Cable Capacitance
Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2024 8:28 pm
Last week I found myself trying to disprove a friend of mine that believes that more expensive guitar cables are always better, making this the 4th conversation with local people I know in the past couple of months. I'm pretty sure these are the types of people that would buy $100 monster HDMI cables because the employee at the store told them they were better.
In trying to get actual numerical data I ended up doing a bit of a deep dive into cable capacitance and learned more than I probably needed to. I have often been able to hear noticeable differences in guitar cables, but mostly in cases where it was a particularly good or particularly bad cable. I'm sure most of the engineer-types here already know this, but for those who don't, the higher the total capacitance, the more treble and upper mids will be lost to cable length when using passive pickups.
Basically:
-A lower capacitance cable will sound brighter than a higher capacitance cable when the cables are of equal length.
-A coiled cable will have higher capacitance than a straight cable that is laying flat.
-Doubling the length of the cable will approximately double the total capacitance.
-Plugs add capacitance.
I did find that short length patch cables, ~6" and under have very little difference in capacitance unless they are particularly terrible quality.
The multimeter I used to measure the cables wasn't accurate beyond 10pf, so very short cable lengths probably weren't very accurate.
All measurements were performed with the cables laying as flat and straight as possible given my space restrictions.
I don't have any commercial Mogami cables, but I have a number of cables I made using Mogami 2524 cable, the cable they use in Mogami Gold (which is supposed to be rated at 39.6pf per foot). Each had different types of plugs.
15' = ~620pf = ~41.3 pf/ft = ~135.6 pf/m
7.83' = ~350pf = ~44.7 pf/ft = ~146.6 pf/m
1.33' = ~80pf = ~60 pf/ft = ~196.8 pf/m
I also tested a bunch of Monoprice Cloth Series cables, which I got new for: 20' for $10, 15' for $9, 10' for $6, 6' for $3
6' = ~270pf = ~45 pf/ft = ~147.6 pf/m
10' = ~420pf = ~42 pf/ft = ~137.8 pf/m
15' = ~750pf = ~50 pf/ft = ~164 pf/m (seems this batch of cabling for the 15' was quite a bit worse)
20' = ~850pf = ~42.5 pf/ft = 139.4 pf/m
Back in the 1990s I bought some SpectraFlex cables, which cost about 4-6x as much as most cables back then, but I remember feeling like they livened up my sound a ton. I still have two FatsoFlex versions from back then.
14' = ~390pf = ~27.9 pf/ft = ~91.4 pf/m
Audioblast HQ-1 (which is supposed to be rated at 38.2pf/ft).
4' = ~240pf = ~60 pf/ft = ~196.8 pf/m
1.5' = ~100pf = ~66.7 pf/ft = ~218.7 pf/m
For the hell of it I tested a 20-year old Fender cable that was ~$10 new:
10' = ~400pf = ~40 pf/ft = ~131.2 pf/m
As for short cables total capacitance (measured length plug to plug), values are +/- 5.
Boss BCB-6 stock 6.5 inch: ~40pf
Boss BCB-3 stock 6 inch: ~40pf
Boss BCB-60 stock 7 inch: ~50pf
DOD PRC-6 stock 4.5 inch: ~60pf
Gorge L's .155 3.5 inch: ~20-30pf (it kept flipping between the two and never stabilized)
Mogami 2319 6 inch: ~40pf
Canare GS-6 4.5 inch: ~30pf
Audioblast HQ-1 4.5 inch: ~30pf
I sold my 20' George L's .225 cable to a friend before I could test it, but I was curious since those are supposed to be ultra low capacitance.
This chart might be helpful if you are curious about more:
https://www.shootoutguitarcables.com/gu ... chart.html
I will add that a major motivating factor for doing this was reading someone claiming that Monoprice guitar cables were over 90 pf/ft (~295 pf/m), but that is very false, as I believe what they were testing wasn't a guitar cable.
However, that same person tested a coiled up Roland Black series 10' and got a measurement of 318pf = 31.8 pf/ft = 103.35 pf/m, which would probably have been slightly lower if they had measured it laying flat.
I did find it interesting that the SpectraFlex cables, which I always thought sounded way better than every other cable brand I tried going back to my teen years, are in fact much lower capacitance than most cables.
I'm returning the multimeter to Amazon since it wasn't accurate enough for me, so I can't do any more testing, but this was a mildly amusing way to kill some time on a Saturday.
In trying to get actual numerical data I ended up doing a bit of a deep dive into cable capacitance and learned more than I probably needed to. I have often been able to hear noticeable differences in guitar cables, but mostly in cases where it was a particularly good or particularly bad cable. I'm sure most of the engineer-types here already know this, but for those who don't, the higher the total capacitance, the more treble and upper mids will be lost to cable length when using passive pickups.
Basically:
-A lower capacitance cable will sound brighter than a higher capacitance cable when the cables are of equal length.
-A coiled cable will have higher capacitance than a straight cable that is laying flat.
-Doubling the length of the cable will approximately double the total capacitance.
-Plugs add capacitance.
I did find that short length patch cables, ~6" and under have very little difference in capacitance unless they are particularly terrible quality.
The multimeter I used to measure the cables wasn't accurate beyond 10pf, so very short cable lengths probably weren't very accurate.
All measurements were performed with the cables laying as flat and straight as possible given my space restrictions.
I don't have any commercial Mogami cables, but I have a number of cables I made using Mogami 2524 cable, the cable they use in Mogami Gold (which is supposed to be rated at 39.6pf per foot). Each had different types of plugs.
15' = ~620pf = ~41.3 pf/ft = ~135.6 pf/m
7.83' = ~350pf = ~44.7 pf/ft = ~146.6 pf/m
1.33' = ~80pf = ~60 pf/ft = ~196.8 pf/m
I also tested a bunch of Monoprice Cloth Series cables, which I got new for: 20' for $10, 15' for $9, 10' for $6, 6' for $3
6' = ~270pf = ~45 pf/ft = ~147.6 pf/m
10' = ~420pf = ~42 pf/ft = ~137.8 pf/m
15' = ~750pf = ~50 pf/ft = ~164 pf/m (seems this batch of cabling for the 15' was quite a bit worse)
20' = ~850pf = ~42.5 pf/ft = 139.4 pf/m
Back in the 1990s I bought some SpectraFlex cables, which cost about 4-6x as much as most cables back then, but I remember feeling like they livened up my sound a ton. I still have two FatsoFlex versions from back then.
14' = ~390pf = ~27.9 pf/ft = ~91.4 pf/m
Audioblast HQ-1 (which is supposed to be rated at 38.2pf/ft).
4' = ~240pf = ~60 pf/ft = ~196.8 pf/m
1.5' = ~100pf = ~66.7 pf/ft = ~218.7 pf/m
For the hell of it I tested a 20-year old Fender cable that was ~$10 new:
10' = ~400pf = ~40 pf/ft = ~131.2 pf/m
As for short cables total capacitance (measured length plug to plug), values are +/- 5.
Boss BCB-6 stock 6.5 inch: ~40pf
Boss BCB-3 stock 6 inch: ~40pf
Boss BCB-60 stock 7 inch: ~50pf
DOD PRC-6 stock 4.5 inch: ~60pf
Gorge L's .155 3.5 inch: ~20-30pf (it kept flipping between the two and never stabilized)
Mogami 2319 6 inch: ~40pf
Canare GS-6 4.5 inch: ~30pf
Audioblast HQ-1 4.5 inch: ~30pf
I sold my 20' George L's .225 cable to a friend before I could test it, but I was curious since those are supposed to be ultra low capacitance.
This chart might be helpful if you are curious about more:
https://www.shootoutguitarcables.com/gu ... chart.html
I will add that a major motivating factor for doing this was reading someone claiming that Monoprice guitar cables were over 90 pf/ft (~295 pf/m), but that is very false, as I believe what they were testing wasn't a guitar cable.
However, that same person tested a coiled up Roland Black series 10' and got a measurement of 318pf = 31.8 pf/ft = 103.35 pf/m, which would probably have been slightly lower if they had measured it laying flat.
I did find it interesting that the SpectraFlex cables, which I always thought sounded way better than every other cable brand I tried going back to my teen years, are in fact much lower capacitance than most cables.
I'm returning the multimeter to Amazon since it wasn't accurate enough for me, so I can't do any more testing, but this was a mildly amusing way to kill some time on a Saturday.