Van Den Hul high end guitar connect cables?
Hetnet
i´d like to bring up a subject which is not too often discussed in this NG i
think. You all seem to spend thousands of dollars on guitars and amps, but
what about the cable connecting these? I just bought a Van Den Hul
Integration Hybrid cable,which is actually a high end audio cable, in a mono
6,3 mm jack version for guitar. With startling results. I wrote a review on
Harmony Central which you can read below. I´d like to read your comments!
Greetings, Freek Munniksma.
Product: Van Den Hul Integration Hybrid connect cable.
Features: 9
Thick,solid audio cable in a gold colour with solid Neutrik 6,3 mm mono
plugs. It´s grounded at one end, indicated by a sticker on the cable near
the plug. The INTEGRATION HYBRID is a triple shielded quadruple core audio
interconnect. In The INTEGRATION HYBRID VDH´s new developed highly advanced
Fusion conductor material is combined together with their well proven Linear
Structured Carbon ® technology. For exact specifications see :
http://www.vandenhul.com/cable/integration-h.htm
Sound: 10
I tested this cable with Tokai Les Paul and Strat copies and a Gibson L4CES
jazzer on a Fender Twin, an old Marshall 100W top with 4X12" and a Polytone
minibrute, in comparison with a Klotz guitar cable with Neutrik plugs.
Every time you "switch back" from the VDH to the Klotz it´s like someone is
calling you one the phone long distance. It´s like CD quality compared to AM
radio.
To elaborate: the VDH gives you a very "solid" sound with all the lows,mids
and highs coming out of your guitar in perfect balance. There is much more
detail and definition to the sound. You can hear the "wood" of the guitar.
Turning down the volume pot on your guitar can make the sound muddy with
ordinary cables. Not so with the VDH. The Les Paul on the neck pickup kept a
well defined sound with the volume turned down.
The L4CES on the Twin or Polytone showed its full potential with the VDH
cable. What a full-bodied, woody, natural "acoustic" jazz guitar sound! You
have to turn down the volume on the guitar every now and then to check out
your amplified volume by listening to the acoustic sound coming out of the
guitar. Then you go like: whoah,am i that loud?
With the Strat on the Twin you can´t go wrong. Beautiful highs, not scratchy
at all. The famous Fender spring reverb never sounded better!
The difference was more clear with the clean amps,the Twin and the Polytone.
With the Marshall you get better lows,but apart from that the difference was
less audible. The Marshall gives you a kind of distorted mid-centered sound
where the advantages of the VDH are less obvious. But then this is a
subjective review trying to describe sound the way i perceive it.
I could not find a difference in plugging in the grounded end on the amp
side vs. the guitar side. No audible noise, hum or Russian radio stations.
Action, Fit and Finish: n/a
Not a very useful category for a connect cable.
Reliability/Durability: 7
I just bought it, so i can´t tell you by experience how it will stand up
against the tortures of the road. According to the kind people at VDH you
can stand on the cable and keep it under water(or beer) as long as you like.
But riding over it with heavy PA equipment or bass cabinets on wheels may
damage it. You should also be careful in the way you wind it up after use,
don´t make sharp bends. It has four interconnects, so if one breaks,no
sweat. The cable is a little less flexible compared to ordinary guitar
cables.
Customer Support: 9
Van Den Hul has a very informative website, http://www.vandenhul.com. The
people at VDH are very helpful and supportive and stand by their product.
Overall rating: 9
For me this cable is a "revelation",which is by the way the name for a
high-end VDH speaker cable. But this cable is not for everyone. If you play
in a punk band playing a $200 guitar on a $300 amp using 5 pedal effects
between guitar and amp, forget it. Spend your money on beer.
But if you play jazz (semi) professionally on a beautiful archtop and a good
amp, check out this cable. If you play a Paul Reed Smith plugged directly
into a Custom Audio amp in the studio, same thing. I ´m a guitar player and
i only tested this cable with electric guitars. I´m convinced though that
this cable would do wonders for a good bass on a good bass amp. Add up the
price you paid for your guitar and your amp and divide it by 10. If that
amounts equal to what you have to spend on this cable, buy it. Then it´s
money well spent on a significant improvement in your sound.
The only drawback could be the roadworthyness of the cable in extreme rock´n
roll circumstances.
--
Posted from net090s.hetnet.nl [194.151.104.183] (may be forged)
via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG
Nick Gassman
>Integration Hybrid cable,which is actually a high end audio cable, in a mono
>6,3 mm jack version for guitar. With startling results. I wrote a review on
>Harmony Central which you can read below. I悲 like to read your comments!
Interesting read. It would also be helpful if you say how much it costs.
* Nick Gassman - Interactive Channels Exploitation - ni...@netwiz.demon.co.uk *
* http://www.britishairways.com *
David Barlow
I bought a Planet Waves cable recently - excellent for the cash.
Dave
""Hetnet"" <FMunn...@hetnet.nl> wrote in message
news:003701c0b9ee$d4c35520$b4574bd5@default...
Rev Timothy N Nurse
ni...@netwiz.demon.co.uk wrote:
> FMunn...@hetnet.nl ("Hetnet") wrote:
>
> >Integration Hybrid cable,which is actually a high end audio cable, in a mono
> >6,3 mm jack version for guitar. With startling results. I wrote a review on
> >Harmony Central which you can read below. I悲 like to read your comments!
>
> Interesting read. It would also be helpful if you say how much it costs.
Perhaps there is a reason why he doesn't? In fact it's a load of old toot
anyway. The weakest link in any guitar system is invariably the wiring
inside the guitar, followed by the jack connectors themselves - so sticking
a mega-expensive cable on a guitar is just a waste of money.
--
Note new signature file
Rev Timothy N Nurse
("Hetnet") wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> i´d like to bring up a subject which is not too often discussed in this NG i
> think.
Erm, actually it is.
You all seem to spend thousands of dollars on guitars and amps, but
> what about the cable connecting these? I just bought a Van Den Hul
> Integration Hybrid cable,which is actually a high end audio cable, in a mono
> 6,3 mm jack version for guitar. With startling results. I wrote a review on
> Harmony Central which you can read below. I´d like to read your comments!
[Plug for mega-expensive guitar cable.]
Nah mate. All you need is a bit of OFC and 2 Neutriks and it'll last a
lifetime and sound good. All for under 20 quid. Any more and your throwing
money down the drain.
> Posted from net090s.hetnet.nl [194.151.104.183] (may be forged)
Oooo! May be forged? You don't happen to work for this cable company?
Steve Dix
Nurse) wrote:
>Nah mate. All you need is a bit of OFC and 2 Neutriks and it'll last a
>lifetime and sound good. All for under 20 quid. Any more and your throwing
>money down the drain.
>
>
I used to work with an Ex-BBC Radio 3 engineer. He used to think it
was hilarious how HiFi buffs would spend a fortune on expensive
cables, when the music that they werre listening to was banged through
any old piece of cable which was found lying around the BBC studio
which had the right resistance.
He'll be trying to sell us pens to draw round the edges of the pickups
next, or telling us to stick the cable in the freezer for half an hour
before playing.
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Tim Sharpe
How much of the difference you can hear with new cable is in your head?
I ABed the sound of my guitar with old (Piranha) and new (Monster Rock)
cables. I could tell but only just because the sound was more bassy with the
Monster leads. However, the difference was only as much as you might expect
through other environmental changes. NOt much.
Hendrix used to use those horrific curly leads sometimes. Tee hee. What a
tonal loser he must be.
Also, when I built my own pedal recently I was appalled. Nowhere could I
find super high quality solder and wiring for guitars. Hmm. Neither was
there any in my pedals.
Sigh. It's all bollocks really isn't it.
"Steve Dix" <St...@myfullname.de> wrote in message
news:3ac8692...@news.freenet.de...
steve_cobham
<tim_j_...@SPAMMENOThotmail.com> wrote:
>I think this is hilarious.
>
>How much of the difference you can hear with new cable is in your head?
>I ABed the sound of my guitar with old (Piranha) and new (Monster Rock)
>cables. I could tell but only just because the sound was more bassy with the
>Monster leads. However, the difference was only as much as you might expect
>through other environmental changes. NOt much.
>
>Hendrix used to use those horrific curly leads sometimes. Tee hee. What a
>tonal loser he must be.
>
>Also, when I built my own pedal recently I was appalled. Nowhere could I
>find super high quality solder and wiring for guitars. Hmm. Neither was
>there any in my pedals.
>
>Sigh. It's all bollocks really isn't it.
Yup.
You can spend £100 on a lead between your guitar and the rest of your
gear and you're still reliant on all the other connections in your
signal chain being up to snuff - and there could be a lot of these in
your rig .
It's like a friend of mine says about ASDL modems - you can get one
installed and you're still at the mercy of a crappy bit of copper wire
somewhere along the way.
Apropos hearing the difference in leads, IIRC Eric Johnson once stated
that he could hear the difference between a chrome and a brass jack
plug.
Quite honestly, after you've reached a certain volume and kicked in a
certain amount of gain, who could tell what lead and/or connectors is
being used?
In the case of Hendrix, once three 100W Marshall stacks had been wound
up to maximum I shouldn't imagine that his crappy curly lead would
have made any difference, what with a) the resulting hiss and b) the
inherent properties of a Strat's single coils - not to mention the
sheer volume covering all of this up.
As has been said on here many times before, a length of decent cable -
the light "memory-less" Klotz type seems popular - and some good jacks
- Neutrik got many "votes" - and you're going to spend under £20 and
get a good lead for that money.
What I will say is many people tend to use leads that are too long and
some tone and volume risks being lost.
Looking at jack leads from the viewpoint of a 21st century guitarist,
I find it amusing that we're still employing early analogue telephone
exchange technology to hook up our instruments.
However, having once had a Vox solid which had a co-ax (exactly like a
TV aerial input) socket, jacks still seem to do the job OK.
Steve.
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Tim Sharpe
With the level of sophistication present in guitar technology it is mad that
we use 1/4" jacks to carry our signals all over the place. Surely we should
be using co-axial or optical digital connections?
In fact, now I think about it all the gear I use live is strictly analogue
and all based on designs about 50 years old. Yet it still sounds
contemporary and there's nothing that can imitate it.
I agree that most people use leads that are too long, yet seem to end up
never more than 10 feet from where they're plugged in.
T
<Steve Cobham> wrote in message
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Mike Whitaker
> never more than 10 feet from where they're plugged in.
*blink*
I'm *lucky* onstage if I get within 15' of my rack, since it's usually
tucked out of the way some place. Mind, normally I go wireless.
--
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System Architect | Fax: +44 1733 348287 | Home: mi...@altrion.org
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Steve Dix
>Looking at jack leads from the viewpoint of a 21st century guitarist,
>I find it amusing that we're still employing early analogue telephone
>exchange technology to hook up our instruments.
>
Nothing wrong with that. It's simple and cheap to produce, does the
job well and doesn't require any servicing beyond a bit of soldering.
Either way you can afford to throw it out when it goes wrong and buy a
new one. It doesn't matter what town you are in, you'll always be
able to get some sort of a replacement cable. Any engineer will tell
you that it satisfies Occam's Razor - which informally states that if
you over-complicate things, you're asking for trouble.
It's like a bike. You can buy all sorts of performance-related
magnesium gubbins to build a bike out of, but the standard bicycle
design - two wheels, pedals and a chain - has not been bettered for
efficiency and reliability
At the end of the day you can spend a fortune on active cable buffered
preamps, wireless diversity transcevers and the like, but what do you
end up coming back to when they all fail? The bog standard piece of
cable.
Interestingly enough, we're not only using early telephone technology
to connect up, but early radio technology to amplify ourselves. Most
valve amps are still basically using the same amplification circuits
invented in the 20s and 30s, but with far better optimisation than was
possible originally.
Jem10
my rack. What about George Ls, sre hear they are good but way to expensive.
Andrew Sinclair
Sessionette amp, and effects pedals) saying they were making leads. I quote
from it :
"Guitar leads: 3 metre @ £7.99 each, 5 metre @ £9.48 ea. and 6 metre @
£10.78. Performance is as ANY others available i.e. only 130pf per
metre capacitance (very low loss). Gold jack plugs are a waste of
money, as most amp jack sockets are only nickel silver... the two don't
connect very well together. "
don't know if it helps, but you could try contacting them
Award-Session
Tel: +44 1256 477 222
Fax: +44 1256 817 687
cheers
Andrew
"Jem10" <Je...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
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Rev Timothy N Nurse
<Je...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> So can anybody suggest a good source for cables in the UK? I need to rewire
> my rack. What about George Ls, sre hear they are good but way to expensive.
CPC/Farnell - or Maplin if you choose carefully.
icarusi
AFAIK George Ls are sold on their solderlessness. They seem to have
some 'sticky' internals which might not be so good if you intend to
use Neutrik plugs or other solder type jacks?
Icarusi
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