Pamparo in Toronto

Thanks to forums such as The Gear Page, every little thing that is within the flow of electricity from the guitar to the speaker has to be evaluated and even argued heavily at times. One hot topic right now is the concept of cable impedance and how it impacts the “tone” or “sonic quality” of the whole rig.

So what is “impedance”? Well, according to Wikipedia, it …

describes a measure of opposition to alternating current (AC). Electrical impedance extends the concept of resistance to AC circuits, describing not only the relative amplitudes of the voltage and current, but also the relative phases. When the circuit is driven with direct current (DC) there is no distinction between impedance and resistance; the latter can be thought of as impedance with zero phase angle.

Yeah, I got lost a little bit, too! And I have an engineering degree for crying out loud! Believe me, I’ve studied this before but never thought that it will ever come back to me later on in life and would manifest itself in a practical application … such is life. So kids, make sure you listen to your teachers!

Instead of me trying to explain this to you, I will let the “experts” out there on the net that has a better of understanding of these things nowadays …

Here’s a great article that explains how impedance relates to guitar players:
- http://www.moollon.com/techntip/impedance_e.asp

Here’s another link and it’s more of a marketing spiel:
- http://www.aqdi.com/cablecap.htm

It’s good to know some of these things but in the end, music is music. It’s either good or bad … let’s just try to make good music!