# Wire and Tone...Really!!??



## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

I am having problems believing the parts of this article that I have bolded. 

Your comments ?
*
Reissue vintage “cloth” or “braided” wire*

This cable is very similar to the original waxed cotton insulated wire that Fender and Gibson used back in the golden days. The waxed cotton insulated wire is referred to as the “cloth” wire, while the “braided” wire that Gibson used offers a braided tinned copper shield and a tinned stranded 22-gauge copper single ''hot'' conductor. The braided wire is often used for the restoration or modification of Gibson guitars. 

The vintage cloth wire is a cotton-covered 22-gauge wire, American-made by the same company that made it for Fender in the old days. It is perfect for restoration of older guitars and amps, or for retro clone projects. It is waxed just like the old stuff, and is a pleasure to work with; just cut to length and push back the cotton braid. *The lack of plastic insulation resonances results in the good, natural sound from this 22-gauge, tinned stranded, high quality copper wire, so it’s always worth a try. If you are looking for the vintage tone, I highly recommend trying this wire – it really makes a difference in tone. *Sometimes you can even find this wire as NOS.

_*Teflon insulated silver wire*_

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 like to describe the effect as a natural pickup sound. The clarity such a cable can have is stunning, and together with good pure nickel strings, you will hear things from your guitar that you’ve never heard before. *Sure, this cable, especially the high-grade, military-graded version, is not cheap, *but it’s worth a try in your axes if you are looking for the most transparent, natural, open sound.*

In closing, I would like to talk a little bit about shielded cables inside guitars. You can use shielded cables for all connections inside your axes, and, under some very special circumstances, this can make sense. But to be honest, I don’t have a single guitar with any shielded cable runs and I’ve never had a problem. Take a look inside any vintage Les Paul, Strat or Telecaster – you will not find any shielded cables there! A good compromise is to use a shielded cable run to connect the output jack, especially in a semi-acoustic guitar. Normally this is the longest cable run inside a guitar, so it’s most susceptible to picking up hum or noise. All of the other connections are really short, so there is almost no chance that they will pick up any hum or noise. 








I would like to share an old school trick from the early tube radio era that some techs still recommend and use today. I use it in my own guitars, and it works great. Instead of using a shielded cable run to connect the output jack, you can use two standard wires and twist them together, as shown in the picture.

This will provide extra shielding, and will work as well as any standard shielded cable. You can also use this neat little trick inside amps and for any cable run inside a guitar. As an added bonus, you can do this to the connection cables of any Strat or Telecaster pickup to fine-tune the tone and provide some extra shielding to singlecoil pickups. I will spare you the explanation of the physical details of this trick, *but the difference in sound is easy to hear, and you may or may not like it. *This is a wide field to experiment in, so play around with it.

Cheers

Dave


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## nnieman (Jun 19, 2013)

"*but the difference in sound is easy to hear, and you may or may not like"

I use cloth-covered because it looks cool and I usually can't find my wire strippers.

As for types of wire sounding different......b.s.

I don't have shielded wire in any of my guitars, some hum, some don't.


Nathan
*


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## 4Aaron GE (Jul 12, 2009)




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## DrHook (Oct 28, 2013)

Just think of all the audiophiles who paid handsomely for gold plated connectors....you can see where this is going


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

I am not an expert but from what I've read, the wire will make a difference in sound. I believe it was JS Moore who had an article speaking about different wire providing different tones but the article also mentioned that different insulation allowed more or less winds inside a pickup due to the difference in diameter from the different insulation thickness. As we all know, a difference in winds makes a difference in the tone of the pickup so it may be as much as the number of winds as it is the material. Just my thoughts. They may be correct, incorrect or somewhere in betweenish.


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## 4Aaron GE (Jul 12, 2009)

Sure, that may be the case. However, that's not what the guy who wrote this article is saying.

Also, I thought the reason for gold plating connectors was corrosion resistance.


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## Stonehead (Nov 12, 2013)

If _you_ believe that a certain type of wire will make your guitar or amp sound better... it will.


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## DrHook (Oct 28, 2013)

I'm no rocket scientist, but a good gauge of wire (thickness) that's shielded will deliver the best signal...and that's all that matters no? As far as a difference in tone...I can't really see that happening. Think about it....take a Seymour Duncan pickup...any...with 4 conductor wiring...those are some mighty thin wires and they use normal insulation.


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## djmarcelca (Aug 2, 2012)

Twisted pair wiring is all that is needed. 
It's used all over most vehicles in the network wiring. It's for the same purpose. Twisted pairs counteract emf Interference. 
I see it in amps
i see it in fluorescent lighting too.


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## Sneaky (Feb 14, 2006)

I used Teflon covered solid silver wire in one of my partscasters and it really does sound better than most of my other strats. There are so many other factors at work it's hard to say how much difference the wire makes.


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

DrHook said:


> .....Think about it....take a Seymour Duncan pickup...any...with 4 conductor wiring...those are some mighty thin wires and they use normal insulation.


Good point!

Nice to see that this thread is getting some traction. Not that the "concept" being discussed is anything new to us...but always fun to take another run at it...for old time's sake...LOL

Cheers

Dave


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I forget what the song was, some New Wave Brit-pop thing (OMD?) but I recall a song lyric that went "Everything counts...in large amounts".

Does insulation type, and stranded vs solid, "matter"? Sure....when you're running big lengths. Same way cable capacitance "matters" when running 20ft cables. But when running lengths well under a foot, the impact may be unmeasurable by lab instruments more sensitive than the human ear.

_*Context*_ matters every bit as much, if not more than, materials. I find the most outrageous claims made are often those which actually DO matter...in entirely different applications and contexts, but the claimer has simply extrapolated blindly from one set of circumstances to EVERY circumstance. Welcome to the internet.


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## blam (Feb 18, 2011)

I doubt it makes any difference....

I use cloth pushback for my fender style guitars and braided stuff for my gibsons because it looks retro


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## cheezyridr (Jun 8, 2009)

sure it works!!! TRUST ME


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## LexxM3 (Oct 12, 2009)

mhammer said:


> I forget what the song was, some New Wave Brit-pop thing (OMD?) but I recall a song lyric that went "Everything counts...in large amounts"


Off topic, but ... Depeche Mode: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1t-gK-9EIq4


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## dradlin (Feb 27, 2010)

The difference between a 10 and 20 foot guitar cable, or cables between different manufacturers can easily be heard... that due to cable capacitance. So in consideration of that, it seems plausible that wiring variations within the guitar could contribute to tone variations.

But the argument ends when you try to find agreement on what sounds "better" - people listen for and prefer different things.

Watch the Carlos Santana rig rundown, and his guitar tech says he specifically uses a 50 foot guitar cable because the cable capacitance at that length affects the tone suitable to Carlos' ear. That is interesting when you consider the low capacitance cables that are on the market.

So to each his own... cloth, plastic, shielded, braided, hi-cap, lo-cap.... is all good.


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## dradlin (Feb 27, 2010)

Steadfastly said:


> I am not an expert but from what I've read, the wire will make a difference in sound. I believe it was JS Moore who had an article speaking about different wire providing different tones but the article also mentioned that different insulation allowed more or less winds inside a pickup due to the difference in diameter from the different insulation thickness. As we all know, a difference in winds makes a difference in the tone of the pickup so it may be as much as the number of winds as it is the material. Just my thoughts. They may be correct, incorrect or somewhere in betweenish.


A closely wound pickup coil is completely different to that of the control wiring. In a coil you have about a kilometer of thin gauge wire with an ultra thin insulation running in close parallel proximity... that is a much different situation than control wiring, the effects of capacitance are far more exaggerated in the coil.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Again, I go back to my earlier comment about "amount". The difference between 10 and 20ft of cable IS easily discernible. The difference between 10 and 11ft, not so much. The lengths used _inside_ a guitar are unlikely to make an audible difference. Although I suppose I should make a special case for Les Pauls, which have that ridiculously-placed pickup switch far away from the controls, necessitating a lot more wire length than is found in the average solid-body. So, it might make a difference in a LP, but would be expected to make no difference in the vast majority of other guitars.

Pickup wire follows the same general principle. The pickup itself may be small, but, having wound many myself, I can say with great confidence: that is one LONG frigging piece of wire, and ridiculously tiny differences in coating add up over that length (not quite a kilometer, but indisputably long...unless we're talking Alumitones, that are a whole different ballgame). The insulation coating the wire determines the space that each turn, and layer of turns, occupies. Insulation type is typically associated with thickness. And, while not _exactly_ the same as wire gauge (since thicker wire means lower DC resistance as well as more physical space), a thicker insulation will also make it harder to pack the same number of turns into the same physical space. I can certainly *try* winding 7600 turns of #41 onto a Strat coilform, and actually fit it on, but that Strat pickup cover is not sliding over the coil very easily at all. Whereas, use of #42 wire will even permit me to overwind the pickup and still easily slip a plastic cover over it.

Part of what gives a pickup its distinctive sound is the distance from the magnetic core that the wire turns are situated. In some instances, such as standard HB types, the slugs (that we call "polepieces", but which technically aren't) are inserted into a plastic bobbin, and the wire wound around the bobbin. The bobbin itself instantly produces a space around the slug such that the wire coil can't get any closer than the bobbin allows. In a standard Fender-type pickup, the wire is wound directly around the alnico polepieces. They're wound directly around the polepices in both a Tele, and Jazzmaster, but the flat-ish shape of the Jazzmaster PU obliges more turns to be further away from the polepices, changing several audible properties of that pickup.


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## JCM50 (Oct 5, 2011)

No one will ever hear the difference in "tone" between decent quality wire types in a guitar to wire up controls. That's just ridiculous is there's probably someone behind it to sell something. 

its just like the whole "special pots" that the guys sell over at MyLesPaul forum. There's are businesses behind all of this, experts at selling snake oil. A quality pot will sound just fine but some guys insist on getting 5% pots, which really, in an application like a guitar volume knob, is a waste of time and effort. I demonstrated the other differences in the circuits but the thread was deleted by the admins, probably because it disspelled some myths, but I digress.

If changing the wire in guitar guitar, for some odd reason make you happy, then by all means, do it.


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## dradlin (Feb 27, 2010)

In engineering terms, the dielectric properties of the insulation type, insulation thickness, and the ratio of the insulation diameter to the conductor diameter all affect conductor to conductor capacitance.

So it is plausible, in engineering terms, that different wire types with different wire properties may affect tone to some degree, but to a degree that is readily discernible and especially in a band mix? Decide for yourself.


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## dradlin (Feb 27, 2010)

In engineering terms, the dielectric properties of the insulation type, insulation thickness, and the ratio of the insulation diameter to the conductor diameter all affect conductor to conductor capacitance.

So it is plausible, in engineering terms, that different wire types with different wire properties may affect tone to some degree, but to a degree that is readily discernible and especially in a band mix? Decide for yourself.


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