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Nord- Best cables for live sound

Postby Roach » 28 Apr 2018, 16:47

Currently playing on a Nord Piano 3, and was just wondering what the best cables (brand, type) to get for the absolute best live sound I can get. And perhaps advice to get the best sound from the keyboard when plugging into the P.A.

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Nord- Best cables for live sound


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Re: Nord- Best cables for live sound

Postby baekgaard » 28 Apr 2018, 20:57

Unless the cables are really crappy (or the soldering done incorrectly) then they will all sound the same... the main difference is in how quickly they deteriorate, and how good the connectors are.

I'm in Europe, but I usually go for any cables with e.g. Neutrik connectors (not their low-end); they usually last quite well and has a good and solid fit.

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Re: Nord- Best cables for live sound

Postby spradders » 30 Apr 2018, 11:41

I agree - cables don't make noticeable difference, but cheap cables will die and then you have real problems (crackle, intermittent issues etc). So get good quality with very good connectors. I've just bought some Van Damme XKE cables with Neutrik NP2X-B / NP2RX-B Jacks. Couldn't resist getting one in red and one in white :-)
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Re: Nord- Best cables for live sound

Postby fieldflower » 30 Apr 2018, 11:51

We ran a mythbusters session on cables on a bass player meet a couple of years back.
There was actually a very noticeable difference in sound from different cables. Very surprising, but very consistent judgement on what frequencies were cut in some cables.
May be different with keyboards as it's an active output signal, but there was actually audible difference with bass guitars...

Standard advice is the same: Avoid the cheapest cables.
But also avoid the cheapest model from the big brands (which may not be the cheapest cable in the store).
Last edited by fieldflower on 30 Apr 2018, 11:52, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Nord- Best cables for live sound

Postby Schulti » 30 Apr 2018, 11:54

Here are two very good videos about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0b7RwBgGd4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3lqfm5lDlc

Especially the first one is pretty impressive with comparing a standard power cable with expensive studiocabels!

Unfortunately the videos are only in german...
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Re: Nord- Best cables for live sound

Postby keysmcgee » 30 Apr 2018, 21:48

High impedance sources such as guitars, basses, rhodes pianos (all without built-in preamps) are much more sensitive to cable parameters (like capacitance) than active keyboards.
-Stephen

DISCLAIMER - professionally affiliated with Fulcrum Acoustic
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Re: Nord- Best cables for live sound

Postby Mr_-G- » 30 Apr 2018, 21:54

Yes, it says so in the 2nd video as well. It should not make much difference with active instruments.
And even if the cable acted as a LPF, then crank the high freq up!
Regarding their blind tests: one needs to repeat many of those to remove the possibility of getting them right by chance the first time.
Last edited by Mr_-G- on 30 Apr 2018, 22:53, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Nord- Best cables for live sound

Postby fieldflower » 30 Apr 2018, 22:50

Yes, the conclusion from our mythbuster session was that we should have tried the cables on active basses too, to see if there was any difference then.
Haven't had any bassist meet since then though, so we haven't had opportunity to try that...:(
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Re: Nord- Best cables for live sound

Postby st2ex » 30 Apr 2018, 23:53

Hi folks,
any cable (analogue or digital) produces a more or less different sound.

Analogue: sound is depending on parallel capacity and serial inductivity. Here cables are really different, especially the longer ones. For technical background you might have a look at the homepage of Kimber Cable, e.g PBJ. Not in any case for musicians, but you see low capacity or inductivity per m. As well, lot's of guitar players like the sound of their cables, as they produce a specific spectrum. For a keyboard that gas to provide ultimate sound, a guitar cable was the wrong choice anyhow.

Digital: copper cable sound typically better then fiber optics. Reason is simply the missIng copper/fiber converter and dirt on the fiber. Both cable transfer rectangle signals and many brands don't use Schmitt triggers at the inputs to re-build a bad rectangle signal caused by cheap or dirty digital canles.
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Re: Nord- Best cables for live sound

Postby baekgaard » 01 May 2018, 09:52

st2ex wrote:Hi folks,
any cable (analogue or digital) produces a more or less different sound.


Analogue cables can impact the sound. But the relevant question here is whether the impact is noticeable at all.

Digital cables do not impact the sound at all in any normal use we're talking about in the context here (unless you start to get uncorrectable bit errors, which typically leads to drop-outs and other very noticeable phenomena).

Analogue: sound is depending on parallel capacity and serial inductivity. Here cables are really different, especially the longer ones. For technical background you might have a look at the homepage of Kimber Cable, e.g PBJ. Not in any case for musicians, but you see low capacity or inductivity per m. As well, lot's of guitar players like the sound of their cables, as they produce a specific spectrum. For a keyboard that gas to provide ultimate sound, a guitar cable was the wrong choice anyhow.


It is correct that all cables have a specific capacity and inductivity pr. meter -- as well as resistance. But unless you use a very crappy cable, it does not really have a noticeable/audible impact on the sound for keyboards: Keyboards typically have low output impedance, and the cable lengths are relatively short (i.e. not 100's of meter).

Also, many of us plug in to a stage box with a long snake to the mixer, and may have to use DI boxes to convert the signal from line level to balanced mic level instead (to avoid cross-talk in the snake). If anything, the latter may have a larger impact on the sound.

So for keyboard cables, any reasonable quality will work equally well (and instrument cables will usually also work absolutely fine, with no noticeable difference to any other good cable).

For passive instruments (and in particular high-impedance outputs like e.g. e piezo-electric guitar pick-up), the cables can possible make a noticable difference, as can the particulars of the input of your (pre)amp or DI-box to an even greater extent. So in some cases I would not rule out that there can be a minor difference in this situation (which is NOT about keyboards, as mentioned).

If we would discuss power outputs -- i.e. driving a passive speaker with a remote amplifier -- the cables can also make a difference; you would typically need a low-resistance (thick) cable for this application.

In the two last (non-keyboard) cases, we're approaching a discussion of the possible need for what would technically be called a (matched) transmission line, like what you may need for RF signals. But most audio applications don't really use impedance matching (i.e. the amp input is instead much higher than the equivalent output impedance) -- maybe apart from the ones I mentioned above (raw piezo-output in the MOhm range into a normal amp, and speaker inputs at 2-4 Ohm being driven through a longer cable). For audio frequencies, other transmission line effects (e.g. reflection) is not really relevant either.

Digital: copper cable sound typically better then fiber optics. Reason is simply the missIng copper/fiber converter and dirt on the fiber. Both cable transfer rectangle signals and many brands don't use Schmitt triggers at the inputs to re-build a bad rectangle signal caused by cheap or dirty digital canles.


In general, if you start to get bit-errors (like what you describe), they will typically be detected by the application and be corrected -- otherwise the normal LAN cables would not work at all.

But what you describe is not really an issue with the cable; it is about converters you put into the chain. The cable itself has no significant impact for the types of applications we're talking here. For longer distances (km of cables) and much much higher bandwidths it is another issue, of course, since dispersion and radiation and coupling and reflection all sorts of other things start to come into play.

If you don't agree, then just buy the cable you feel comfortable with and be happy. The cable vendors are happy as well, and it's not my money in any case :-)

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