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The 10 Best Guitar Cables (ULTIMATE BUYERS GUIDE)

In Guides for Guitarists by Jake LLeave a Comment

Last updated on April 3rd, 2020 at 12:50 am

Many guitarists tend to put a higher priority in the guitar and the amplifier when it comes to producing the highest quality tone from their instrument. Something that is often overlooked is guitar cables. You’ll definitely notice a difference between a cheaply made set of guitar cables and a set of high-quality cables. We decided to put together a list of the 10 best guitar cables to help make it easier for every guitarist who’s looking to buy a new set of guitar cables for their arsenal.

Remember that while guitar cables do make a big difference in sound quality, results will vary depending on the type of guitar, condition, and even your amplifier.

Now we’re going to get started and talk about straight guitar cable recommendations first. Keep in mind that these cables are not listed in any particular order.

The Best Straight Guitar Cables

1. Mogami GOLD INSTRUMENT Cable (Best Overall)

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The best overall guitar cable that we would like to recommend in 2019 is the Mogami Gold Instrument Cable. Mogami cables have been a popular choice for professional recording studios for decades now and have been used by many musicians around the world.

This guitar cable from Mogami provides a crystal-clear tone and keeps the background silent when in use with your instrument. It is the guitar cable of choice for the guitarist who is looking for the purest tone as they exhibit amazing clarity. They maintain the unique personality of your instrument and the effects that you use.

There’s definitely a superior difference when you compare this Mogami cable with other “high-quality” cables in the market.

The cable itself has been engineered for the highest level of clarity. It’s known for being one of the most accurate cables available with the widest frequency response. It cancels out any humming or noise and increases the dynamic range of your instrument.

It also comes backed with Mogami’s lifetime guarantee.

Overall, the Gold Instrument Cable from Mogami is a high-quality cable that will provide guitarists with many years of use. If you’re looking for a cable that will produce an accurate, clean, and transparent tone, then the Mogami Gold is the perfect choice for you.

2. Planet Waves American Stage Guitar Cable

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The American Stage Guitar Cable from Planet Waves is another high-quality lead that provides a nice transparent tone. This cable has a nice high-end and mid-range tone while producing very clean bass.

What makes this guitar cable unique is its patented tip design that helps it fit better in all jacks. This ensures a crackle free connection for all of your instruments. These guitar cables are built to endure the rigors of performing on stage. They use a HelioFused soldering technique to provide durable construction.

This soldering technique offers powerful strain relief without sacrificing any tone from your cable and instrument. The American Stage cable is made up of a 95% tinned copper braid and a conductive PVC under jacket. This provides an electromagnetic interference rejection, making this cable flexible and sturdy. This design helps to deliver the purest possible signal transfer.

Overall, the American Stage Guitar Cable is a great choice for gigging and recording guitarists who are looking for a durable cable that produces a nice transparent tone.

3. Rig Ninja Guitar Cable by NINJAMUSO

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The Rig Ninja Guitar Cables from NINJAMUSO are high-quality cables that come at a classic vintage style. Its woven cloth exterior design eliminates kinks and twists helping you have a tangle-free experience. Its stylishly woven cloth exterior adds the classic vintage appeal while helping reduce wear and tear when you bring them on the road.

The solder connections are gold-plated and heavy-duty providing you with complete confidence in the connectivity of your instrument. The PVC sleeve extending from the plug protects the cable and reduces any strain on the plug connections.

The cable is 7mm in diameter and is made of oxygen-free copper core.

NINJAMUSO focused on making their guitar cables produce a nice tone. They call it the “Sweet Spot”, the perfect spot for the capacitance, coming in at about 27pF/ft. This means you’ll get that clean, clear, uncolored tone from your instrument and amp.

These guitar cables come with a limited lifetime warranty giving you a little more of peace of mind if you wanted to try out the Rig Ninja guitar cables.

Overall, another great set of guitar cables that any guitarist would love, especially if they’re looking for something with a nice classic vintage look.

4. Red Dragon Instrument Cable 

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The next set of guitar cables that makes our list are the Red Dragon Instrument Cables from AMBOZ CABLES. These cables have a high-quality braided tweed jacket design, making its construction more tough and reliable. With its unique combination of textile structure and PE insulation, you will find that these cables are tangle-free when you move around with them while playing.

The Red Dragon guitar cables produce a clean and pure sound due to its low capacitance design. These cables cut out interference coming from wireless devices and electric currents, keeping your cables silent (no humming or background noise) while an inside PVC layer helps prevent “crackling” noises. You’ll experience uninterrupted performances using these cables. The connectors are also hand soldered, ensuring optimum connectivity when in use.

These guitar cables are also backed by AMBOZ’s lifetime guarantee, giving you more peace of mind if you wanted to try out the Red Dragon cables.

Overall a very solid guitar cable that we recommend you check out. It produces a nice tone and has a very high-quality build. As a bonus, the “Red Dragon” name sounds pretty cool and will definitely be catching people’s attention.

5. Kirlin Cable IWB-202PFGL-20/OL 

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Another popular guitar cable, the IWB-201BSG-20 from Kirlin is a great lead that provides a nice quality sound. These guitar cables produce a crisp, accurate sound and have a good build quality with a tweed woven jacket design. You will find that these guitar cables are great for both stage and studio use as they provide a flat response across the frequency spectrum. They’re great for any genre of music and the sound clarity is excellent.

These cables are made with four protective layers that serve to protect the cable from wear and tear while maintaining pure sound quality. These cables utilize a 20 AWG gauge wire that enhances the durability of these cables. Kirlin really found a balance at making their guitar cables both strong and reliable. You also have multiple options to choose from as these guitar cables come in different color themes.

If you’re a guitarist who’s looking for a nice premium-quality guitar cable with many color options, the IWB-202PFGL-20 guitar cables from Kirlin are an excellent choice.

6. Fender Performance Series Instrument Cables

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The Performance Series Instrument Cables from Fender are great guitar cables that offer high-quality sound and rugged construction for durability, all at an affordable price. These cables have an ultra-flexible design that helps prevent any kinking and cable memory. It has an extra thick 8mm diameter cable for extra durability while the connector is encased by a PVC cover for additional reinforcement. The PVC jacket on this cable gets rid of any unwanted pops and clicks.

These guitar cables produce a natural reproduction of tone with no noise, thanks to the spiral copper shield that is utilized. If you ever run into any cable malfunctions, don’t worry as these cables come with Fender’s limited lifetime warranty

Overall, a great set of guitar cables that hold up the standard of high-quality.

7. GLS Audio 20 Foot Guitar Instrument Cable (Budget Choice)

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If you’re a guitarist looking for a lower-budget guitar cable that still produces a nice tone, then the GLS Audio guitar cable is the one for you. With its braided tweed cloth design, this guitar cable is super durable, flexible, and is easy to keep track of. You won’t get it mixed up with the people you are performing with due to its unique design. The fabric coating also helps minimize twisting and bending while the velcro wraps that come with the cable keeps everything together when stored in your bag.

This guitar cable produces a nice clean tone with no static or noise from electrical interference. It won’t produce the most professional and high-quality sound ever, but for the price, these cables are amazing. These cables definitely outshine other cables in the same price range when it comes to tone and quality. They are definitely great starter guitar cables that can give guitarist many years of use.

Overall, the GLS Audio Guitar Cables are the best budget guitar cables for any guitarist shopping for something in a lower price range.

Best Coiled Guitar Cables

The last three-guitar cables that we are going to talk about are all coiled guitar cables. Coiled guitar cables were very popular choices back in the 60s and the 70s. They started receiving a lot of criticism for being less reliable than straight cables.

Luckily, companies were able to improve coiled guitar cables in this day and age. There are now a lot of great choices for any guitarists who are looking into trying out coiled guitar cables instead of straight cables. Here are the coiled cables that we recommend to you in 2019.

8. GLS Audio 20 Curly Guitar Cable

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The Audio 20 Curly Guitar Cable from GLS is an excellent coiled guitar cable that has a good build quality and feels very solid. It’s a very durable set of cables and is flexible. These cables have very low capacitance, producing a nice quality tone when used with your guitar.

GLS double shields their guitar cables with conductive PVC and an OFC insulator shield.

These coiled guitar cables are labeled as being 20ft. in length, however, it usually maxes out at around 10ft. when stretched out. It is possible for you to stretch it out to the maximum 20ft. but it will require you to break the cables in with more use.

Overall, this coiled guitar cable from GLS is a very good option. You get a high-quality coiled guitar cable that is built to last at a very affordable price.

9. Fender Hendrix Voodoo Child Cable

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The Hendrix Voodoo Child cable from fender is the premium choice for coiled guitar cables that we would like to recommend to you. It comes in 3 different color options (Purple, Black, and White), with their design taking inspiration from world-famous guitarist, Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix was known for his unique style and usage of coiled guitar cables, popularizing them back in the 60s.

The cable has an OFC copper-stranded braided shield that provides incredible sound quality and improved frequency balanced while being enclosed inside a 95% copper shield and a 6.5mm PVC jacket. This build helps reduce noise interference, maintaining a quiet and clean tone. The cable also maxes out at 30ft. but just keep in mind that you might have to break it in to reach that maximum stretch.

Both the Fender Pancake right-angle plug and jumbo plug straight end connectors ensure that this cable will maintain a stable connection, while also having that true vintage look.

Overall a great set of premium coiled guitar cables that produces a very clear and transparent tone. It never tangles and the build quality is top-notch. You’re definitely getting a higher quality set of coiled guitar cables that are very aesthetically pleasing.

Definitely worth buying if you have some extra money to spend on your guitar cable budget.

10. PW-CDG-30BK From D’Addario Accessories (Warmer Sound)

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The PW-CDG-30BK from D’Addario Accessories is the last set of coiled guitar cables that we would like to recommend to you. While it has vintage look, these coiled guitar cables also produce more of a warm vintage sound, dampening the brightness of your guitar. You will find that these coiled cables utilize nickel-plated plugs for optimal signal transfer. These cables have a higher total capacitance compared to straight cables of the same length since it requires extra cable length to produce its coiled effect.

The higher capacitance is what produces that slightly warmer tone, but it does retain the dynamics of your playing. It does a great job at taming high frequencies of instruments with passive single-coil or humbucking pick-ups.

These coiled guitar cables also operate quietly due to its coaxial oxygen-free copper conductor with two layers of noise-rejecting shielding. It has superior strain relief, making it a high-performance cable. The cables max out at 30ft in length. Again it may require some breaking into if you want to acquire the maximum stretch.

You also can have peace of mind when purchasing these cables as they come backed with a Lifetime Warranty.

Overall, another great coiled guitar cable for any guitarist looking for more of a warmer sound.

Final Thoughts

Well, there you have it, the 10 best guitar cables that we would recommend you checking out in 2019. All of the guitar cables that we have mentioned in this list are of high-quality and are definitely worth it. Again, every guitarist, guitar, and set-up is different. You might notice a significant difference between each guitar cable for your instrument.

We hope this list has helped you find the perfect set of guitar cables for you and your instrument.

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