Crackly guitar leads

[OliSam]

Hey guys. I have lots of leads. In sure you have lots of leads also
Im not ready to go wireless yet as im a little old school.

Q. How do you deal with your crackling guitar leads?
Do you throw them out?
Do you open them up and re-soldr them?
Do you buy the most expensive ones in the expectation that they wont crackle?

[Rabbit]

The only time I've had dodgy leads have been with bought ones. I buy plugs and lead wire and solder them up.

[Simon Barden]

Leads go crackly because:

a) The signal cable has basically broken in two at the join and is held together by pressure alone. Normally due to the jack plug having poor strain relief allowing the join to move around and weaken.
b) There's a stray strand of signal or ground cable that's floating around inside a plug and occasionally making contact with its opposite side.
c) The cable is really low quality and moving the cable caused changes in capacitance which get picked up by the signal
d) The cable has been damaged internally (heavy items dropped on it or chair leg stood on/rolled over it etc.) and the wire is basically broken in two internally, with contact between the halves being parted and re-made as the cable moves. Even good quality cables can get damaged this way, but they tend to be more robust and it takes more effort to do so.
e) The jack's internal components were simply pressed together in the factory and the joints have become loose over time, with associated contact issues.

If the lead was an expensive one, then it's worth taking the jacks apart and looking at, but if the jack connections look OK, then it's probably a cable break. You can then try moving along the lead, bending it and listening for crackles, and if you think you've found a bad section, you can cut either side of that and pick the longest section to solder a jack back on to (provided the length is long enough to be useful). No guarantees, but you might get something useful at the end. Don't try this if the cable has moulded-on plugs. At the low end, it probably is too cheap to worry about and at the high end e.g. Planet Waves often use moulded-on jacks, it's really hard to reconnect their rather OTT cable.

It's also worth checking the cable resistance with a meter. Resistance from tip to tip or screen to screen should only register very slightly higher than putting the meter's own probes together. Once you start to see values of 3 or 4 ohms or more, then you know something's not right (unless it's a 30m long cable). I stopped using George L's patch cables as I couldn't assemble them without getting at least 15 ohms and sometimes up to 60 ohms resistance for a 20cm length of cable! The higher the resistance, the more noise the cable is likely to pick up and the more chance there is of ground loop noise when using pedals.

If you've got noisy leads, I'd generally advocate starting all over again, and making or buying new leads. Use or look for good quality jacks, suck as Neutrik or Switchcraft, and a well-known cable brand, such as Klotz or Van Damme. I buy my leads via Amazon from an outlet that makes up cables from Neutrik jacks and Van Damme cables. It's pretty much the same price as if I bought the components separately (as they will bulk-buy so their component costs are minimal), but they are well made and I don't have the bother of soldering them up.

If you decide to buy from a store, then you don't need to buy the most expensive ones. Some can be stupidly expensive but are no better than lower priced ones (I got a lead packaged with my DG Strat that cost about £80 (in 2010) if you'd have bought it, that performed no better than my £15 leads). But you do need to spend above a certain threshold to get ones that will last a long time. In the UK, I'd suggest you should be looking at £15 or more for a 15'/5m lead. If you are unsure about the components used in a pre-made cable, walk away and make your own.

[fender3x]

I tend to make my leads. I am in the US so YMMV, but I have generally found that good quality cable is not that expensive, particularly when you shop the sales. The same is true with phono plugs...sort of. It's cheaper to build than to buy a good quality lead with Switchcraft or Neutrik plugs, but it's hard to find sales on them.

My last batch of cables was made with Kirlin plugs that I got in bulk on sale. I think it was NOS, because I haven't seen a sale like that again. If I had to build some cables tomorrow, I'd get plugs made by GLS Audio. Their reputation is very good and in the US you can get them in lots of 20 for $30 which includes shipping. If I just need one or two ends, I would probably just get Switchcrafts at around $2 each.

I have gotten rid of all my barrel jacks, but when I had them I learned (the hard way) that many of the no-name jacks are slightly oversized and can ruin a barrel jack. I don't know if this is still true, but that used to be a problem with monster cables as well. I have also had some reputedly pretty good Korean 90 degree jacks break. The shaft came loose from the housing. There may be some good no-name hardware out there, but I am no longer willing to take the risk.

[Simon Barden]

There are certainly "B-gauge" jack plugs which look very similar to standard 1/4" (A-gauge) jacks and have the same sleeve dimension but have different tips. Pro-level studio patch bays (and probably phone switchboards) used to use the B-gauge, whilst the semi-pro stuff almost always uses the A-gauge jacks. The B-gauge stuff is quite rare now, but I have seen that type of jack on the end of guitar leads in the past, with unhappy results.

But I'm sure there must be tolerance issues with some plugs, both too large and too small.

[fender3x]

I wouldn't want to speculate on the prevalence of plugs that are off enough to ruin a jack. I can say that I killed two Switchcraft barrel jacks before I smarted up.

[McCreed]

Like others here, I make my own. I haven't bought pre-made lead in over 20 years.

I've been using Van Damme cable for about 6 years now. It's low capacitance (27pf/ft) and very flexible with low memory.
I always add heat shrink for strain relief, and with good quality plugs, can make a 5m lead for under $20AU.

For my pedalboards, I do use Lava solder-less plugs and their Tightrope cable. That's the closest I come to manufactured leads though.

[Rabbit]

I've been using Van Damme cable for about 6 years now. I.

Do those cables help you with high kicks on stage?

[McCreed]

Do those cables help you with high kicks on stage?

I'm afraid my high kick days are well and truly behind me...

[king casey]

I've been using Van Damme cable for about 6 years now.

A grade cable named after a 'B-grade' actor.

cheers, Mark.