My heart raced as she took off her clothes and lay down on the bed. Her long, thick dark hair curled around her beautiful face, cascading down past her big, blue, half-closed eyes. A few strands of hair teased at the corner of her full-lipped mouth before gently caressing her neck and finally fanning out across the top of her exquisite breasts. I almost let loose, with wild abandon, as she whispered seductively, with a voice somewhere between Lauren Bacall’s huskiness and Marilyn Monroe’s high whisper, “Tie me up, baby.”

My response was immediate. I reached out in the dim, soft light of the room for the first thing I could use to tie up this ravishing, naked nymphet. “Think! What can I use? I don’t own a single necktie and I haven’t any rope... wait, my gig bag!” I frantically opened it and pulled out a cable. “Perfect,” I thought, as I rushed over to the bed and started wrapping cable around her wrists.

Her perfect body tensed as she sat up. In a voice somewhere between Marv Albert and the possessed Linda Blair, of The Exorcist, she asked sarcastically, “You don’t use Canare cable?” The mood had been broken and the moment was gone. “I... Well... Um,” I stammered incoherently, while desperately trying to regain the feeling of confidence so needed for the job I had undertaken.

“How dare you tie me up with this cheap, crappy guitar cable,” she said, easily pulling her wrists free of the knots I had so lovingly tied. “If you ever want to get anywhere with me,” she hissed, “you will use the best, and that’s Belden 8451 or Canare L-2B2AT cable!”

The audacity of this angelic-looking witch to question my choice of cables! The evening was now turning out to be even more exciting and interesting. If it were dominance she wanted, then she would have it. How dare she go head to head with me, question me, and on top of that... name drop. I held her beautiful body in my icy stare.

“Sure,” I sneered back at her, “Those cables are the best, but only if you’re doing a permanent PA install, or building a rack. Those cables have what’s known as a foil shielding, and that’s great if you want to cut out any pops, hums or crackles, but it is not overly strong or flexible and the shielding deteriorates if the cable is flexed too much. What I used was a common guitar cord. These are much more flexible because of their braided or wrapped wire shielding.”

Her hardened attitude was softening and I could see I was winning her over. “Understand,” I continued authoritatively, “Not all cable is alike, even if their appearance is similar. Also, high price alone doesn’t necessarily ensure a good product.” She lay back and listened quietly as I became lost in my own reverie. “Look, the idea of a good cable is one that carries a specified signal from one source to another without picking up any interference along the way, such as a microphone to a mixing console, a guitar to an amplifier or an amplifier to a speaker. These cables perform different functions and therefore will be built differently.

“Shielding is essential for mic and line level cables, since mic and line signals are relatively low in level, and need to be amplified. Any noise that could possibly enter the cable would be amplified along with the signal. The purpose of shielding is to block and intercept these extraneous noises and drain them to the ground, thereby keeping them out of the inner conductors of the cable.

“Braided or wrapped shielding is much more commonplace than foil in mic and instrument cables, due to their flexibility, but while the wrapped shielding offers more flexibility than the braided shield, the wrap tends to open up with flexing, which can lead to microphonic noise, crackles and hums.” Having regained control of the situation, I looked over at my reclining beauty; the ire had left her eyes and she was in a swoon, writhing upon the bed while moaning softly.

“Some other things you can look for in cable,” I continued, “are balanced and unbalanced wiring. As you may know, balanced wiring helps in the elimination of certain types of external noise. Basically there are two wires that carry the same signal, with each wire being opposite in signal polarity to the other and balanced in terms of the ground wire. The balanced input is built to recognize only the difference in voltage between the two wires. Should any noise cut across the balanced cable, it will appear equally and with the same polarity across both signal carrying wires and thereby will be rejected by the balanced input.” I had her where I wanted. With a quick glance I could see that she could hardly contain herself, and I continued with renewed confidence.

“Speaker cables, on the other hand, can go unshielded, because the signal level is so high that any electromagnetic noise would have to be quite significant in level to be audible above the low impedance signal being sent between the amplifier and the speaker. Remember that mic and line level signal is measured in microwatts or milliwatts, which is considerably different than the hundreds of watts that must be handled by speaker cable. Therefore, with this type of cable, the wire gauges must be larger to provide for the higher currents passed between amplifier and speaker. Do I make myself clear?” I growled threateningly.

“Megawatts,” she moaned.

“Snakes!” I hissed, eliciting a loud moan from my companion. “Snakes are used in conjunction with a sound system, usually when the mixing console is located remotely from the stage. With anywhere from eight to 48 channels (or more), it becomes rather messy and impractical to run individual lines for all the inputs. If bundled together, all these individual mic cables would be rather large and unwieldy.

“These snakes are made up of multi-core cable consisting of eight or more shielded pairs. Each shielded pair has two shielded, twisted center conductors, but instead of separate insulating jackets, an overall jacket covers the bundle of wires. One end of the snake usually terminates in a stage junction box with neatly numbered and mounted XLR connectors, while the other end terminates in a ‘fantail.’ Each shielded pair of the fantail terminates with an XLR connector, each one being insulated, numbered, and strain relieved. The stage box receives the mic cable, while the fantail is connected to the mixing console.”

“Strain relief,” moaned my beautiful companion.

I stared at her and marveled at the finesse she displayed in manipulating me. “Strain relief?” I repeated in a low guttural voice. “The best strain relief is a heat-shrink tubing that goes around each end of the cable, although in larger cables, clamping is often used. Just remember, when using clamps, not to create any sharp bends in the cable. XLR connectors not only use the heat-shrink method of strain relief, but also employ a tapered rubber extension which helps preserve the cable in case of any sideways bends.”

I looked at the vision of loveliness lying upon my bed. Her eyes were closed and her short heavy breaths made her bosom rise and fall enticingly. She was mine! I knew that I could have my way with her right then and there, but I decided to prolong the moment. Holding my inexpensive Whirlwind cable loosely coiled in my hand, I proceeded. “There is a lot of cable available in the commercial marketplace and some players,” I said in a low, deliberate and menacing voice, “favor Spectroflex over Conquest, but it is also twice as expensive.

I walked over to the bed and started to wrap her soft tender wrists with my standard guitar cable. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson,” I said sternly, “because if you have, we can move on.” I tied the cable in a knot. “Let me tell you about male and female connectors... do you know what a phono plug is?”