Ernie Ball instrument cables 1/4" Jack plugs - A comparison

[Vdude]

Greetings!

I need to say, I wished for some Ernie Ball cables for some time, seeing them being used by so many people who promote stuff, clearly I've been influenced by smart product placement, but I'm not criticizing that. I wanted the cables. Seemed like good quality cables. Ok.

Amidst some mild criticism around Ernie Ball products and its quality, I paid no attention to it and bought one to try. Lo and behold, I'm having problems with it out of the box. Lol. So, I plugged the cable to my guitar, and to my tuner, which is the first pedal in my signal chain. Had signal drops, typical of a bad cable, loose solders, etc. I check the plugs, check the solders, everything seemed fine at a glance, properly made cable, connections protected by sleeve, everything good! I try again the cable and same problem persists. I experiment all my other cables, and every other cable I have works fine. Hmmm... I start to wonder, and expand my troubleshooting routine.

I start testing the cable on different devices, and found that it works perfectly on some combination of my devices, between amps, guitars, pedals, too many to mention all my troubleshooting steps, but hey, the cable is fine, it just doesn't like most of my devices, which are mainly, ENGL and Laney amps, Ehx, Digitech, Fortin, TC, Maxon, CatalinBread pedals, Charvel, Schecter, Esp, Fender guitars, etc.

My Ernie Ball cable has a problem in that "it doesn't seem to like" 90% of my devices, and doesn't connect properly, and I found out why. So this is my *new* Ernie Ball cable, pretty sexy cable I might say. It doesn't connect properly! But it is sexy, with those pink tip sleeves and velcro strap to coil the cables:

And this is the plug. Look closely at the tip of the plug.

These are some of my other cables, including some patch cables. I have lots more, but these will suffice for this demonstration. Hey, I work in AV, I know how to coil a cable. No sexy velcro straps on these though... Still, these are personal so, no problem in "looking unprofessional to a client".

Let's compare plugs! So this is each plug of some cable compared to your/Ernie Ball's plug:


Okay, first is a really old angled cable with "poor" quality Rean plugs that still works properly and used almost everyday. Has been soldered many times. The rest of them are cables/patches, standard quality, some are standard Thomann (Cordial, Ssnake?) brand, the flat one is actually some fancy brand patch cable that I can't read anymore since it's worn out from the plug. The cable works, though! Here's more!



Oh my, are these Neutrik plugs? Yes, they are.

So, you probably know where I'm getting at by now. The plugs from my fancy Ernie Ball cable have a really flat tip that doesn't properly connect to the devices. The cable is fine in itself. The plugs are not! Or are they? What is the standard? In some devices, if I push the plug a bit further in, proper contact is made and signal goes through, but I only have 2 arms and I use both of them to play guitar, I can't grow a third arm to keep forcing the plug in so it properly fits its receptacle.


So, what gives? What makes this cable cost more than 30€? I could have bought 2 Neutrik plugs and meters of good quality cable for 20€. This one costs more than 30€ and doesn't connect properly because the machine that's making these plugs isn't properly calibrated?

Sorry for the sarcasm but I was scratching my head for some time trying to figure out what was wrong with this cable...

You might say "oh, it's all your other cables that are poorly made and the receptacles of your devices got molded to them overtime and now our properly made cable doesn't work in your setup".

Sorry, but no.

 

[DrKev]

Moderators here are not in the habit of deleting or editing critical posts and this one will be no exception. However, due to its length I will immediately respond and then lock the thread from further comment, while leaving it public. Please note the following observations...

The contact inside the device that connects to the signal from the tip of the cable is a kind of spring clip with a V bend in it. As the cable is inserted, the contact it is initially pushed outwards by the head of the cable tip and then "springs" back into position, the V bend making making positive contact under tension with at least one point on the WAIST of the tip, NOT the pointed head of the tip. It's a smart design that allows for some variation in dimensions and shape with no effect on function and gives resistance to movement and vibration. As a result, the flatter shape of the top of tip of the connector (which I confirm is what I see on my own Ernie Ball instrument cables) is completely irrelevant to the quality of the electrical contact. I doubt it's the cause of Vdude's issue.

To answer Vdude's situation directly, I doubt there are issues with their other equipment. It's not the tip of the connector causing it as they suggest but I do think they may have a faulty EB cable. In every brand in every industry of anything at all, there is always a small percentage of warranty returns and Ernie Ball are no exception. This is why warranties and customer service exist.

If you have trouble with an EB cable that is not replicated with other cables you own, contact the retailer you bought it from, have them verify the fault and replace it under warranty. If you are in the US, you can also contact Ernie Ball customer service directly.

Ernie Ball cables have been on the market for about 4 1/2 years now (announced May 2018). The overall response is very positive and they have sold shed loads of them. If there were prior complaints here on the forum, I honestly cannot remember a single one. Certainly, even if my memory fails me, they are very few. I do know that Ernie Ball have a great team of engineers and a great customer service team who take care to log and track reported issues with their gear so any problems can be caught and corrected. And many of the biggest retailers track that information too. If there was a fundamental issue that somehow escaped them in design, Ernie Ball would certainly have known by now and have corrected it.

I will also point out that I and many other forum members use these cables with zero issues at all. I have both EB instrument cables and their flat patch cables on my pedal board since they came out. I have other cables brands too (Planet Waves and Klotz) but the EB cables are the ones I use every single day. That's about 4 years with no issues. What gear have I used with them? MXR, Mojo Hand, Xotic, Laney, Mesa Boogie, Mackie, TC Electrionic, Keeley, Peterson, Strymon, NUX, Mooer, Danelectro pedals, and Yamaha, Fender, Gibson, Harley Benton, Gretsch, Ibanez instruments and of course my own Music Man and Sterling by Music Man instruments.

So to anyone reading and wondering, do not let internet heresay and one report here of a single cable scare you off. You can buy with confidence safe in the knowledge that warranty issues are rare and that you will be taken care of if there is an issue.

Thanks.
K.