There is truth to the differences in cables/sound. Haven't tried assembling cables myself, so I only have off-the-shelf cables as a baseline for evaluation. Take note, I record more than I play live and most of the time it's my guitar running straight into my board and into the DAW.
1. The crap P100 cables I had lying around were noticeably noisier and deadened the sound quite a bit. My beater gigging cables are a bit (well, a lot) better than they are.
2. They're a pair of gold-tipped Cort cables that sounded quieter and a bit more detailed but tended to flub out in the low end.
3. I recently bought a pair of Hosa cables for my mixer and tried one of them into my pedalboard. It sounded more balanced than the Cort as the low end didn't flub out as much. It did however lose quite a bit of detail in the upper mids/treble frequencies.
4. Eventually got a slightly more expensive set of cables. The Quiklok Vintage set I'm using now has a more hollow sounding low-end and mellower highs. Not a lot of high-end attenuation but the middle frequencies sound nice.
I've been using the same guitar with the same strings and amp sim settings, so my variables are more or less fixed. More expensive might not mean better sounding, but ideally the material used in making more expensive cables is made with better tolerances/insulation/etc. I wouldn't go overboard, but good cables are worth investing in.
Will be getting a pair of Klotz cables soon.
have to agree. my friends and I did an A/B/C Test of patch cables and we definitely heard the difference. even my sister who does not play any instrument heard the difference.
Test was made using the following patch cables:
Generic PHP100 Patch cables
handmade patchcables using Swan Japan Cables, generic pancake plugs.
Planet Waves Patch cables
George L's Patch Cables
here are our observations:
1. The Generic Patch was super noisy. at first, we didn't notice the noise due to background noise but when we switched to the handmade cables, the noise was definitely lessened. I was really surprised because I never really believed that it made a huge difference in the overall tone of my rig.
2. no tonal change between the handmade patched and the generic ones, when we switched to the planet waves patch cables, the signal became more robust. louder and beefier! again, I was really surprised :O it was virtually noiseless as well.
3. switched to the George L's and wow. that was the first time I heard my rig sound like that. highs were definitely present without the boost I usually get from my EQ Pedal. really made me a believer.
TL;DR, patch cables do have a big effect on the overall tone of your signal chain. however, it depends on the player if he will go all out (i.e. lava, george l's) or go for a slightly cheaper route (Planet Waves). but definitely, we should avoid those generic black plastic cables due to noise and signal loss.
