Instrument Cable Ohms?

[Bob Snelgrove]

Should a good cable show any resistance or capacitance?

[Dave Mudgett]

Yes - every cable has resistance and capacitance. Probably something in the vicinity of 0.1 Ohms/foot is typical for resistance, probably something like 10-20 pF/foot typical for capacitance. Of course, these values vary and depend on the materials and construction.

[Bob Snelgrove]

So 3-4 ohms on an 8 ft cable is not good?

[Dave Mudgett]

So 3-4 ohms on an 8 ft cable is not good?

Seems kind of high to me. My $10, 10-foot Kirlins measure around 0.1 Ohm on the hot side, and 0.6 Ohm on the ground side. Perhaps the surfaces of the plugs are oxidized.

I don't know that the resistance matters all that much, unless you're talking about connecting from an output impedance that is low and/or into an input impedance that is low. A typical high-impedance pickup running from typical single-coil guitar values of 5-6K up to heavily-wound guitar humbuckers or pedal steel pickups from 16-22K aren't gonna be very sensitive to the cable resistance. And most guitar amps have input impedances running from around 200K to 1Meg Ohm. I guess it might matter more coming out of a low output impedance pedal.

On the other hand capacitance, which basically shunts higher frequencies to ground, frequently has a larger effect. Note that I'm not saying 'good' or 'bad', just that higher capacitance is gonna attenuate higher frequencies more, all other things being the same.

My attitude about cables is - do they sound good in the context of the guitar, signal chain, and amp? Those coily cables that Jimi Hendrix used a lot aren't very 'good' cables from a technical specs point of view. But for what he was doing, they seemed to work just fine. Thinking about it, a Strat into a plexi Marshall might not mind a little high frequency attenuation, right?