Hello there, welcome back to yet another cool instrument cables comparison article! This time we will be looking at Ernie Ball, Cordial and Shnoor instrument cable comparison in a blind test fashion.
Table of Contents
My regular visitors are probably aware that I love comparing guitar accessories as I believe it gives a nice and solid impression of how particular products yield results under the same conditions.
Check out all the content that falls under “A/B Audio Tests” here
For those who have never heard of these brands mentioned at the beginning of this article, here’s a quick introduction.
Ernie Ball is an American company that mainly focuses on guitar/bass-related accessories such as guitar/bass/ukulele strings, straps, instrument cables, and various effect pedals. The cable I will be featuring is the Ernie Ball instrument cable which is one of the best sellers guitar cables by the company. Best Tools For Guitars at Stewmac.com
I already released an article on this particular cable and even did a comparison against my Shnoor cable.
Check out Ernie Ball Instrument Cable (Braided) Review & Blind Test article here
Shnoor cables is a Russian company mainly focusing on audio/instrument cables. I was lucky enough to meet them in person at the 2017 Frankfurt Musikmesse exhibition and they were kind enough to give away an instrument cable so I could try it.
I have been using the Shnoor IC124 JMEJME cable without an issue. Also, check out the blind test that I did for that cable against the Ernie Ball instrument cable via the link above. I must say they are pretty solid and can be easily compared to industry-standard cables by those big brands!
Last but not least, my recent favourite cable brand! Cordial cables is a German company that focuses on all sorts of cables one could imagine. So if you ever need a very specific cable for a very specific scenario, Cordial will probably have it in their catalogue already
Recently, I have been using their Cordial CSI 6 PP Silent cable with Neutrik connectors. Very solid, excellent-sounding cables, all made in Germany!
Check out my Cordial CSI 6 PP Silent 6m Instrument Cable review here
As you can see, I’m comparing three different instrument cables with slightly different specs. I believe many people will think that I shouldn’t be comparing these against each other as one of them has Neutrik connectors, 6m long. The others are short in length and feature different connectors
But I just take these as a simple side-by-side comparison of three different products that are supposed to do the same job! So please don’t get offended by the simplicity. Check out the best guitar pickup company, Seymour Duncan here!
In this video, I have used my Fender American Standard Stratocaster, Epiphone SG Custom Ebony, ENGL E570 and ENGL Cabloader and directly recorded crunch and lead II channels into Reaper using my RME Babyface PRO audio interface.
Ernie Ball vs Cordial vs Shnoor Cables Blind Test Video
As you can see from the video, I haven’t uncovered the correct match. So it’s a cool opportunity for you to take a wild guess here!
Cables 1, 2 and 3 have been ordered in the exact same way in the second part of the video. So you can also do a comparison between crunch riff vs heavy riff and see if the sonic attributes you have picked up reflect the same things in a driven sound as well.
In my opinion, these still sound very very close to each other. I don’t think most people would even hear a difference. But we, guitar nerds, can sometimes hear these little things! 🙂
I tend to hear cable 1 as a bit crispier and brighter, but very slightly. Cables 2 and 3 sound very close to each other, but still different.
In order to provide more proof that they sound slightly different from each other, I am also presenting here a snapshot of the sonic spectrum taken at the same bit of the guitars’ sounds.
Would you be able to guess any of the cables included in the test? I wouldn’t be able to do that! As you can see from the snapshot, they are very very close to each other with a few differences in the core frequency ranges. That actually makes us hear things differently. Ads - Check out these ads to support this web page
But at the end of the day, these differences wouldn’t be a selling factor for anyone! All three cables sound great, work great and are very durable, but priced differently too!
Which cable would you choose if you didn’t have any brand or price info available?
Correct Answer
[Drum Roll] Here is the correct matching of the cables!
Cable 1: Cordial CSI 6 PP Silent cable
Cable 2: Ernie Ball instrument cable
Cable 3: Shnoor IC124 JMEJME
I hope you have found this article interesting and helpful! As I have mentioned many times before, I have no endorsement deals or paid promotion requests yet, so I’m not trying to boost one of the products among the others.
These are all my own products that I heavily use every day. So please consider these as rough diaries of a guitar nerd, just like you!
Thanks for visiting my blog and supporting me so far! I will hopefully see you in the next review here!
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