The Best Guitar Cables
Does the type of guitar cable you use really make a difference in your tone? The answer is yes. Anything that touches the signal flow of your instrument will affect the quality of your tone, and that signal flow starts with your guitar cable. So we plugged in our guitars, cranked up the amp, and smashed a few power chords to help you find the best guitar cable for your rig. Here are a few of our favorites.
What to Look For
A good guitar cable should have low resistance, proper capacitance, and a sturdy connection between the cable and the jack. It also needs to be rugged enough to keep working when your lead singer steps all over it with his combat boots. GLS Audio’s 20-foot cable boasts a flexible cord jacket so you can move along the stage with ease. For top sound quality, consider Monster Prolink’s rock instrument cable. Its all-metal jack construction promises a secure connection, and the cable is built for durability as well as longevity. Read on to learn more about our favorite picks.
GLS Audio 20-Foot Guitar Instrument Cable
Rock hero
Lauded for the quality of their guitar strings, GLS Audio tops our list with its Professional Series 20-foot guitar cable. Built with a flexible tweed jacket, each cable uses oxygen-free copper in both the center conductor and the insulator shield. They also feature a double-shielded conductive PVC and OFC insulator shield and, perhaps most importantly, have a Picofarad rating of just 38 per foot. With external rubber heat shrink strain relief, internal rubber booty strain relief, and internal metal clamp strain relief, expect many years of trouble-free usage.
Pros:
- If you’re tired of tangles when packing away your cables, we found that the flexible tweed jacket on this cable helped to prevent kinks and bends from developing.
- We were a big fan of the two velcro straps included here, making it easy to neatly store this cable away, ready for the next show.
- The tweed jacket also provides this cable with heavy-duty protection; it endures the inevitable, routine impacts of daily use. It even withstands heavier punishments like having an amp dropped on it.
Cons:
- This cable has only one color option available.
New Bee Electric Instrument Cable
Best for bass
New Bee’s guitar cable provides enhanced signal transfer for quiet, clean performance. Bass players pushing high decibels of low frequencies will especially appreciate this as well as the low capacitance. The PVC insulation material and the high-density, stranded-copper double shield also provide excellent noise reduction. The quarter-inch straight and right-angle metal connectors ensure a secure connection in any instrument, pedal, or amp jack. The black tweed woven jacket makes this cable strong enough for road use.
Pros:
- Despite its great price, we found no significant increase in buzz or noise when compared to less affordable alternatives.
- Its thinner design makes this cable lighter than average, and we appreciate the weight this cable took out of our gig bag.
- The flexible mesh covering offers a 30% higher stretching intensity than the average cable. This reduces the chance of accidental damage when you’re playing on the move.
Cons:
- We found this connection has a distinguishable noise floor when used as an audio cable.
GLS Audio 6-Foot Guitar Instrument Cable
Affordable audio
As a musician, you are notoriously underpaid — if you’re paid at all. That’s why it’s great to find inexpensive gear, especially high-quality stuff like GLS Audio’s 6-foot instrument cable. If you need a cable for your home practice rig or a backup for gigs, GLS has you covered. This cable features a durable, braided tweed cloth jacket, so it will hold up if pinched, crushed, or abused. Its OFC insulator shield & conductive PVC shielding keep the noise low as well as the capacitance. You’ll get the crystal-clean tone you expect from your guitar.
Pros:
- Two velcro mini-straps make storage easy. We found they could even serve to elongate the lifespan of this cable by reducing the likelihood of awkward bending when packed away.
- The braided tweed cloth jacket is ruggedly built. It should hold its shape through years of frequent use.
- If you’re looking for clarity of tone, the lower cable capacitance here helps transmit a bright and present signal.
Cons:
- This cable comes with only a single color choice.
Monster Prolink Rock Instrument Cable
For the audiophile
When Monster set out decades ago to create “the last guitar cable you’ll need,” they weren’t messing around. Designed with a durable connector featuring collet strain relief, 95% copper braided shield, and custom gold connectors with 24-karat gold contacts, you can be sure that this cable delivers top-quality sound fidelity and provides the highest durability. The Duraflex protective jacket resists slicing and abrasions, yet it’s still easy to coil and store in your gig bag. If you’re looking for a cable you can rely on, you’ll get it with Monster.
Pros:
- We love the all-metal jack construction, ensuring strong connectivity with any style of jack socket.
- If you’re looking for various connectivity options, this cable is available in right-angle-to-straight or straight-to-straight configurations.
- Alongside a variety of jack head options, this cable comes in a range of lengths.
Cons:
- This isn’t the cheapest guitar cable on the market.
Fender Professional 10-Foot Instrument Cable
Multi-channel magic
If you play guitar, you know about Fender. Lucky for you, Fender lives up to that same reputation with this stereo guitar cable. With 95% OFC spiral shielding, 22 AWG, an 8-millimeter outer diameter wire jacket, and nickel-plated connectors, it’s both a dependable and clean-sounding cable. Better still, these cables are engineered to avoid twisting, kinking, and any “physical memory” of how they were improperly wrapped.
Pros:
- We found this cable has extra flexibility when compared to other options. If you’re looking for an option facilitating maximum movement, this could be your best bet.
- If properly maintained, this cable will continue to operate as new for years.
- If you’re searching for a similar cable for the rest of your studio equipment, look no further. This cable also comes with XLR connector options for all your microphone needs.
Cons:
- We missed the lack of cable ties.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use my mono guitar cable in a stereo rig?
You can, but it might not sound very good. The sound will come out only on the left channel if you plug into an unbalanced mono input. If it’s a balanced input, the sound may come out as left/right but in the opposite phase. It’s best just to get a guitar cable with stereo jacks.
My guitar cable buzzes like crazy. Why?
Chances are it’s not your guitar cable. The most common reason for the buzz is a grounding problem, which is usually due to bad soldering or a poor connection in your guitar hardware. Also, your guitar’s pickups can pick up the magnetic fields in your surroundings, which can create a hum. Typically, a bad guitar cable simply doesn’t work.
Do short guitar cables sound better than long ones?
Most 10- to 20-foot cables will sound the same. However, the longer the cable, the more capacitance it has. Excessive capacitance can lead to a loss of high-end frequencies (known as “treble”) in your tone. Some long cables are designed to compensate for this and are built with high-quality metals. Make sure you know before you buy.
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