Cable Confusion

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

Hi there.

1st up i need to confess that until half an hour ago i didn’t know there was a difference between an Instrument Cable & Speaker Cable.

I’ve just purchased some these Ugreen Braided Cables.

Primarily because they fit into my gear without any issues.
I’ve had a recent issue with a big bunch of new bought Visiosound & Stagg Cables not fitting properly into my OT MKII & Mpc Live. I’m not prepared to use the amount of force required to get them in. It’s a bit odd.

So i was about to buy another couple of the above Ugreen Cables but then spotted a discrepancy between the product info & and an official Ugreen response to a question.

Product Info:
“UGREEN Gold Plated Premium 6.35mm Mono Jack 1/4” TS Cable is designed to connect instruments such as synths, keyboards, guitars and other professional audio equipment"

Question & response:
“Is this a speaker cable or an instrument cable, the title suggests it is a speaker cable, but the packaging does not (they are not the same!)”
Answer:
Hi, This is a speaker cable.
By UGREEN GROUP LIMITED UK.

Is there a problem using these for synths/instruments etc, if they are in fact Speaker Cables?

Thanks

#2

They are almost certainly not in fact speaker cables, but the person responding to you probably has little knowledge of what the company is selling.

5 Likes
#3

Hi!
Fender has a a good article about it :
https://www.fender.com/articles/tech-talk/why-instrument-cables-arent-the-same-as-speaker-cables

4 Likes
#4

those dont look at all like speaker cables, and i agree with peterhanes. but to further answer your question i have had mixed luck using speaker cables with instruments. i do live sound a lot so ive had to do some things that are less than optimal in pinches and from experience i would say that often times using speaker cables on instruments is not a good idea. i can say from experience that they have a tendency to add noise.

that was the in use explanation, without getting too technical i can give you a few facts; speaker cables are unshielded and low impedence, instrument cables are the other way around. what that means is that speaker cables are looking for high power signals(from an amp) and when you try and run an instrument through them you will often times introduce audio degradation, distortion, and volume drop.

1 Like
#5

that article silmae posted is also very good, i just gave it a quick read.

#6

Thank you for all the above information.

@PeterHanes The question asked on Amazon wasn’t by me. But i have emailed Ugreen and asked them to clarify the use of the cable. I pointed out the discrepancies i noted above.

If they respond, I’ll update here for reference.

1 Like
#7

May I ask why you are using ugreen cables? AFAIK they are not a professional audio cable manufacturer…?

Are ugreen cables significantly cheaper than, say, cordial cables?

“Speaker cables” - fascinating… Never even knew such cables existed! I thought everything was XLR in the FOH world…

#8

A reply from Ugreen.

“We are sincerely sorry for the confusion caused.
The cable you bought is instrument cable that is of shielding.
Please note that speaker cable is without shielding.
Thank you for your reminder. We will correct the description asap.
Have a happy weekend.
Dudu from UGREEN”

1 Like
#9

As mentioned above:

“Primarily because they fit into my gear without any issues.
I’ve had really bad issues with a big bunch of Visiosound & Stagg Cables not fitting properly into my OT MKII & Mpc Live. I’m not prepared to use the amount of force required to get them in”

Also, at 1 point i wanted 1 meter cables within a day. I could only get 1 meter Ugreen ones on Amazon within that timeframe.

I’ve not noticed any issues with cable quality. I’ve been buying various cables for 26 years & these sound no different to any others. That said i’m not a critical listener. I don’t particularly need or care for pristine sound quality. I’m just someone sampling from his phone, computer output etc. But they sound great to me.

Is anyone else using Ugreen Cables?

#10

IMO those cables are just what the text says … 6.35 mm, mono, TS, cables, whereas TS stands for “Tip” and “Sleeve”. If the wires, the electrical contacts, the shielding, and the soldering are of good quality, those cables are good for many things in the studio or on stage, assumed that external electro-magnetic sources are no issue (not existent or very week).

We can use TS cables as instrument cables, if the instruments have the same geometrical and electrial “mono” socket (guitars and most synths do).

TS cables can even be used in combination with so called “balanced” sockets, without risking damage. Those “balanced” TRS (“Tip”/“Ring”/“Sleeve”) sockets are the usual “stereo” sockets, but are also used on some speakers like XLR sockets to support better EMC shielding.

Now … if an electromagnetic environment is strong enough to cause any humming, sizzling, or other noise, we can use “balanced” TRS cables, which reduce the signal to noise level significantly, if both sockets (eg. mixer/speaker) are technically and electrically “balanced” too. Most mixing desks and speakers support this.

I would always recommend to connect speakers or distant gear via balanced cables. The technical specs of most equipment will tell, whether the outputs or inputs are “balanced” or “unbalanced”.

Note:

  • The longer an unbalanced cable is, the more it can work like an antenna and receive EMC noise. 1 or 2 m long cables should be good in many environments. But if a strong EMC emitter is too close (some computers or powersupplies can be strong enough) utilization of balanced cables could be a good idea to cope with the issue.
  • If an “unbalanced” output (eg. guitar) shall be connected with good shielding via a “balanced” cable to a “balanced” input, so called DI-Boxes are used.

I hope this has shade some light to it … and answered some questions too.

2 Likes
#11

visiosound & stagg? Never heard of em either.

You are right, a cable is a cable (more or less, unless we go into academics), but as you said yourself, the connectors are not made equal. So much so that these days I prefer genuine Neutrik connectors over everything else (doesnt matter if its yongsheng, rean or neutrik line of connector as long as its made by Neutrik).

The thing with amazon cables IME is, they rarely state which connector they are using. Personally, I hate that, makes em feel a bit sketchy…

#12

@SoundRider

Thanks for the additional info.

#13
#14