wanted belden 8410

[jrobel]

I want to find about 30 or 40 feet of belden 8410 coax to make my own cords, I wont screw myself buying boutique cords.

[doctor]

I want to find about 30 or 40 feet of belden 8410 coax to make my own cords, I wont screw myself buying boutique cords.

You can purchase it from Mouser minimum 500 feet (Mouser p/n 8410 010500).
If you want only 30-40 feet, try to address to Belden distributor in your country.

I personally do not think that you really need this special (52 Ohm impedance)
coax for audio purposes (see attached datasheets).

[jrobel]

Thanks Doctor, for the reply. What I am looking for is the best bulk cable I can get my hands on to make guitar cords. Any recomendations?

[doctor]

Thanks Doctor, for the reply. What I am looking for is the best bulk cable I can get my hands on to make guitar cords. Any recomendations?

If you want to assemble guitar cables by your hands, you can use any shielded
flexible low inductance and low capacitance cable (for example Belden 8441).

But if you want to have really quality cables, it is preferable to purchase them.
There are many types and lengths from many manufacturers (see for
example 49 Guitar Cables at All Price Points, Tested By Art Thompson and Matt Blackett ).

[Jazz P Bass]

I do not think there is a "best".
There are trade offs, as in any thing else.
The tone snobs are going to murder you on the capacitance.
The stage hands want cable that will not pick up noise if moved on the stage.
And all of the cables will break from flexing.

[Ronsonic]

The 8410 is what we used back in the day. Being the 21st Century and all Mogami and Canare are the preferred sources. Like Belden they make excellent, no BS cable for our purposes.

Even building yourself, it's hard to beat guys like Whirlwind for assembled guitar cables.

Anyway, Belden, Mogami and Canare are all good; mate them with Neutrik or Switchcraft ends and you're good.

[Mark Hammer]

The last time I was in a band (which is over 30 years ago), we bought a spool of 8410, and a whack of Switchcraft plugs, and made our own cables. I'm still using some of them, though they have grown ever shorter, one trim and re-solder at a time. Hardy stuff, though.

Apart from physical things like ruggedness, weight, ability to survive twisting and turn corners, the quality of cable you need will be a function of the context on which it is being used. 8410 has a nice low capacitance, but if you're feeding it from a decent buffer, that becomes less of an issue. Likewise, if you're looking to make a bunch of short-length cables, the demands are probably less than those for a 20-footer.

[km6xz]

The best answers would be based on application. Are this cables for instrument to amp, studio, stage, lengths etc impact the best choice. For stage use something with a nylon overbraid will coil better and resist abrasion wear. The outer braiding also reduces microphonics
Long life and low capacitance are two terms that do not go together. You can't have both in the same cable but there are some good compromises. The reason low cap cable is less durable is that the center conductor has to be smaller and more centered in the shield, so by necessity is less flexible. Capacitance is a function of surface area of the two plate( the center wire and the shield) and separation. Unless a shield is a lot further away from the center conductor, the only option is to make the center conductor smaller in diameter. Look at low capacitance instrument cable such as oscilloscope probe cable, the inner conductor is so small you might not be able to see it unless using a magnifying lens.
The quality of the sheath is very important in durability. Silicone rubber is best for abrasion resistance and flexibility but expensive. PVC is most often used because it is easy to work with, is cheap and is pretty flexible when warm. It becomes stiff in cold conditions however. A good cost and appearance compromise is PVC sheath covered with a highly flexible abrasion resistance woven braid cover. The cover does increase the diameter of the cable so working with standard connectors might be harder.
Connectors used to mean "Switchcraft" for decades, which were generally fine and modestly priced. But they had a weakness, the center connection tab to the tip conductor was connected by swedging the end of the tip rod over the solder tab. With use, that mechanical connection Always gets intermittent unless soldered and rechecked a few times a year. Neutrik came up with a ultra simple solution, a single piece tip rod that has a solder cup at the shell end. The connection, if soldered well is permanent. Lots of companies are using a variation in that.
Overall, the reliability of a stage cable is 95% due to the craftsmanship of the person putting the connectors on. If you are good and conscientious the cable will be a reliable tool for years. Do a typical job and it will be junk in weeks regardless of the cable used.
Here is an outfit that sells braided sheath cable with moderately low capacitance:
Best-Tronics Mfg., Inc.: GUITAR

There is a lot of talk of low capacity cables being worth their boutique prices. That is usually myth. Capacitance is not a factor in tone, yes high fequencies can be attenuated if the impedance of the pickup and direct to tube grid is very high. But the effect is predicable at a constant rate of attenuation, which means a passive treble control will have a reciprocal boost rate of about 6 db per octave. Cable high frequency attenuation and passive tone circuits can compensate for each other beautifully. Active tone circuits can be 12-18 db per octave so takes listening to figure out the amount of boost to use, it will not be much, a 10% position change max.

[Steve Conner]

There is a lot of talk of low capacity cables being worth their boutique prices. That is usually myth. Capacitance is not a factor in tone, yes high fequencies can be attenuated if the impedance of the pickup and direct to tube grid is very high. But the effect is predicable at a constant rate of attenuation, which means a passive treble control will have a reciprocal boost rate of about 6 db per octave. Cable high frequency attenuation and passive tone circuits can compensate for each other beautifully. Active tone circuits can be 12-18 db per octave so takes listening to figure out the amount of boost to use, it will not be much, a 10% position change max.

Well, I agree with everything else, but this is wrong.

The capacitance of the cable resonates with the inductance of the pickups, to form a 12dB/octave low-pass filter with a resonant peak.

The Q varies depending on the setting of the volume control, and the input impedance of the amp. The resonant frequency varies depending on the pickup selector setting, and any coil taps you might select. The guitar tone knob affects both the resonant frequency and the Q.

You can compensate it, but you need another 12dB/octave filter. I think there is a pedal on the market that does it, or maybe I'm getting confused with DTAR's "Mama Bear" DSP thing. The math behind it is what speaker designers call the "Linkwitz transform".

The "engineery" solution is a FET or op-amp buffer inside the guitar, and a little capacitor before it to resonate the pickups at your favourite frequency. Then you can use any cable and it'll sound the same. I don't bother: I make my own cables, and I know I like 600-750pF, so I can arrange for them to end up about that capacitance.

Since I discovered Neutrik connectors, I've never had a cable end fail. I had a few leads that went open about 4ft from the guitar end, where they trail on the ground and get trodden on.

One disadvantage of Neutriks is, being made of solid brass, they're so strong that if you tread on the cable, it can crack the top of your guitar.

[km6xz]

The second order resonate circuit formed by the coil, coil capacitance, pot and capacitor do in deed for a theoretical 12 db per octave peaking filter, but that neglects two additional factors, the eddy current contribution which steepens that slope, and that the cable which forms a first order hi-pass filter at 6 db per octave at a resonate frequency far down the slope of the second order peaking filter where it has little impact on the peaking filter's center frequency or Q, which is mostly determined by the pot and coil resistance. Doing sweeps of pickups with magnetic loops confirms the minor contribution of a reasonable cable capacitance unless it is so high of value that the low pass knee is further up the 18 db/octave slope. That occur with very high capacitance cable and a very low Q of the second order filter. Neither case is seen in competent pick up designs and tone circuits from my experience. The effect of the cable alone can be seen in plots varying only cable length and tends to support the -6db per octave effect at frequencies above Fmax of the second order filter.
For consistent sound a buffer, as you suggest is a very good idea, the noise floor drops, cable differences are diminished and longer runs are possible. During the 70s I set up a number of bass rigs with balanced line circuits that reduced noise and the roll off associated with long runs. I needed to characterize pickups and basses at the time for designing a different style bass amp. The measurements deviated from accepted theory of the time that I went on to test dozens of guitar pickups in different guitar configurations.

[Steve Conner]

I still think the cable capacitance affects the resonant frequency.
PSPICE Modeling of Guitar Circuits with Effects of the Instrument Cable

However, he used Tele bridge pickups for his simulation, and has only a brief investigation of humbuckers, with the following interesting note:

The peak barely exists. This means that reasonable cable length variations will have little effect on the response.

If you have any results that contradict the above, feel free to post them.