A collection of frequently asked questions for Mogami cable: What kind of cable do I need for my electric guitar or keyboard? What length cable should I choose? What is a quad cable? What if my Mogami cable is broken?

Although it is extremely rare for Mogami Cable to break, have no fear–Mogami's "no excuses" warranty covers your Mogami Platinum, Gold or Silver series cables for life. Yes, even if your dog ate your cable, you dropped your amp on the connector during a show, whatever the reason. You can either take it to your local Mogami dealer, or contact us directly to exchange it for a brand new Mogami cable.
Warranty Info Click Here.

While we design all our cables to be as neutral as possible, Platinum was designed to be the most transparent cable possible, regardless of cost or other concerns. It is more revealing of the true sound of any instrument; you hear better dynamics, deeper and more defined bass, more extended highs, more detail-more of the instrument you paid good money for.

Gold Studio is a quad cable. This cable is designed to be neutral and reject noise at a recording studio level and in settings where the cables will be reasonably well cared for. Gold Stage is designed and built to deliver extremely high fidelity while standing up to constant and sometimes rough handling dished out by touring and broadcast crews. Gold Stage stands up to the rigors of the road (think AC/DC) while rejecting noise from a stadium full of lights and cell phones.

Typical studios large and small are bombarded with RF (radio frequency), electrostatic, and EMI (electromagnetic induction) noise from wireless devices, electrical dimmers, and bad wiring practice like routing AC too close and parallel to signal wires. Some of this noise can get past even the best shields. This is even more of a problem in home studios.

Quad (4 conductor) cables can cancel up to 15 db (about 97%) more noise than even the best twisted pair (2 conductor) cables. That is a huge difference. That is why all our balanced TRS and XLR cables are made with quad wiring. Nothing is quieter.

There is no magic length for cable; it is completely dependent on which equipment you play through. The best advice is play with the shortest cable that will not cramp your style. The longer a cable is the more effect it has on the sound of an instrument. We know lots of artists who play with Platinum guitar cables 30 feet and longer, so use the length that works for you. Just keep in mind that shorter guitar cables are always preferable.

The beautiful tones of a guitar, keyboard or any instrument, should never be altered. That's why Mogami cable is designed to be 100% transparent. True, you might see cables specifically marketed toward music genres. However, the electrical requirements of say blues and heavy metal are essentially identical. Since cable has no gain, altering tone means losing information at some frequencies relative to others. Mogami believes the goal should be to transfer the precise signal exactly and transparently-period.

Improper coiling is a big reason cables fail. It also makes setup a pain, spending lots of time taking knots and twists out of the cables. There is only one right way to do this. It is called the 'over/under' wrap. By altering the direction of each coil there is no twist stored in the cable. Done right your cables will lay out twist-free in seconds and last virtually forever.

You shouldn't - Speaker cables have very different requirements than instruments, particularly the size of the conductor itself. We recommend the Mogami Gold or Platinum Speaker cables for best signal transfer from the amp head to speaker cabinet.

Not at all - We intentionally leave out unused pins. There is no performance issue whatsoever, and it is easy to identify the type of snake in case the model number is long since misplaced.

On analog snakes with db25 connectors the 13th pin is never used.

For AES/EBU snakes there are two main formats:
Tascam format (used by Digi/Avid and many others) has no 13th pin.

Apogee/Mackie/Yamaha format cables have 3 unused pin locations.

If you are curious, our assembly process involves preparing the individual cable channels by hand, then machine crimping the pins onto the conductors. The machine crimp yields perfect electrical connection that is actually superior to soldering. In reality for many years we have never had a warranty claim for even one bad channel on a d-sub snake.

Just connect both blue conductors to "hot" or signal + (pin 2 on XLR, tip of TRS) both clear conductors to "low" or signal - (pin 3 of an xlr, ring of TRS) and attach the shield to ground (pin 1 of an xlr, sleeve of a TRS).

It is very important to strip back the anti-static shield layer from the cable. If you don't, the signal will be very low and very noisy.