Does the Type of Wire Matter?

[thewrathchilde]

Tried looking though as much on here as I could and a variety of other sites/searches but still couldn't find a good answer. The beauty of the internet is there is a lot of information out there, the bad part is sometimes it is hard to separate the good information from the bad. With no further ado here are my questions:

1. Does the type of wire you use matter?

I read on a couple of sites that Teflon Coated Silver wire is the best for guitars and using it or PTFE Insulated Silver wire over other wires will get a better, cleaner, stronger signal. They also indicated that these are the best wires for wiring your electronics (pickups, pots, etc) Is this correct?

2. Is Teflon Coated Silver Wire or PTFE Insulated Silver Wire the best two choices available or is there another type of wire that is better?

3. For any of you that use either of these wire choices, where do you buy it? I found several places online but couldn't find anything less than 100' rolls...... and I don't think I will ever need one hundred feet of wire for wiring guitars.....

thanks,

Steve

 

[Alfang]

stew mac sells " push-back" wire. I use it and swear by it.

 

[drewfx]

1. I'd be willing to bet the wire leads coming out of your PU's isn't fancy, expensive, esoteric wire. Guess that means they don't care about your signal then, right?

2. Were talking about a few inches of wire here. Knock yourself out measuring the electrical properties of a few inches of any reasonable gage wire.

3. Are all of the contacts and connections in your pots and switches made of Teflon Coated Silver or PTFE Insulated Silver? No? Gee, then it's hard to believe you'll have any signal left that's worth worrying about.

 

[thewrathchilde]

thanks for the replies................ I actually meant this as a serious question, it makes sense to me that lower capacitance wire wold be a better option than whatever wire I could just pick off the shelf.

Alfang, I appreciate the feedback and input on the wire you use and have been pleased with.

One of the reasons I asked this question was this article: http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2008/May/Wire_it_Up.aspx in Premier Guitar. The part I found of particular interest was these paragraphs:

"Instrument cables operate in a high-impedance, small-signal environment, which simply means that they are feeding an amplifier, or other device, with high resistance (many thousands of ohms), path to ground. Furthermore, they carry a tiny current that is measured in thousandths of an ampere, and at a very small voltage. Also, because they are most often connected to a device that has a fairly high output impedance, such as an electric guitar, cords with too much built-in capacitance will bleed off high frequencies badly, especially over long runs.

But what about losing signal volume in the wire? Remember, we said that these cords are feeding a high resistance; even the cheapest, crummiest, tiny-gauge copper wire you can find is only going to add a few ohms of resistance over a run of 100 feet or less. In practical terms, there is no difference between a few ohms of resistance and zero resistance when you are feeding an amplifier with an input impedance that is many thousands of ohms. But that extra-cheap wire is going to be unsuitable for other reasons – it will probably have very high capacitance, bleeding off your high frequencies to ground."

He also discussed the Teflon Insulated Silver Wire further in the article: "Usually, this is a very fine stranded wire with upwards of 20+ individual pure silver cores and is often used in the hi-fi world. The Teflon insulation is perfect for a soldering job – your soldering iron never can get hot enough to burn or melt the insulation. The cable is easy to route and offers a very transparent, natural, punchy tone. Compared to a standard wire, the signal is slightly louder, and the separation of the individual strings is enhanced."


I figured the question was worth asking here to see what some of the experienced and knowledgeable people on here had to say based on their experience. I figure, if it does make a difference in signal quality and tone then since I am already spending $1K on building a guitar then it is worth it to spend a little more for better wire.......

thanks,

Steve

 

[tfarny]

Use expensive wire if it makes you feel better.
In hi-fi audio settings, no difference has ever been shown between the cheapest and most expensive connecting cables even with highly trained listeners. Also, you can usually turn up the treble on your amp if you want more of it, and turn it down if you want less.  :icon_tongue:

My BS meter goes off when an explanation for buying some shite hinges on a technical explanation alone and contains no evidence that real people can actually tell a difference. I mean, in theory everything matters, everything affects the tone...

 

[drewfx]

When talking about audio frequencies, cable capacitance only really matters for longer cables, like (potentially) a long guitar cord carrying a passive high impedance signal.

As for that article, I'll correct it for you (corrections in italics):

"The cable is easy to route and offers a very transparent, natural, punchy tone - IOW, just like any cheap copper hookup cable does. Compared to a standard wire, the signal is slightly louder, and the separation of the individual strings is enhanced sounds exactly the same."  :icon_thumright:

 

[line6man]

"Instrument cables operate in a high-impedance, small-signal environment, which simply means that they are feeding an amplifier, or other device, with high resistance (many thousands of ohms), path to ground. Furthermore, they carry a tiny current that is measured in thousandths of an ampere, and at a very small voltage. Also, because they are most often connected to a device that has a fairly high output impedance, such as an electric guitar, cords with too much built-in capacitance will bleed off high frequencies badly, especially over long runs.

There are a few things wrong here.

First off, the current from a guitar pickup is a hell of a lot less than being in the milliAmpere range. You're usually talking microAmperes.

Second, capacitance is not something that is engineered into cables, in this application, it is an undesirable consequence of the laws of physics. When you use shielded cable, the insulation between the shield and center conductor acts as a dieletric, and a capacitance forms, which increases with cable length. If this is something that bothers you, use a buffer to lower the output impedance so that the capacitance does not affect the signal so much.

Third, the specs of one foot or so of wire in a guitar are ridiculous to even think about.
Resistance is measured in Ohms-per-foot. This typically comes out to tiny fractions of an Ohm per foot of wire. Conversely, go measure the resistance between the wiper and one side of a pot. It's likely to to as high as a whooping couple of Ohms! Not zero. No one EVER complains about that.

As far as capacitance goes, one foot of wire does not have enough capacitance to have much of an effect on the signal unless you have an extremely high impedance. If it really bothers you that much, however, use single conductor, unshielded wire.

Fourth, you are confusing instrument cable with the wiring in your guitar.

 

[thewrathchilde]

appreciate the feedback; that is why I asked. As I said at the beginning you come across enough stuff it can be hard to determine what is good vs. trash but I figured I could get answers here. It just kind of surprised me that Premiere Guitar would have an article like that if it wasn't accurate.

Steve

 

[Jusatele]

I have been forced to study wire and it's insulation, at the levels we use in a guitar, no the type of wire does not matter at all, use a good quality stranded wire and all will be good, remember a lot of the benefits of wire insulation is all about environmental conditions and voltage drop, with 6 inches of wire and the enclosed environment of a guitar, those elements do not come into play.
Copper wire is great conductor, the insulation is just a protection.
I would be more concerned with the cable between the guitar and amp than the wire in the guitar.

 

[line6man]

It just kind of surprised me that Premiere Guitar would have an article like that if it wasn't accurate.

I've seen more incorrect articles out there than I care to count.

I've noticed that writers often dumb things down so they can be understood by the uneducated, but in doing so, end up creating incorrect or unclear information. That, and the fact that writers often have no real education on what they are talking about. This article, for example, may have been written by a staff writer rather than an engineer or technician. Articles like this often are.

 

[drewfx]

You can calculate things like the loss due to resistance of wire just by measuring the resistance of the wire (likely somewhere between milliohms and maybe a few ohms for short lengths of reasonable wire) and the other parts of the circuit. And you will find that the loss equates to an inaudibly tiny fraction of a dB.

And someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the capacitance for the short lengths of thin wire used inside a guitar would probably be measured in pico-farads, whereas the tone caps we typically use are in the range of .01 to .1 micro-farads (.01 micro-farad = 10,000 pico-farads).


What typically happens is people learn about things like wire resistance or cable capacitance and assume that since they are there at all they must always be audible. Then, because of the way our brains are wired, they "hear" stuff just because their brain expects to hear it. That's why any subjective claims made without controlled double blind testing are unreliable.

But if you take measurements and do a little math, you will find that the effects are often either way too small to be heard, only really an issue for frequencies much higher than audio frequencies, or completely irrelevant compared to other things in the signal chain.

But sadly, you can't expect magazine editors and publishers or most people on the internet to be able to either take measurements or do math.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

As is often the case, during load ins at venues, you'll always find the garbage of the band before you left on the stage.  Picks, drum stick dust, 9v batteries, and occasionally a broken cable with a lifetime warranty.  Probably left there in ignorance, a trip to GC means a brand new cable for free.  On our most recent aquisition, a bandmate found one labeled "premium bass instrument cable".  I couldn't help but laugh.  Sure gold conducts better than silver which conducts better than copper which conducts better than cheap copper, and bigger gauge wire had less signal loss over a long distance than a smaller gauge, but a "bass" cable.  And here I was using a plain ol instrument cable this whole time. :headbang:

 

[Stew]

The good thing about the teflon coated stuff is that it resists melting better than the regular plastic coated stuff. If you're not that great with a soldering iron (like me) then the teflon stuff gives a better looking finish. I picked up some short rolls of it on eBay for cheap enough.

 

[tfarny]

As is often the case, during load ins at venues, you'll always find the garbage of the band before you left on the stage.  Picks, drum stick dust, 9v batteries, and occasionally a broken cable with a lifetime warranty.  Probably left there in ignorance, a trip to GC means a brand new cable for free.  On our most recent aquisition, a bandmate found one labeled "premium bass instrument cable".  I couldn't help but laugh.  Sure gold conducts better than silver which conducts better than copper which conducts better than cheap copper, and bigger gauge wire had less signal loss over a long distance than a smaller gauge, but a "bass" cable.  And here I was using a plain ol instrument cable this whole time. :headbang:

Once at GC they tried to upsell me to some premium bass cable - when I asked why I ought to get it rather than the standard cable, she said, "oh it's good for bass" and looked scared I'd ask another question.

 

[stubhead]

OK now. Our "A-Team", bless us all, sometimes leaps upon the newbie with our usual elan, which could even register as "obnoxious" if you didn't know HOW fudging SWEET WE ARE.

There are some advantages to the types of wire that I use, but they're not aural. What you want is somewhere between 20 to 24 ga "hook up wire", because... that's the size you want. I like to use both solid and stranded wiring, depending on the need. The solid can be pre-bent into perfect little curvy pieces that can snake through the connections in a "Superswitch" or leap from tab to tab on the little series/parallel/out-of-phase miniswitches. I have a long, long roll of solid black wire from somewhere, probably Radio Shack, probably $5 for 50 feet or something.

However, now: If you're going to sink into this deeply (the odds are...) you'll also benefit from having an assortment of different-colored stranded wires. When you start running wires through holes in the body and, eventually (heh heh), start recombining three different wiring diagrams into a guitar that cooks your soup and trims toenails, it's really, really handy to have different colored wires - one less thing to get confused about, you can just arbitrarily say red & white wires are HOT and green & black wires are GROUND or whatever cooks your toenails, man. Stranded wire is more flexible, which is better in some situations and worse in others. I like to at least try to get a solid mechanical connection before the iron even warms up, and... well, you just want solid and stranded. You'll see.... :icon_smile:

When I search Ebay for "guitar hook-up wire" I get 48 responses -
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=guitar+hook+up+wire&_sacat=0&_odkw=guitar+hook+up+wire&_osacat=0&_trksid=p3286.c0.m270.l1313
but when I search ALL EBAY for 22 ga hook up wire I get 14....
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=22+ga+hook+up+wire&_sacat=0&_odkw=guitar+hook+up+wire&_osacat=0&_trksid=p3286.c0.m270.l1313
But when I search ALL EBAY for 22 ga wire, blooey!
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=22+ga++wire&_sacat=0&_odkw=22+ga+hook+up+wire&_osacat=0&_trksid=p3286.c0.m270.l1313
Even after you limit it to "Consumer electronics and "Industrial" there's over a hundred.

Here is a guy selling a kit of three different colored solid wires, but only a foot each. Hmmm.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HOOK-UP-WIRE-BLACK-RED-GREEN-/190427913148?pt=Guitar_Accessories&hash=item2c56635bbc

Now here is a guy selling 2 feet of 22 ga stranded orange "push-up" wire, but if you poke around you'll see he's got red, blue, black, etc. Yay!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/22-Gauge-7-Strand-Orange-Cloth-Hook-Up-Wire-2-FEET-/300554760835?pt=Guitar_Accessories&hash=item45fa75b283

You could make up a nice "kit" of four different colored wire for a few bucks from him that will take you a long way, through the intricacies of SuperSwitches, variable resistor sweeper, Q-filters GAAAA; etc. I'm really sure if you start poking Ms. Ebay all over for "hook up wire assortment" in Electronics and such, and pick up a spool of solid wire, you'll be loaded for bear in $13 (?) or so.

 

[pabloman]

So anybody ever A/B the Rock, Bass, Acoustic, and Jazz Monster Cables? Or is this more of the "I know it all and based on theory there's no way" kind of talk? Try it before ya knock it.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

You're mostly right, Pabloman.  Cable lengths, wire gauge differences, and even straight vs. curly all make a difference as far as sound goes, but you can't deny the marketing involved.  I play _______, so I need a _______ cable."  Part of learning from other's experiences is that one doesn't have to reinvent the wheel with every new thing.  I don't need to try heroin to know it's bad.  If a "bass cable" were instead marketed as "larger gauge instrument cable", I'd be inclined to try it if I had a use for it, but calling it a "bass cable", meh.  Some of the same people telling me I need a "bass cable" use speaker cables to and fro their pedal board, wonder why it hums, and buy a hum x http://www.ebtechaudio.com/humxdes.html , leave the speaker cable there and put it on their amp instead of pedal board.  A little theory instead of trying new things at $60 a pop would go a long way. 

To me, the difference between a quality cable and cheap one is the quality of the hardware on the ends and the shielding.  Can it take abuse?  Is the insert part going to wear out?  Is it going to hum because it isn't shielded properly?  Once those issues are addressed, size the length or wire gauge according to your desired preference.  Those livewire patch cables GC sells with the gray and orange sealed tips, I've never had one that didn't hum.  It has nothing to do with the wire that's in them.

But for the purposes of the original post, it had to do with control wiring in the cavity.   

 

[stubhead]

Cables adjust the capacitance of your rig. If a $150 cable sounds better to you, it's because the capacitance of your rig didn't sound as good to YOU, using your old cable. If low capacitance is "best", then the George L's and Bill Lawrence cables win, hands down. However most pickups, woods, wiring schemes, amps and speakers are set to sound about "average" to a guitarist's ear - not too bright, not too bassy - so an "average"-capacitance cable will hit the pleasurable middle ground too.

But if you're playing a stainless steel-fretted maple neck Strat into a ProCo Rat pedal into a wah into a Twin Reverb, that rig is going to lean way over to the treble side. So YOUR best cable might have a higher capacitance - it WILL sound better with the rest of your rig. Doesn't matter if it's $10 or $200. And if you're trying to play rock 'n' roll with a Gibson ES-175 into an old Marshall, you might find that the BEST CABLE EVER might be a George L's - it brightens up your sound in a pleasing way. And yes, that IS the science of it. That's why the hardcore "Strat players" like Eric Johnson and Julien Kasper specifically carry an "average" cheap-but-sturdy HIGH-capacitance cable to record with, sometimes, when they need a rounder deeper tone. I mean, what's the best capacitor value ever? What's the best potentiometer size ever? What's the ONE BEST SPEAKER? What's... aw jeezy, never mind. Deep down in my heart of hearts (and ear of ears) I know that I can use a 99c capacitor to do the EXACT SAME THING as a $150 cable... but some people get what they pay for.  :icon_scratch:

 

[line6man]

Deep down in my heart of hearts (and ear of ears) I know that I can use a 99c capacitor to do the EXACT SAME THING as a $150 cable... but some people get what they pay for.  :icon_scratch:

Precisely.

If you like low pass filters, use a capacitor. Personally, I am in favor of low impedance buffered signals, so that an instrument will sound the same with any cable and any input impedance. (*Within reason.) If I want a darker tone, I will add a low pass filter parallel to the pickups.

 

[mayfly]

To answer the original poster, the type of wire used to hook up your guitar does not matter.  24gua stranded copper will work very well.  BTW - you don't need to worry about capacitance unless you are using shielded cable inside your guitar, and even then the run is so short (just a few inches) that there will be no real difference between average cable and George L's low capacitance wonder cable.  As far as insulation type is concerned, with the voltages present inside a guitar there will be no advantage to using Teflon vs anything else.

For longer runs - like 50ft or so - the type of shielded cable will make a difference because of differing capacitance.  whether the difference is 'good' or 'bad' is up to your ears and nothing else.