Guitar Lead Question…?
This week’s question is as follows:
Question: Why does my Marshall guitar lead have metal bits that unscrew on each plug. I am new to guitar, and when you unscrew the metal parts around the plugs it reveals the solder points. Is this just so that it can be re soldered if necessary?
Answer: The cover is meant to protect the solder joints. Metal covers are more durable than plastic ones and yes you can unscrew them to fix the cable if it gets stepped on, yanked, or otherwise broken.
A metal cover also continues the ground shield that gets interrupted to solder the wires to the plug. If you look carefully, you can see that the wire attached to the ring (not the tip) is a braided shield that surrounds the inner conductor. This shield is intended to shield the inner conductor from electrical noise that’s radiated like radio waves from motors, dimmers, spark plugs in cars, all sorts of things. Without it, the inner lead on the cable would act like a giant antenna… for noise. Though this system works, there are plenty of other ways for noise to get into your amp, but that’s another discussion.
