Monster Cable Signal Flow direction

I know there is a lot of controversy about the "signal flow" of a guitar cable. I ran into something puzzling/interesting I thought I would share in regards to this topic. I have a Monster "Jazz" guitar cable which has a signal flow arrow printed on it. Tonight I accidentally had the cable plugged in backwards from my Gibson SG to my Silver Modded Analogman OD9 Tube Screamer. After playing a while, I noticed the pedal was backwards and plugged it in correctly. After that, the OD9 made weird interference noises...I thought I had fried the pedal or something. Putting the cable back the wrong way made the noise go away. Long story short, there was a laptop plugged in that I *think* was making the noise...I unplugged it and I got the OD9 to act normal with the cable plugged in "correctly", but it was weird that plugging it in WRONG made the noise go away.

I tried to find what this signal flow meant, and I found this info on another forum:

"Planet Waves Accessories \ Product Assistance
I have one of your Custom Instrument cables. What does "sheilded end"
refer to?
This configuration provides the best shielding against external noise.
The shield intercepts external noise and diverts it to the amplifier
ground, reducing interference. Connecting the shield to the amplifier
end provides the shortest and most direct path to the amplifier ground
and maximizes the shielding effectiveness. If the shield is connected at
the guitar end, the intercepted noise is forced to travel through the
cable before reaching the amplifier ground; this causes extra noise
pickup by the cable and reduces shielding effectiveness. If the shield
is connected at both ends, some of the noise can still travel through
the cable before reaching the amplifier ground, thereby reducing
shielding effectiveness."

So, assuming this Planet Waves info also applies to the signal flow to a Monster Cable (not sure if it does or not), does anyone have any ideas why plugging it in backwards would have cut out that weird noise I was hearing?

As a side note for those curious, I did A/B the "Jazz" and "Rock" monster cables from a Les Paul directly into my Fender Vibrolux and I could surprisingly hear a subtle difference between the two cables (Jazz cable did have a little of the high end cut). However, its nothing that adjusting a tone knob on the amp a hair or two either way couldn't counteract.

Also, found this at Monster's website:

Why do the cables have directional arrows?
This is done for shielding purposes only, a design where we do not solder the shield on the signal's destination. This ensures that any noise picked up by the shield will not be transmitted into your signal path.

No matter how I plug it in, the voices won't go away.

Seriously though, I haven't a clue. The Jazz cable may be higher capacitance which would be less treble I think. So perhaps the braided shield is not as goid on tge jazz?

I have the rock cable and the bass cable from Monster. I don't use them much because it feels like Indian Jones' whip is getting jiggy with my thigh - they are some big 'ol heavy suckers.

Laptop computers can cause noise when used with the plug-in power supply. Run on a battery it should be fine.

My guess is the shield is connected to only one end with separate hot and ground wires. The best grounding systems use a 'star' system to eliminate ground loops (hum) and I suspect the idea was to connect all of the shielding back to a common point at the amp.

Just a WAG, but it sounds good and I'm sticking with my story! :grin:




.

It definitely was the laptop, I tested it again. It is just strange why the cable plugged in the wrong way eliminated the noise from the OD9 (even happened when the guitar was unplugged from the other end!) I'm really more curious than anything...

Doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter.

It matters to me because I want to understand the technology. There is a minority of posters on this forum that could actually answer the question, and that is who it was directed towards.

It matters to me because I want to understand the technology.

Cband7 nails it above.

There's a saying in the broadcast biz, "Ground ain't ground, the world 'round." If the there's a ground potential difference between two pieces of euipment, and the shield is conneced to at both ends to equipment grounds, current will flow in the shield, and this can induce noise into your signal path.

The practice is to run seperate signal and return wires, and tie the shield to ground at one end only.

Now, all that being said, I don't think it makes any difference in a guitar, because nothing in the guitar is actually grounded, except through the shield.

I am not 100% sure about this, but it is done this same way in guitar amplifiers. Any time you have to have a shielded cable, you only connect the shield at one end. To me, with the guitar cable, it is a little easier to understand. You only want signal coming through the actual center or tip conductor, and you do not want anything coming through the braid or shield. If you don't connect the shield at one end, then any noise that happens to be in that conductor is stopped simply because it is not connected. The deal with the laptop and reversing the cable and why that affected the sound i am not sure of simply because I have never been able to get my head around "ground loops", which I think is what you might have had. Hope this helps but it is just my understanding and I could be totally wrong here!

Ok, I'll add my thoughts/theory/facts. As mentioned if a cable has a separate shield this SHOULD only be terminated at one end. This will be at the point furthest away from the source equiptment - ie, at the amp. The other reasons for cable directionallity is that to create the cable in question, be it either solid core or stranded it is drawn through a die to achieve the correct conductor diameter this forces (in general) for the cables impurities to be alligned and subsiquently causing the 'diodic nodes' of the cable to be equally alligned, thus creating an direction for optimum signal transfer.

Simple... The shield is only connect at one end

In this case, the shield is not acting as a signal conductor, and is connected to ground at only one end. Which end you choose can make a difference in noise.

The quality of the internal signal wires matters much, much, less. They will be common stranded core, and have no directionality - certainly not at audio frequencies, which are extremely low. All that matters is that they are robust and well connected to the jacks.

In this case, the shield is not acting as a signal conductor, and is connected to ground at only one end. Which end you choose can make a difference in noise.

The quality of the internal signal wires matters much, much, less. They will be common stranded core, and have no directionality - certainly not at audio frequencies, which are extremely low. All that matters is that they are robust and well connected to the jacks.

I'll add that the great majority of guitar cables are NOT built like this, and instead use the shield as a conductor. In that case, direction does not matter at all.

In this case, the shield is not acting as a signal conductor, and is connected to ground at only one end. Which end you choose can make a difference in noise.

The quality of the internal signal wires matters much, much, less. They will be common stranded core, and have no directionality - certainly not at audio frequencies, which are extremely low. All that matters is that they are robust and well connected to the jacks.

Sorry - ALL cable will have a directional property regardless of frequency. As someone that has spent many years MAKING the types of cable/s we're talking about, all will exibit these properties to a degree. Yes, there are ways to 'neutralise' these charicteristics, but for these applications it's not worth it.

'diodic nodes'

Well, that's a new one on me. I'm fairly technically competent, and have never heard this term, so I whipped out my Google. Your post made #1, and there was no #2, so I think this is probably a non-issue.

I worked for many years around r.f., and there are, indeed, waveguides that perform differently depending on orientation, but you've got to get into the microwave-to-daylight domain for this to happen. Given the huge wavelengths (A 440 is 2.2 million feet) I can't see how microscopic defects can possibly make an audio cable directional. This sounds like a marketing... erm... 'tool'.:mrgreen:

I don't understand why we don't use mic cables as guitar leads, surely that would be the ultimate quiet cable to use?
Perhaps it solves one problem and creates another?

Well, that's a new one on me. I'm fairly technically competent, and have never heard this term, so I whipped out my Google. Your post made #1, and there was no #2, so I think this is probably a non-issue.

I worked for many years around r.f., and there are, indeed, waveguides that perform differently depending on orientation, but you've got to get into the microwave-to-daylight domain for this to happen. Given the huge wavelengths (A 440 is 2.2 million feet) I can't see how microscopic defects can possibly make an audio cable directional. This sounds like a marketing... erm... 'tool'.:mrgreen:

+1. .A guitar is a hunk of wood, suspended on somebody's lap or through a non-metallic shoulder strap, there is no "ground" on that end. Since essentially, a shield is an RF antenna, to be effective, it needs to bleed "signal" (noise) it picks up to ground. The only ground you've got is through the amp. Although I think the not soldering at one end is pseudo-engineering, if this is done, you definitely need to plug the end that is soldered to the jack, to the amp, thus making the cable "directional".

A term that is not often used in our hobby is "bonding", but is every bit as important as grounding, and is often confused with bonding. One reason hum exists is that various components of the signal chain are at different electrical potentials. Bonding is the method by which these components are tied together to equalize the electrical potential, and help kill the hum. This is oversimplified, but is the essence of it. I question the effectiveness of a guitar cord that has one end of its shielding conductor (external metallic sheath) left intentionally disconnected.

I think Monster is as clever a company as Pet Rocks was, in terms of marketing. They sell millions of $$ worth of way overpriced wire, based on stuff like this, and people's lack of understanding of fundamental electronics.

However, in my case, some of my cables are so old, the electrons in them have all taken a definite grain in the direction they've been plugged in, for so long. Therefore, if you plug them in backwards, you get muddy tone from the electrons trying to flow against the grain they've developed. I'm in the process of patenting a flow-detector, and flow maintainer, which you leave your cables plugged into, so the electron flow can be optimized by the constant directional flow induced by my patented process. The detector is a device by which you can plug in your cable, and it will tell you if the end you have plugged in should be plugged into the amp or into the guitar. I'm looking for investors, if anyone's interested. :mrgreen:

PS-- The last paragraph of the Planet Waves explanation defies known laws of physics. Electricity always seeks the path of least resistance. Their explanation (if the shield is connected to jacks at both ends) means that interference (in the form of electrical signal) can still get through the cable, etc. etc., which means the noise signal will foresake the straight and easy path to ground at the amp through the shielding conductor, and instead, travel through the guitar's circuitry, including capacitors, potentiometers, and pickups, all of which create resistance in the circuit. This just ain't gonna happen, Jack. There may be some other mechanism at work here, but it is not as they describe.

...my patented process.

Let me guess... a PIO cap on the vintage end, and a poly cap on the modern end? :cool:

:lol: You guys are killing me!!! Shielded cables have no preference as to which end goes where. The arrows are a gimmick, pure and simple.

One last time: the shield (if used for this purpose) should be connected at the destination so that any noise be it radio frequency/ magnetic noise or any other interference/parasitic occillations can be drained to earth. If you connect this shield to the source (in this instance the guitar) this will directly be injected into the guitars signal path. FACT. This alone quantifies the argument for shielded cables for directionallity. As previously mentioned there are other reasons too.

Texas special is correct. The shield one way is picking up interference and putting it in the signal path and when connected the other way is sending the interference to ground.

:lol: You guys are killing me!!! Shielded cables have no preference as to which end goes where. The arrows are a gimmick, pure and simple.
These cables are 2 individual conductors PLUS a Shield so they do have a direction in which they should be connected. The shield is attached only on one end which should go to the destination. ie:amp etc. not the source guitar etc.
So actually it is not a gimmick.....End of story.

I don't understand why we don't use mic cables as guitar leads, surely that would be the ultimate quiet cable to use?
Perhaps it solves one problem and creates another?

Actually this is the best cable for guitar applications: 2 conductors that are typically a twisted pair for signal, which will have some natural rejection capabillty to interference and the outer shield (connected at one end of course!) to do the job of shielding. No downsides and probably the most flexible which is good for long time durabillity. If you wanted to push the boat out check the spec's for 'nines', this is the unit of purity for the copper, so more N's the better. Don't go overboard though, remember we ADD distortion and other crap to the signal by choice, so it really doesn't make a blind bit of difference, but can be a good indication of general quallity if the manufacture is prepared to publish those figures.

The correct answer is here, it's just scattered among about four posts.

1) A guitar cable that is constructed of a cable with two conductors (signal and return) plus a shield should have the shield connected to ground only at one end, and that grounded end connected to the amp. This is because the amp input jack has one side grounded, and any induced garbage tends to be drained to ground. This drain is not perfect, but it does help.

2) Most guitar cables are not constructed this way. They are a single conductor (signal) with a shield wrapped around it, and that shield also serves as the return. If a cable of this construction had the shield grounded to the lug only at one end, the cable would not work because there is no return path. This is easy to verify, just unscrew the shell of both plugs and look at the construction.

3) When connecting two unbalanced active devices, such as an amp efx loop to an EQ, two wire shielded cables shoud be used. If you use a single conductor cable (with the shield grounded to the plug at both ends), you run the risk of ground hum. The convention is to orient the cable so the grounded end is at the destination. In practice, if everything is at the same ground potential, and everything is subjected to the same interferance conditions (i.e. in the same rack, or physically close together) it probably won't make much of a difference which way the cable is oriented.

4) Even mic cables are rarely two conductor shielded cables, it seems. I recently tried to find a good quality instrument-type cable that was two conductors with a shield for a stereo output scenario, and found they don't seem to exist.