Not to get too " Eric Johnson...ny " on you guys but I inadvertantly had a cable "shoot - out " at a session last PM . George L,s Won BUT ... the direction of the cable really made a difference - REALLY ! Even on the cheap Guitar Ctr . cables . The next time I'm having a crappy tone night the 1st thing I'm gonna do is reverse the direction on my longer cables . ( the difference started to become more apparent with anything over 15' ) .

That's nice information to share Klasaine...

Never really had problem like that but will check into it with my 20ft cables...

I never thought I had a problem either. But, I was at this session and engineer was telling me about these cables he was thinking to buy . Really high - end custom made at about $100.00 for 10 feet . Thats when I realized that in a good environment something as simple as cable DIRECTION can make a difference . Although , the $100.00 job didn't win ( except the mic cable version ).
We recorded each cable through an amp with 2 mics and direct since that was the set - up at the time . As I said before , the George L was the winner ... once I reversed it's initial direction . Sorry to get so anal but I was really surprised . Peace , - KL .

So how do you determine the right directionality? By trial and error? Most of my audio patch cables have signal flow arrow indicators, I've not seen them on my George L's or my other guitar cables...interesting!

Yep . Guitar - cable - amp - "listen" . Then reverse the cable direction . So far I've only done it with 2 cables , since it's such a major pain . I guess most guitar cables don't have a flow mark .

I'll try this next time I play, but I can't for the life of me figure out why the cable direction should make a difference - any electrical engineer/guitar players out there?

As far as the physics ( electrons ) is concerned it shouldn't make any difference . I'm thinking it has more to do with how the overlaps of braided copper wire are laying . Who knows , Hendrix always seemed to use a coiled cable - practically a magnet .

I have George L's and the two cables I use seem to sound better when the signal is flowing in the opposite direction that the lettering on the cable is written.

George L's are the best tonally, but the way the solderless ends attach makes them very unreliable live. But it's funny how Monster cable sells there stuff for exorbinant prices, while the L's just smoke them!

No shit . I picked up 2 ends and 10' of the thicker George L's . Seems a little sturdier but I still haven't had the guts to pull it out of my gig bag . They have these new shrink ends that you can buy now - anybody try them ?

I thought that you were supposed to go with the direction of the writing? I haven't tried it yet, but I do hear that it does make a differnce. I just saw EJ at the Dallas guitar show and he smoked!

I never tried looking at the direction of the writing - good tip . If my assesment is correct then the writing goes TOWARDS the amp on the George L's . I'm still not sure whether or not I'm just imagining all this .