Does shielded wire really kill your tone?

[renshen1957]

Ive read somewhere once that using shielded cable absolutely kills your tone. Is there some truth to this, or am i reading to far into it?

Hi,

FXs pedals, improperly crossed wires, random grounding, in adequate distance between the power rail and signal wiring, parasitic capacitance (insufficient spacing between parts), is where I look for noise, oscillation, and other tone killers rather than shielded cables capacitance (overly long preamp out to rack effects and preamp in cables or overly long and poorly wired guitar cables being the exceptions)

The idea of shielded cable in my book is to counter the "antennae" effect of unshielded signal wires on extraneous noise, EMF, and lots of other sonic gremlins in high gain amps.

One can build an amp that works great in the workshop and at home, and then have issues when you go out on a gig where the venue is improperly electrically wired (cheap owners), loads of florescent lights, etc.

That said shielded cables won't compensate for poor design, bad lead dress, improperly twisted wires, and what not.

I use shielded cable from the jack to V1, gain pots , volume pots, channel switches, reverb volume pot, master volume pot, send and return pots, and the length involved isn't an issue because I am not dealing with 18 to 20 feet of cable.

Best Regards,

Steve

[Max]

As this is the "Dumble Discussion":

AFAIR Alexander Dumble once told in an interview that if one of his clients wants a different processing of the highs in his Dumble amp, that he will at first care about the wires and/or where they are positioned and that he thinks about the wires as "capacitors" that can intentionally be used to change the timbre of his amps into the direction a customer asks for and that in his opinion the wires used are more sensitive and delicate than the capacitors used.

Cheers,

Max

[talbany]

The idea of shielded cable in my book is to counter the "antennae" effect of unshielded signal wires on extraneous noise, EMF, and lots of other sonic gremlins in high gain amps.

I find it interesting that the place where the largest amount of signal resides
in an ODS would have to be (with OD and PAB on) the input to the bottom of the master vol pot and yet it is not shielded Also the wires from the output of MV to the loop and back into the output section are not shielded either..Without the loop the signal is in phase with the input..someone want to splain this one!!
BTW.notice in 124 how he has the NFB wires next to the wires feeding the master

Tony

[67plexi]

What I find interesting is the all the different values of coax pf per foot.
I was fortunate to obtain some mill spec Teflon pure silver AG coax, it is not easy to work with.
Just for fun I tried to get a pf reading on the AG coax inner wire it reads -0- pf per foot.
One more point the Dale Rn65’s resistors of old are way different of today’s manufacture.
I have switched to Mepco-Electras , Sprague Q-Line, Pihers, IRC. To me the sound is warm and creamy.
Capacitors don’t make much difference in the pre amp section to my old feeble ears.
I have used spraque, NTE, Mallory PVC, Panasonic, WIMA MKP, and others.

Have a great day, Steve.

[Structo]

Ive read somewhere once that using shielded cable absolutely kills your tone. Is there some truth to this, or am i reading to far into it?

When a question like that is asked I like to answer with...........it depends.

[Mark]

Did anyone understand diagrammatiks explanation, it went by me. I always thought shielded cable is used to improve signal to noise ratios.

wires from the output of MV to the loop and back into the output section are not shielded either..Without the loop the signal is in phase with the input..someone want to splain this one!!

I used shielded cable on the master volume. No matter how I routed the cable there was still some element of noise, once the shielded cable was in, end of problem.

[Structo]

Then you used it correctly Mark.

[aflynt]

I'm doing some research in preparation for a 102 build. How 'bout this stuff for the coax (the V5020 coax)?

http://www.gepco.com/products/proav_cab ... 0ohm_F.htm

It's 50 ohm, tinned copper conductor, foam dielectric, .195" outer diameter, 28.5 pF/ft capacitance and $0.36 per foot in price from Redco. I've found Gepco cable to be pretty easy to work with in the past and it seems be pretty inexpensive.

-Aaron

[Structo]

Hey Aaron,

I really like to use the Teflon shielded cable. Mil Spec
It is small diameter, low capacitance and best of all, it won't melt when you solder it.

Check out http://www.apexjr.com/wire.html

Probably best to call, to see what he actually has on hand.
He has much more than the website shows.

I would get the 20ga white shielded cable.
He also carries Teflon hookup wire.