Difference between patch cable and instrument cable

The ground wire is either twisted or braided around the signal wire in order to shield the signal wire from waves in the air that add unwanted noise to the signal.

The longer an instrument cable, the more susceptible they are to picking up interference. The shorter the better. Speaker cable is designed to carry an amplified signal over short or long distances. Speaker cables have 2 wires in them.

They are both the same thickness and type of wire. One wire is positive, the other is negative. There is no shielding on speaker cables. Shielding is not needed because the signal traveling through speaker cable is amplified. The strength of the signal is way higher than line level. Using one in place of the other can have unpleasant effects ranging from merely annoying interference to outright equipment failure.

Your instrument cable is low power and high impedance. Its small, lightweight wire size is good for cable flexibility it needs to follow you around onstage, remember , and the shielding prevents much of the noisy external electromagnetic interference that low-power signals are susceptible to.

Your speaker cable, on the other hand, is just the opposite — high power and low impedance. Unlike the instrument cable, it has not one but two wire conductors, both with a relatively large diameter in order to allow greater signal flow from amp to speakers.

If you reduce the size of that pipe, you restrict the flow of water to the other end. The construction is fairly simple. It consists of a copper core coated with polyester or rubber, with nickel, gold, or other metal connectors. The key difference between instrument and speaker cables are instrument cables are shielded with much smaller wires and speaker cables are unshielded with larger wire gauges.

Since an instrument cable is used to connect your instrument to the amplifier in a high impedance environment, shielding is essential. Speaker cables do not need shielding since the signal from your amp is so large and the impedance of your speaker is so low, that any additional RF noise and outside interference will be insignificant.

Using a speaker cable in place of an instrument cable will add a lot of unwanted noise to your setup. Not to exclude the lighting system, cell phones and those cool beer neon signs hanging all around the bar. Using an instrument cable in place of your speaker cable can cause catastrophic damage to your amplifier.

Furthermore, this may cause a short, damaging your amplifier. Another issue with using shielded cables for speaker cables is they introduce a capacitive element that can destabilize your amplifier. This can cause some crazy results in some amps leaving it damaged and you paying the repair bill. If this is the case, simply unscrew an end of it. A speaker cable has two independent wires, one connected to the tip and one to the sleeve.