Braided vs Plastic leads

[alexLP]

What's the difference? What's worth getting?

 

Does anyone have any recommendations?

[animalfarm]

Some folks swear by the vintage metal-braided jacket

on the 2 conductor pickups as the jacket is Ground and can be

soldered to back of Pots. This link may help answer some of your

questions:

 

From EPI Lounge "Do-it-Yourself" thread, "Pot and Wiring Info"

 

"Frequently Asked Questions"

http://www.hoaglandbrothers.com/pages/FAQ.htm

[bynapkinart]

+1...it's easier to rewire with and looks and installs much cleaner. I heard some guy try to explain that the metal braiding made the electronics quieter, but I don't think it's very dramatic, if true.

 

In short, I swear by it because then I'm not trying to solder ground leads from the pickups, switch and jack to the pots, making a huge mess in the process and trying to feed that mess thru an f-hole into the guitar. YMMV.

[CajunBlues]

I really like the braided/shielded wires because I can wire a line from the pot to the pickup cavity and when I change out pickups (which I do often on some guitars), its really easy for me to just solder at the pickup cavity... Also, you don't need to use wire cutters... you just need to push back the braiding/ insulation with your fingers...

[KX36]

There shouldn't really be much difference in it, as long as the wire is shielded. Having a central core and a braided shield on the outside is the standard way of doing coaxial cable (TV aerial cables and cable TV/internet cables). In those cases shielding makes a big difference and extends the usable length of wire above 100m; but whether it's an actual braided sheath or a sheet of foil and a wire inside plastic insulation makes little difference, just make sure whatever you get is shielded.

 

 

Irrelevant extra ramblings:

Good practice would dictate that the signal ground and shield grounds are totally separate but that just doesn't happen on guitars, you'd need a separate wire to bypass the amp and go straight into ground and even then it wouldn't be the same ground as on the wall socket, it would be the one that the metal pipes in your house connect to. My soldering iron does this, you have to clip an extra wire from it onto a radiator or something