Amp to cab cable question

[pete.young]

i have a load of HOAL5 and HOAL7 pond cable somewhere, it never occurred to me to make speaker cables out of it until now. It's very flexible, and also totally waterproof so handy for those swimming pool photoshoots. I used it to repair umbelical dive lights which were a big deal before the invention of the LED.

[TimR]

On 31/05/2025 at 23:02, chyc said:

Using the cable as a guitar lead will not work out so well as the cable will be unshielded so you'll get a lot of unwanted interference added to your signal so bear that in mind if you want the cable for double duty.

 

I had to read this twice.

 

Don't use Instrument leads for your speakers or Speaker leads for your guitar. They are not interchangeable, you can't use them for 'double duty'. 

 

 

AND if your speakers are powered, don't use speaker leads between your mixer and the speakers. Use 2 core twisted sheilded pair with XLR or TRS jacks. 

 

Edited yesterday at 11:54 by TimR

[Chienmortbb]

On 27/06/2025 at 18:29, itu said:

I am with @Chienmortbb here, because: 

Any cable used in band context will suffer from dust, poor handling, hits, kicks, you name it. A reliable cable looks overkill in the first place, but after a few years you can see that there are cables, and cables. Your choice may be Fender or Ibanez, but definitely not mine. 

 

Silicone cable, colours, Neutrik, soldered, velcro for coiling and storage, cable case... I am serious about cables: the bands I am playing with are not suffering odd faults. 

This! Even the dearest cable, whether speaker or instrument, will be the cheapest non-consumable item in your equipment. 

 

The truth is that if we started making Electric guitars and basses in the year 2000 instead of the late 1940s, we would never have chosen 1/4"jacks. For speakers, they have largely been replaced by Speakons , thank goodness. The reason? You can never tell the current rating of a 1/4" plug, and many are rated at 0.5 amp. That equate to 2 watts into 8 ohms or 1 watt into 4 ohms. If you read the Neutrik specs, they say "Current - depends on mating connector." Or, in plain English, depends on what cheapo crap you plug it into. 

 

As for the £15 speakON cable? Using an OEM 1.5mm cable and Neutrik or Rean connectors, I can do one for that price, but there will be a  £3 postage charge. For £19 inc postage I can do neutrik/Rean speakON plus Sommer 2.5mm cable. Includes a lifetime warranty. You cannot get a decent set of strings for that. Would you trust your amp with anything else?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TimR]

Some odd conclusions being drawn here.

 

The nominal impedance of a speaker is just the lowest resistance. At its resonant frequency it will have max impedance. In practice speakers are receiving complex AC waveforms and their actual impedance seen by the amplifier will be tens of ohms.

 

The wire that a speaker is made from is extremely thin, and will burn out well before any connectors or 1.5mm² flex will. And that will be for a different reason. 

 

For long runs you should be using powered speakers, not running tens of  metres of twin flex. 

Edited 7 hours ago by TimR

[Stub Mandrel]

[TimR]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_characteristics_of_dynamic_loudspeakers