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By Rob Laing Contributions from James Farmer published 17 May 22

Advice on picking the best guitar cable for you and why choosing the right cable matters, with options from Mogami, Ernie Ball, Fender and more

We know that buying one of the best guitar cables isn’t the most exciting purchase a guitarist can make. It is, however, one of the most important. Your guitar cable is the sole link between your guitar, pedalboard (if you have one) and amp, so using a less-than-adequate cable will likely ruin your tone. This is something us tone obsessives would all rather avoid. 

Guitar cables can range vastly in price, from a few pounds/dollars to a few hundreds. There’s temptation for many guitarists to spend as little on their guitar cable as possible, as to allow a larger budget for guitars, pedals and pre-gig pints. That said, we’d implore you to invest in your tone and buy a guitar cable that will do your tone and your playing justice.

Rest assured, we're not here to empty your wallet, although It’s worth considering that like everything else in your rig, higher quality usually lasts longer and sounds better. A relatively small investment of around £30/$40 will land you one of the best guitar cables in our guide though, so if you treat it right, it will last you many happy years of jamming, gigging and recording.

For this important reason, we've rounded-up the best guitar cables (and even a few patch cables) on the planet for everyone to enjoy - whether you want to spend a little or a lot. 

We’ve included some in-depth buying advice at the end of this guide, so if you’d like to read more about the best guitar cables, that’s where you’ll find some useful extra information. If you’d rather just get to the products, then keep scrolling. You’re nearly there!

The Mogami Gold Instrument Cable (opens in new tab) is an industry standard, visible in recording studios around the world. The company’s claims of clarity and wide frequency response are founded on a solid reputation – with a lifetime guarantee to boot. If that’s not convinced you already, you’ll be pleased to know the price is decent too - hence why it sits pretty atop our best guitar cables guide right now.

If you’re happy to spend extra to make sure your tone is as perfect as can be, then our recommendation would be the Evidence Audio Lyric HG (opens in new tab) . Yeah, it’s expensive - but it’s also one of the highest quality guitar cables available right now. The Lyric has a solid-core, which helps to transfer your signal with as little tonal disruption as possible. John Mayer uses one, too. Need we say more?

The Mogami Gold Series Guitar Cable is already used throughout the world for professional audio work in recording and broadcast studios, so it’s unsurprising its range of guitar cables is pro standard. Manufactured in Nagano, Japan, the company publishes the Gold Series’ capacitance rating at a reassuring 39.7pF/Ft – and its build continues that quality.

A conductive PVC layer is placed under the shield conductor to drain away high impedance voltage and to reduce unwanted microphonic noise dramatically. It’s also available in shorter lengths with right-angled connectors for patch cable use.

Being the highest quality cable that Evidence Audio offers, the Lyric is the choice of industry stars such as David Gilmour, Jeff Beck and John Mayer, and for good reason.

EA very much believes that less is more when it comes to building their cables - and this is obvious through their intentions. The Lyric is a cable that, to our ears, almost disappears from the signal path. 

It contains a dual solid-core crafted from IGL copper, which ensures the audience will be bathing in a smooth, true-to-life recreation of your tone. The solid-core carries your signal far better than the braided alternative, but in turn the prices hike. If you’re after the purest possible tone money can buy though, then look no further.

Planet Waves are a D’Addario brand that’s well established in the accessories market, and this is its flagship cable with specs to match. Plugs are built to Planet Wave’s design by the industry standard suppliers Neutrik, and we’ve had good experiences with the fit using a number of guitar models.

The American Stage cable also features an ‘In-Line’ solder process, which creates a permanent bond between wire and plug. This helps create a clear connection and enhances durability.

Read the full Planet Waves American Stage Instrument Cable review

Some guitarists prefer a woven guitar cable casing because it’s less likely to tangle. Let’s be honest, it also looks more exciting than the usual black, that’s for sure. Though black is available, funkier choices of Neon Pink and Orange will ensure you can see your guitar cable on low lit stages, though we’re rather partial to the red, blue and white design ourselves. 

If you are scouring our best guitar cables guide for a great value braided number, then you’re in the right place with option.

Boss has always been the benchmark of durability and reliability in the world of effects and accessories. At the end of the day, we all need to know that our cables are going to last a while and won’t die on us mid-gig.

Boss’ instrument cable comes in various lengths with various jack combinations, to ensure that you get the cable to suit your needs. Constructed with care and attention, the oxygen free cable and corrosion-resistant 24k gold-plated connectors ensure minimum signal degradation - keeping your tone sounding bright, lively and precisely as you like it. 

A highly durable braided cable jacket completes this crucial element of your setup, delivering strength that is surprisingly impressive for a cable of this price point. There is plenty of competition from other brands in this sub £/$25 corner of the market, but Boss has just as much of a right to be here as anyone else.

You just know it’s going to be good when PRS have put their name on it. Widely respected as one of the world’s greatest guitar manufacturers, their accessories are making a name for themselves too. 

The gold plugs are courtesy of Neutrik, and the cables are made in conjunction with Van Damme Cabling. This means that PRS instrument cables have low capacitance and fantastic noise rejection, so there’s no compromise in strength and tonal fidelity for the studio or the stage. There's also a 'Silent' version available just in case you want something even more perfect, and a 'Classic' version if you're on more of a budget.

Yes, Fender makes guitar cables too – and if you own one of their iconic Tweed-covered amps, there’s a strong sense of satisfaction to be had from pairing this with it. Even more so for the reasonable price.

A lifetime warranty and built-in strain relief in the plugs offer peace of mind for durability and each longer length cable comes with a cable tie to keep it neatly coiled. There’s 6-inch and 1ft options for your pedalboard, and the 8mm diameter makes the Deluxe Series cable even easier to coil. Also, the quality for the price here does the Fender heritage proud. 

Though they’ll give you the classic visual vibe of Jimi Hendrix, Brian May and Jimmy Page, coil cables have a reputation of being inferior due to the added length of cable used to make them and how it may be unnecessarily detrimental to your guitar signal. Vox helps offset that through investing in an unusual copper for an instrument cable.

The audiophile-grade 99.9% purity OFC copper conductors here offer improved clarity – especially in the mid-range. Vox also notes that the multi-gauge design uses bespoke conductor types optimized for specific frequency ranges for a fuller, more organic sound. Using two separate shields also improves noise isolation.

Pedalboard real estate is precious – every inch counts in a pursuit to add more stompboxes. That means we need patch cables to be… less! Ernie Ball clearly understands this because the flat angled ends of this patch cable help move your pedals closer together if needed. A real godsend if you have a mini pedalboard. 

We’ve had good experiences gigging with these great value patch cables, and Ernie Ball even makes the Flat Pancake Patch Cable in white as well as the ubiquitous black.

If you need custom lengths for your pedalboard, a solderless kit is an easy, accessible option that won’t require electrician’s skills. And if you’re skeptical about how Evidence get around the lack of soldering on the connections here, rest assured that it’s all about precision for a connection Evidence confidently claims is ‘better-than-soldered’.  

The inside of the tips of the brass SIS right-angled plugs (eight are included with the 5ft kit) are precision machined to have threads. These threads cut and re-shape the soft IGL copper conductor of the Monorail cable when turned around it several times. Need more convincing?  David Gilmour, Noel Gallagher, Graham Coxon, Guthrie Govan and Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien all use them.

The quality of your guitar or patch cable will definitely influence your tone. You’ll feel the effects of different guitar cables much more if you're using passive electric guitar pickups rather than active. This is where ‘capacitance’ comes into play – capacitance is a buzzword you'll often hear around guitar cables, and for good reason.

A capacitor is formed between two electrical conductors that are in close proximity. The larger the surface area of these conductors (in your guitar cable), the larger the capacitance. Large amounts of capacitance is measured in units of farads, so named after 19th century English physicist Michael Faraday.

Electric guitar cables contain smaller amounts of capacitance, which are measured in picofarads (pf); each one million-millionth of a farad. A decent quality audio cable should offer 40pf per foot with the highest quality offering around half that.

Most noticeably, capacitance has the effect of reducing high-end treble in your tone, but it can actually have an effect across the entire spectrum. Combined with the inductors that are your guitar pickups, it can actually add mid-range gain.

As a general rule of thumb, the longer your cable length, or the more capacitance the cable itself has for its given length, the more loss of high-end you’ll notice.

You may even want this, but if you’re lacking some high-end brightness, a low capacitance guitar cable could make a positive difference to your sound.

Impedance (Z) is the measure of the total opposition to current flow in an alternating current circuit. It is made up of the sum of two components, resistance (R) and reactance (X). The output from most electronic audio devices is usually low impedance (around 150ohms), but it can be much higher for passive guitar pickups. 

Active pickups contain a preamp that offsets any issues with impedance by converting it to low impedance, and it can drive a cable without any loss of high frequency.

And this means it is more adversely affected by capacitance from a cable to create a filter on your sound – as capacitance and impedance increase, this filter comes into effect more. In theory, the ideal set up for wide frequency response in your tone is a low impedance pickup and low capacitance cable. 

When it comes to smaller patch cables between your pedals, their capacitance isn’t as important as the cable that goes between the guitar and the first pedal in your chain. That’s because pedals have low impedance outputs, though if your pedals are true bypass, they’ll have more effect on the overall capacitance in your signal.

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I'm the Guitars Editor for MusicRadar, handling news, reviews, features, tuition, advice for the strings side of the site and everything in between. Before MusicRadar I worked on guitar magazines for 15 years, including Editor of Total Guitar. I've currently set aside any pipe dreams of getting anywhere with my own songs and I am enjoying playing covers in function bands. 

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