Ok This is Bugging Me

[CharvelRocker]

This has been bugging me. Why the hell cant one use an unstrument cable to link their cab and line6 head? I've done it for like 3 months now as when I bought it I didnt have a speaker cable. I know a friend who has doen so for 3 years. Likewise it was recommended as a short term solution to me by a guy who has been in the guitar buiness for 40+ years. Figured I'd ask ehre as the peopel here I can trust, unlike some other forums *cough*

EDIT: Nevermind, I used the search feature as an after thought. But what damage exactly could it do

[mab8485]

It could blow your amp head. Instrument cables arent designed to handle the power involved when a cab is connected to a head. You need to use speaker cables.

Much more often than not, you'll get away with using an instrument cable without any incident. But to me, the risk just isn't worth it.

[jgcable]

Consider you and your friend lucky. Using an instrument cable does a few things.
1. It hurts your sound.
2. It hurts your amp... especially if its a tube amp.
3. It could act like an antenna and introduce all kinds of noise into your tone.. including local radio stations and 60hz hum.

[CharvelRocker]

Consider you and your friend lucky. Using an instrument cable does a few things.
1. It hurts your sound.
2. It hurts your amp... especially if its a tube amp.
3. It could act like an antenna and introduce all kinds of noise into your tone.. including local radio stations and 60hz hum.

I guess what I cant understand is how exactly it hurts the amp. Not saying its not true. And the funny thing is I bought a monster speaker cable today and I've barely noticed a change in sound from my Live Wire cable I had been using, hence why I brought this up.

[Cleveland Metal]

Well, I recently made a mistake and used an instrument cable on my PA speaker, and it was shutting the amp that ran that side down (overload status) under loud volumes and that amp was running REALLY hot in comparision to the other side. So, off the top of my head, I'll figure it's impedance related. Didn't give much issue till the PA got up in volume.

I'd imagine it would not be tonally noticable at low volume, but I figure it would surely mess up a tube amp output transformer.

[soc_monki]

using an instrument cable is bad...mmkay? ive never done it, but i know of one person who has and he blew his speakers (bass amp/cab btw). so it can blow the amp or the speakers if youre not careful. i know another guy who is doing the same thing and has been lucky so far, and since hes in the military he isnt using his stuff at the moment, but its only a matter of time if the stuff gets used.

use a speaker cable...you may be lucky for a while, but it will catch up to you sooner or later im sure! especially if you use high volumes a lot.

[Fragle]

former bandmate used friggin patch cables to connect his marshall tsl (a supposedly *unreliable* amp....) to the cabs like since he bought the damn thing (which is a few years ago as of right now), without any single problem.
actually, to make things worse, he ran the marshall set to 8 ohms into 2 marshall cabs set to 4 ohms each...putting a 2 ohm load on an 8 ohm taper. nice job, huh? well, i can assure you his amp sounded pretty damn good for what it was (marshall tsl mind you )

[CharvelRocker]

Thanks for the help all.

[Cleveland Metal]

Well, I dont think my amps were overloading and shutting down on their own, and when I put the right cable back, it was fine again.. Seems to be a connection there. haha..

Surprised he didnt kill that Marshall fast.

It's hard to tell when a TSL sounds worse than they normally do anyways, hehe...

[Joe_Steeler]

Instrument cables are smaller gauge wire than speaker cables. Since the electrical signal between the guitar and amp is so small.
However, the signal between the amp and the speaker cab is larger so a larger gauge wire is needed.
If the instrument cable between the amp head and the speaker cab shorts out, due to continuous overloading and temperature rise, you will have a dead short directly on the secondary of the output transformer.
If the fuses don't react fast enough, you will damage the transformer.

There is more to it than that, but that is it in a nutshell.

[Firebird V]

It's hard to tell when a TSL sounds worse than they normally do anyways, hehe...

LMAO!