GLUED HEAT SHRINK VS UNGLUED HEAT SHRINK GUITAR CABLES
From: Shootout Guitar Cables UK • Best Guitar Cables Explained
See also: The Shootout Guitar Cables Range
One of the biggest problems with guitar cables can occur at the terminations where the cable wires are soldered to the jack plugs.
Once the cable has been prepared and stripped for soldering the shield wires and signal wires are no longer supported with the tensile resistance of the insulation and outer jacket and also rely upon the solder joint strength which even with a good join is not such a ductile metal composition like pure copper. Additionally if there is any play in one of the two compared to the other then just one will take the strain.
For this reason jack plugs have some methods of 'clamping' the cable for strain relief, however both the clamp wings found on traditional barrel jack plugs and the grips provided on more modern versions which compress grips onto the cable are easily found to be inneffective under significant tensile pulling by testing them with an unsoldered cable. The cable simply pulls through and their strain relief capabilities are thus minimal and also highly variable i.e. clamp wings can't be made too tight as they will damage the cable, and the compression screw down type rely on cable size being correct and again cannot exert so much pressure as to damage the cable significantly.
So along comes heat shrink and a long length of the thin stuff with a big logo is certainly useful for marketing, but give the cable a yank and it makes very little difference as an additional strain relief, the cable easily pulls through using the unsoldered test method. Purpose? Mainly aesthetic and for marketing, displaying those logos! Perhaps these cable assemblers don't care if their cables fail more quickly than they need to.
Few people realise how easy it is to pull an unsoldered cable through the jack housing, as it doesn't usually cross a guitarist's mind to desolder and destruction test their new gear! We have, so you don't have to!
The answer? There is only one, and it is how we make our cables. High performance glued heatshrink. Properly done and the heat shrink completely stops the outer jacket of the cable from being pulled through the jack cavity meaning that the full tensile strength of the outer jacket is now also a strain relief, in addition to the clamping. It's the only way to 100% maximally strain relief a guitar cable, and although it takes more time to make the cables, it's what we do here at Shootout on all of our cables, one way or another.
SHOOTOUT! 'Black Powder' guitar cable showing glued halogen free high performance heat shrink 100% maximally effective strain relief over high definition G&H solid copper core jack plug.
SHOOTOUT! 'Gun Smoke'guitar cable showing glued halogen free high performance heat shrink 100% maximally effective strain relief over high definition G&H solid copper core jack plug.
SHOOTOUT! 'Shooting Jacket' guitar cable showing glued halogen free high performance heat shrink under jack to retain the traditional vintage look.
We will only ever sell guitar cables and other products that we would be happy to buy ourselves. We wouldn't expect anything less, and we think neither should you! We make what we believe to be the best guitar cables in the world. Available to buy internationally on eBay now.
Also in this guide:
Guitar Cable Capacitance and Resonant Frequency
Guitar Cable Capacitance Chart
Guitar Cable Length and Signal Loss
Guitar Cable Myths and The Cable Fairy
Braided vs Spiral vs Foil Guitar Cable Shielding
Guitar Cable Microphonics and the Triboelectric Effect
True Bypass Pedals vs Buffered Pedals
Silver Plated Copper Cables and 'Red Plague' Galvanic Corrosion
Gold Plated Guitar Cable Jacks and Galvanic Corrosion
Guitar Cables vs Guitar Pedal Board Patch Cables
Analogue Guitar Cables vs WIFI
Low Capacitance vs High Capacitance Guitar Cables
Oxygen Free Copper Guitar Cables
Cheap vs Midrange vs Expensive Guitar Cables