Acoustic Instrument cables

I haven't used them.  It sounds like a gimmick to me.

Hi,  I'll toss in a little info for you all to chew on, but it is up to you what you decide works best for you.

Generally speaking you would prefer to have a cable of the purest copper and lowest impedance that is affordable IF you are using a passive pickup.... something like a K&K tranducer, or piezoelectric.  Active or magnetics toss out a stronger signal (like on an electric guitar) and those with on-board preamps than inductive microphone types.

Cables advertised as "Lo-Z" are referring to "Z" as the resistance of the conductor usually measured over a 100 foot run of length.  In keeping with the desire to have the least "line loss" over a distance (especially over 25 feet) you might consider kicking down a few bucks more for a cable with a high strand count in the conductor itself.  But you really have to check the specs of the wire to see what you are getting.  It used to be that you could tell by how "supple" the wire is, but a well shielded cable might seem stiff even though it has a great core.  Trying to come up with a good example.... ever buy a "cheap" set of jumper cables for your car?  they are stiff and have very few strands of conductor in the wire compared to the "better" ones which have something like 60 strands of smaller wires in them.  The bargain brand gets hot in use and the better ones don't.... heat is a product of resistance in an electrical wire.  The more strands the less resistance under load over a given distance.

The less current you are generating at your source (ie: pickup) the more important it is to get as much of that signal to your amplifier as possible.  But we are talking about a signal that we are going to amplify anyway, so some loss is acceptable except that you stand a good chance of losing some of the signal that carries specific frequencies.....  ie: sound frequencies.

Shielding is another matter to consider, as external noise introduced to the core by transient RF or even coiling the excess cable can degrade the signal.

As to the question of "is an acoustic cable better than a good quality electric guitar cable?", electrically I don't think it matters.  But it might be a way of the manufacturer to wring a few more dollars out of a customer.  Do your shopping and look for a pure copper high strand count well shielded wire in your price range, and you should be good up to 25 feet.

Thanks for the read...
Take Care;
Doug

Glad to be of use Gerald.  Just for chuckles awhile back my jammin' buddy Jeff plugged his Ibenez A/E into my powered mixer using a 50 foot XLR microphone cable (Ibenez has both 1/4" TS and XLR plugs aboard).  That feeds out to a pair of large PA speakers sporting 12" mains, horns, and 3" tweets.....  mic cables are pretty good quality and very well grounded and shielded, sounds incredible!  Loud enough to be painful without a hint of hiss or distortion.... 120 watts of pure acoustic noise! (I didn't say he could play that good did I? and he's a lefty not that there's anything wrong with that)

A little experimentation can be a good thing.

Doug

i dont like the sound of acoustic instrument cables . so never used them .