher-grade cable than for example patch-cables, I don´t see any problems.

 

[kev]

damage? Nein!

 

[mr.L.]

thanks guys. Does anyone have an idea why it might have sounded better? I'm pretty much ignorant when it comes to cables (the only thing I recall is that speaker cables have lower impendance iirc)

 

[the_man361]

what do you mean speaker cable?

xlr? spekon?

if its XLR then theyre a better cable, yeh... the common mode rejection allows it to maintain signal integrity across longer lengths than your regular cable, less noise.

 

[Soundlurker]

I think he ment the kind of cable you hook up cabinets to a head, for example (again 1/4 jacks but with a different cable). No idea why it would sound better, though.

 

[Downtime]

Does anyone have an idea why it might have sounded better?

It´s a known phenomena that special (thicker) speaker cables sound better in some cases.

 

[the_man361]

I think he ment the kind of cable you hook up cabinets to a head, for example (again 1/4 jacks but with a different cable). No idea why it would sound better, though.

eh? is this some kind of secret? i just use regular 1/4" guitar cables to connect my 2x12 cabinet to my guitar amp head..... whats this all about

 

[JeffTD]

You need to use speaker cables between a head and cabinet - this has been discussed in great length before.

 

[Fredrik-Ablaze]

Well since the speakercable isn't shielded you should be getting a huge amount of hiss and hum for starters. No idea why it sounds better though, it shouldnt.

 

[the_man361]

You need to use speaker cables between a head and cabinet - this has been discussed in great length before.

sorry im relatively new here, could you point out a link to me showing some site that sells this speaker cable? i thought it was just a regular jack lead... and ive been playing guitar for ages and had a stack type amplifier

are you just talking about a high quality jack cable, like a planet waves one or something?

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

sorry im relatively new here, could you point out a link to me showing some site that sells this speaker cable? i thought it was just a regular jack lead... and ive been playing guitar for ages and had a stack type amplifier

are you just talking about a high quality jack cable, like a planet waves one or something?

Speaker cables look like normal instrument cables, but they're somewhat thicker due to the high wattage running through them. You should find them in almost any music store that sells heads or cabs.

 

[VH100R]

Speaker cables look like normal instrument cables, but they're somewhat thicker due to the high wattage running through them. You should find them in almost any music store that sells heads or cabs.

you are correct.

Instrument cables carry a very weak signal (low current) generated by the instrument pickups. EMGs are hotter but still only put out around 1V which translates in a small current too (although hotter than passives).

These cables are shielded because they are very suscetible to Electro-Magnetic interference.

Speaker cables on the other hand carry a much stronger signal due to the high voltage and high current that the poweramp puts out.

Because of that they are not that suscetible with interference and in some brands they have thicker gauge only because of the higher current they carry (some speaker cables look like instrument ones because they have the same aparent thickness on the outside).
Therefore it is not advised to use speaker cables to connect your guitar to your amp due to EM interference. I don't know why it sounded better with the POD XT... maybe the lenght was small enough to don't have much interference and the cable used maybe was better quality than the instrument cable used instead.

Specially in tube amps (high voltage) one should always use a good speaker cable to connect the head to cabinet and never use a instrument cable for this purpose.

I use klotz cables with neutrick jacks because they are very high quality and have decent price.

take care

LG

 

[the_man361]

wow, i really must be blind, my amp is a tube amp but im using just a normal guitar cable to connect it to the cabinet... and have never heard of these before now or seen any for sale in a shop, how weird. i will have a look online now, cheers heh.

*head-desk*

 

[VH100R]

wow, i really must be blind, my amp is a tube amp but im using just a normal guitar cable to connect it to the cabinet... and have never heard of these before now or seen any for sale in a shop, how weird. i will have a look online now, cheers heh.

*head-desk*

planet waves, dimarzio, fender, klotz, monster cables and many others all have speaker cables.

from Klotz I recommend the LA GRANGE series.

take care

 

[BassTard]

Does anyone have an idea why it might have sounded better?

Just three short theories:

1 - Simple: Your speakercable is of better quality than the instrumentcable.
2 - Normal: Rich spectrum of overtones, resulting from short distance and lower impendance...
3 - Complex: Strange coincidence - your cable has got the exact amount of length and mass to resonate in a special frequency. In fact this freq is used by the race of Endies from Planet Sne-AP (located somewhere in NGC 4449) - they use it to transmit five-dimensional chess-games. Thereby the cable became an antenna (I don't know if it works on normal amps either).
The Endies heard your riffs - they liked it, and they decided to enhance the sound with their extremly advanced technology.

By the way: sending your recordings to the Endies to let them do the mix is quite favorable and worth it, but I don't know how long it takes UPS to deliver a mastertape - after all it's twelve lightyears.

 

[the_man361]

i think it was number 3