dannybuoy Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 This video confirms what I've been trying to tell people for ages - those flat patch cables from EBS and Rockboard are very prone to noise in certain environments (skip to 22:46). Not seen those mini Ibanez ones before, they look great! 1 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Krow Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 Brilliant. Cheers dB He provides a summary download of all his test results on his YouTube page: https://goo.gl/5ELWDJ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GisserD Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 Muchos Karma to this guy for doing this! its really usefull stuff. However i am a little miffed that MY patch cable of choice wasn't tested. Not as miffed as id be if it was tested...and performed badly though 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben4343 Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 Very interesting... Noteworthy to me was that the super cheapo Thomann pro snakes (that I have and have been considering replacing for lower volume jacks) come in at the low 47s. Despite not making the top 10, this is about a 1% difference to much more expensive offerings, which to my mind is small enough to be ignorable. I guess I can spend that money on a really clean power supply instead. Hooray...? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorris Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 On 1/3/2018 at 00:46, Al Krow said: Brilliant. Cheers dB He provides a summary download of all his test results on his YouTube page: https://goo.gl/5ELWDJ That link comes along with a safety warning on my PC courtesy of Avast... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorris Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 (edited) He has quite a lot of patience :-) I guess next stage would be to investigate the fabrication of the cables wrt screening - eg conductive foil / drain wire ; braid ; spiral shield / double spiral etc. Plugs an obvious point where screening might be compromised. Edited January 4, 2018 by rmorris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
obbm Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Nice to see that he measures length the same way that I do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Krow Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 50 minutes ago, rmorris said: That link comes along with a safety warning on my PC courtesy of Avast... And on mine too. But seems to be innocuous. I've downloaded the pdf for folk and attached below. Patch cables comparison.pdf 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Weirdly you only get a warning if you follow the link from Baschat. If you do it from the YouTube page it appears to be fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave_bass5 Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Oh bugger. Ive just put my first ever board together using those flat patch leads. To be honest it sounds fine and i used those to get the boxes closer together. Think ill leave them on unless it becomes distracting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charic Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 4 hours ago, BigRedX said: Weirdly you only get a warning if you follow the link from Baschat. If you do it from the YouTube page it appears to be fine. It's because the link is to a redirect through youtube so it's giving you a warning that you're not going to where you think you are Where the link is sending you is https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&v=u548vUk6mmE&q=https%3A%2F%2Fgoo.gl%2F5ELWDJ&redir_token=hWqC7GhzqUNqfF43yphI2PwAkQR8MTUxNTAyNjYwOEAxNTE0OTQwMjA4 Where it's actually taking you is http://maxsolo.de/files/downloads/79-patch-cables-compared-and-tested.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radiophonic Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Personally I've had no problem at all with those EBS cables - and I tend to play in grubby clubs with mains supplies I can only guess at. I do use a decent PSU though.The Rockboard ones have been atrocious however - loads of the 6cm ones have simply failed on me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dannybuoy Posted January 4, 2018 Author Share Posted January 4, 2018 54 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said: Oh bugger. Ive just put my first ever board together using those flat patch leads. To be honest it sounds fine and i used those to get the boxes closer together. Think ill leave them on unless it becomes distracting. Don't stress, there are tons of people using them happily, you might never experience an issue! I used them on my board for a bit and only discovered an issue when I started using a PJB Bighead for practice which was a lot more revealing for noise than my tweeterless cab. After an expensive power supply upgrade the noise remained so I tested all my cables in a true bypass looper and found these ones to add significant noise but only when I had the dimmer switch on in my room. But at a gig or studio you can never tell what kind of electrical interference you might encounter... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave_bass5 Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 7 minutes ago, dannybuoy said: Don't stress, there are tons of people using them happily, you might never experience an issue! I used them on my board for a bit and only discovered an issue when I started using a PJB Bighead for practice which was a lot more revealing for noise than my tweeterless cab. After an expensive power supply upgrade the noise remained so I tested all my cables in a true bypass looper and found these ones to add significant noise but only when I had the dimmer switch on in my room. But at a gig or studio you can never tell what kind of electrical interference you might encounter... Cheers. As i play with headphones on at home ive not noticed any noise so far, and ive been using these for a while. Ive often wondered how good this type of connector is, ive never really had issue with them in the past but i can imagine they can fail quite quickly if treated roughly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dannybuoy Posted January 4, 2018 Author Share Posted January 4, 2018 I don't think they are overly sturdy seeing as from the 10 or so I bought, 2 of them were DOA! They should last a long time on a pedalboard though if handled with care. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave_bass5 Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 13 minutes ago, dannybuoy said: I don't think they are overly sturdy seeing as from the 10 or so I bought, 2 of them were DOA! They should last a long time on a pedalboard though if handled with care. Im not even sure what make mine are. They are generic ones off Amazon. Still, they dont crackle, and being on the board means i wont be moving them much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bazzbass Posted January 15, 2018 Share Posted January 15, 2018 Dang, Ive used the EBS cables for a couple of years with no issues,only at home though. but I'm about to use a board live in one band and I bet I get noise problems in the venues we will be playing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linear Posted January 15, 2018 Share Posted January 15, 2018 Can anyone explain the practical significance of the Stone test? The one with the ground loop. The cable that did worst in that is very similar to the ones I made up for myself. In fact all of the cables with the large pancake jacks seemed to do pretty badly in that test. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJ567 Posted March 14, 2018 Share Posted March 14, 2018 On 15/01/2018 at 12:07, linear said: Can anyone explain the practical significance of the Stone test? The one with the ground loop. The cable that did worst in that is very similar to the ones I made up for myself. In fact all of the cables with the large pancake jacks seemed to do pretty badly in that test. Occasionally, a combination of two pedals using different grounding schemes can turn the cable that connects them into an antenna for noise. I ran into this once - my practice space is super noisy (near computer and dimmer lights) and I was getting a weird hum from my board. All isolated supplies. Checked every pedal and cable, nothing was faulty. Then I discovered by accident that changing just one of the patch cables for another type caused the hum to disappear. This made no sense to me, so I triple checked everything, swapped in a few different ‘type A’ cables and a few ‘type B’. Result was the same every time. I was totally baffled but eventually just let it go and used the less noisy type of cable in that position. Only now after seeing that video am I starting to understand this mystery! Interestingly, the only difference between the two types of patch I used is the connectors. One uses Hicon pancakes and the other uses Switchcraft 226. The pancake version was the one with more hum in this situation, so you may be on to something... Whether or not you encounter this totally depends on the pedals in question, pedal order, etc. And of course whether or not there is a material amount of noise for you to pick up. I would say just take your board to a noisy environment and see if you actually have any issues. If not, great. If yes, consider swapping your pancakes for Switchcraft plugs! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PatrickJ Posted August 23, 2018 Share Posted August 23, 2018 This week I've been reworking my pedal board. I've fitted it out with a great set of pedals, spent some time routing all the power cables neatly and safely on the underside of the board and now I want to look at my patch cables, especially as I'm currently using EBS flat cables - eeek. I watched the video above and fancied a few of the cables recommended, especially the purple providence ones or even the Ibanez cables, but it seems most listed are not easily available in the UK (from what I could find on google). What patch cables do you guys recommend?? I don't need many 4-5x 15cm lengths and 2x 20 cm lengths. Bonus points for blue or purple coloured cables :). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmmettC Posted August 29, 2023 Share Posted August 29, 2023 Sorry to resurrect this old thread, but I found it when searching for info on EBS patch cables. I ordered loads of them earlier this year to tidy up my pedal board. They are ideal for my fairly big board and they fit well with the Boss ES8 loop/switch pedal. They've been working well, I've had some issue with electrical interference in some venues, but I put it down to some other changes I made at the same time. I play 2 or 3 nights a week in a function band, and a lot more over the summer, so my pedal board is in and out of the flight case a lot. I take care of my gear, but it is used a lot. Last week I accidentally kicked my pedalboard during a gig and there was a lot of noise. I assumed there was a loose connection somewhere, and didn't worry about it. I just checked each cable at home yesterday, all of the EBS cables are making a lot of noise with just the slightest movement. I still have lots of old patch cables and the Fender, MXR and Roland were all fine, even a few obviously cheap plastic cables I've had for at least 10 years were better than EBS. I've changed out the cables that are always on, compressor to Boss ES8 to hpf/lpf to preamp/di. The effects are all on loops on the ES8 so I've left them alone for now, because I don't have any other cables that will fit well. The ES8 ins and outs are too close together for pancake jacks, and most of my patch cables are mxr pancake jacks. All that is a long way to say what's the best solution for patch cables? I'm thinking that ordering decent jacks and cable and making my own will be the best option, but I would prefer to not solder that many cables if I can avoid it. The video above seems to rate Providence cables quite highly, are they worth a shot? Anything else I should be looking at? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tauzero Posted August 29, 2023 Share Posted August 29, 2023 The PDF referred to has moved to https://maxsolomusic.com/files/79-patch-cables-compared-and-tested.pdf 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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