As I went to buy a speaker cable at local music store today, a salesman told me today that using a guitar cable instead of a speaker cable to connect your cabinet/head could result in serious damage to amps, especially tube heads.

As anyone ever heard of this?

Well, no but you need to use 2 lead cables for cabs and not use a one lead shielded cable to transfer your signal. Using shielding as a way to send a signal to the cab can add resistance comparted to the lead conductor. It at the most will mean shit sound.

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Guitar cables are unbalanced, speaker cable is balanced. There is also a rumor that it will fry your cable, which I dont believe it to be true.

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The cable won't fry unless its not rated for the power that you're putting through it. Also, i don't think that speaker cables are balanced.

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what do you mean by balanced?

it is bad for the head... overtime it will ruin the cable... and once the cable is ruined your head wont be able to send it's load through it. and that puts stress on your output tranny, then you fuck up your amp.

USE A SPEAKER CABLE WHENEVER YOU CAN!

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Don't use guitar cable, you can blow the fuse in the head. happend to a friend of mine on his H&K Triamp MKII and seen it happen to a Randall GH

It will not ruin the cable, it'll just fry the fuse in your head.

A tube head needs to have, what do you call it, 'resistance'? if you don't hook up a speaker to your tube head and put power on it, it can easily get fucked up.

trust me, it will ruin the cable.... i've ruined many a cable this way(back in the day when i didn't know any better)...

it's not always just a fuse that blows... without having a load on the head, you can blow powertubes(usually taking a fuse out with it), and in some serious situations you can even damage more of the amp.

of course it's mostly a big deal with tube amps...

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Thanks for the feedback. By the way, should I use guitar cables if I'm hooking up a Boss GE7 EQ through the effect loop?

You can use instrument cable with no problem in the FX loop. The difference between instrument and speaker cable is that instrument cable has one lead with shielding and isn't made to handle huge loads and speaker cable has 2 leads with shielding and is made to handle huge loads.

Don't take chances with your gear.

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Thank god I clicked on this. Useful info for when I run a VH140 to a 2x12.

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The balanced cable can run really long lengths without any signal loss, and unbalanced cable, the longer you get the more signal loss you will have.

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Bullshit.

your top's fuse will ALLWAYS go first. (if you've got a decent fuse protected amp that is, which means not only a fuse for the power supply)

I've seen it happen twice and how exactly would you explain it ruiinng a cable? It's not like the cable will melt away instantly, if you've got a decent fuse protected amp it will allways throw the fuse. Older amps are more prone to damage though, they're usually only protected through the transformer.

ditto for the tubes, have you seen the fuses in our powerballs? they blow out first before anything else happens. only if you put in a heavier fuse you can ruine your powertubes. Duh, a fuse is in there before the line and to protect it. My powerball threw a fuse too when some guy hooked in a guitar cable as speaker cable. It happend when some guy wanted to play my Savage in our rehearsal room when I wasn't there. The red light pops up on the Savage rear plate.

It's not 'usually' a fuse that blows out. It's allways a fuse that blows out. It's there for protection. In decent amps that is. Tube amps are more prone to internal damage but this matter counts just as much for SS amps.

I got mighty pissed off about that rehearsal room mishap btw. Nobody touches my gear when I don't give permission, he said he was sorry 12340219 times and that was the only thing that prevented me from punching his head off.


Bottom line; use cables for their intended use. You don't want to know how many ignorant cunts have ruined guitar amps in practise rooms with this. ('oooh' thats a big cabinet, let hook it up to this combo with your spare guitar cable!!!')

i hate gear ignorance, i was trying to pickup a speaker cable at a music shop, (the only one they had was like 30 bux and a million feat long) so then he tried to sell me a bullshit small patch chord (guitar cable).

PS Hey Def i just ordered a tone zone for my ibanez. just like you told me to haha

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you won't regret it!

if you say so... but i think i'll believe PERSONAL EXPERIENCES before someones word on a forum.
i've seen tubes blow and take fuses with them... when i had my first halfstack actually, i used generic instrument cables because i didn't know better. i ruined several cables over a few months... they don't just "melt away instantly"

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Believe what you tell yourself, if that makes you feel satisfied, furthermore;



ditto



ergo conclusium; use cables what they are for. don't be a cheapass and buy the right cables for hooking up your cabs.