Solderless patch leads: Lava, Evidence or George L ?

jakeolly

I’m putting  together a better board, looking to go solderless patch cables but they all look similar to me  . I previously  soldered my own or used Kabl but the solderless  jacks look really nice compared to pancakes. Any advice on ease of construction, reliability or sound of the main 3. Or better suggestions?
thanks 

John_A

Continue to make your own.  Soldered are more reliable, far cheaper, and if you're really bothered there's some pretty ones available;)

sweepy

Check out Rayzm Solderless cables on Amazon £9.99 for 6 plugs and 1m of cable, used it on my pedalboard and its been excellent 

markr76

Well I've used all the brands mentioned. My favourite out of the bunch are evidence audio. They are fairly easy to build up. You get a great connection at the jack. And the sound quality/signal is very good. The George l's are the easiest to build and sound good but they didn't last, worked loose alot. Also the jacks are the largest out of the three if space is a problem. The lava kit has the smallest jacks and they sound good. But they are a pain to build! I mean a pain. My fingers were raw after. I also had a lot of trouble with them shorting out. Even after taking real care while building them. They let me down at gigs on a few occasions. That's when I switched to evidence at a friend's recommendation. I've not looked back since. Hope that helps.

I might add. When I'm talking about sound quality. I'd say the ones mentioned are all as good as each other. I could definatly hear a difference over the planet waves ones I used to use. A lot more clarity. 

vasselmeyer

Chris from @CustomPedalBoards who has probably build more pedal boards than anyone else on this board uses Evidence Audio. He's also started selling some new-to-market cables called "3 Monkeys" which look really easy to put together and don't need any stripping of the cable; it all just assembles in either straight or right angle form. They look quite intriguing.

Winny_Pooh

Evidence audio have the best rep on forums from what I have seen. FWIW I've had George Ls on two mini boards for 5 years with no failures.

Boromedic

Used and gigged George L's for a long time with zero issues, despite swapping pedals in and out. Not sure why some folk have had problems with them, however I made them nice and tight and double checked them with a multimeter to ensure I had good clean connections. I also always used the coloured covers which fit quite tight so maybe that's why they were reliable for me? The plugs are bigger though and I've got some Evidence cables now for that reason, they look better and the signal cable screws into the plug so is a more secure connection. Dan from GigRig uses them in all his builds so they must be reliable. 

meltedbuzzbox

sweepy said:

Check out Rayzm Solderless cables on Amazon £9.99 for 6 plugs and 1m of cable, used it on my pedalboard and its been excellent 

I tired that and had 2 out of 3 duffers :-(

I still use Lava, have done for about 4 or 5 years now (no issues). Luckily I've bought all the plugs cheaply enough and all I have to do is buy some more cable once in a while. 

paganskins

meltedbuzzbox said:

sweepy said:

Check out Rayzm Solderless cables on Amazon £9.99 for 6 plugs and 1m of cable, used it on my pedalboard and its been excellent 

I tired that and had 2 out of 3 duffers :-(

2 out of 3 duff here too (2 x Rayzm and 1 x Harley Benton branded but same design). I tried the HB ones first and got them to work eventually but one lead has failed since, 1 pack of Rayzm went together flawlessly and worked first time but the 2nd pack ordered at the same time have been a nightmare.

I can't trust them and am currently waiting on a load of flat EBS pre-made cable to rewire my board with (can't go normal pancake as layout is already fixed around the smaller Rayzm plugs).

They work by the set screw cutting through the cable outer to contact with the inner shielding but mine haven't been going quite far enough in to break through. Also seems quite a tenuous connection is made even if they do work.

CustomPedalBoards

vasselmeyer said:

Chris from @CustomPedalBoards who has probably build more pedal boards than anyone else on this board uses Evidence Audio. He's also started selling some new-to-market cables called "3 Monkeys" which look really easy to put together and don't need any stripping of the cable; it all just assembles in either straight or right angle form. They look quite intriguing.

yup must of made thousands of EA SIS by now, their great, no problem, easy to put together, plugs are small, cable is not bulky, solid core as opposed to stranded, high quality, not had 1 single failure. only down side is it can get a bit pricey. but you pays your money, and theres kits available with discount.
which is why i thought to stock a slightly cheaper alternative, 3monkeys cable and plugs are even smaller! plugs can be RA or S, cheaper, even easier to put together, SIS takes about a min or so, i can do a 3M cable in 20 seconds! its a stranded cable but the plug still screws on to the cable, so the connection is good, no cap to put on, again no failures so far since we started stocking it last year (we are the only stockists in UK) and the genius of this cable is it also fits the DC plugs, so now you can make your own custom DC cables! 1 lot of cable 2 types of plug, can now make DC or audio custom length to neaten up any board.
if you are using a gigrig power system then maybe consider the EA SIS for audio cabling.
if using a voodoo or similar type power system then consider the 3M to do both audio and power cables.
over the years i've tried them all and in my opinion either of these 2 solderless systems are superior in every way to all others on the market today, which is why we sell them.

hope this helps, cheers chris.

sweepy

Had 5 packs of Rayzm patch leads and not one failure, like any leads it’s how they are assembled, my mate bought a pack and gave up after the first 2 he put together didn’t work

hotpickups

Evidence audio all the way for me. Lava is ok too but just feel more secure with the EAs

meltedbuzzbox

sweepy said:

Had 5 packs of Rayzm patch leads and not one failure, like any leads it’s how they are assembled, my mate bought a pack and gave up after the first 2 he put together didn’t work

Id agree with that. I had to keep trimming and faffing about with mine to get them to work. They're not as forgiving as the lava system

Gadget

EA SIS.

George Ls didn't work for me.

althy

lava are great, EA seem excellent too, Geoge Ls always fail

johnhe

I like my EA SIS. George L’s were very unreliable for me.

TheBigDipper

Never had a problem with George Ls. Planet Waves and Diago just didn't work most of the time. Lava about 50/50. 

jamiexsilver

I've used the diago ones for years and never had one go down. They're dead easy to make all you need is a sharp Stanley knife and a 50 pence piece. 

hotpickups

I think all will fail eventually if you're the type who moves stuff around a lot on your pedalboard. Once mine are made up and pedals in place nothing gets unplugged and plugged in again much. 

One good thing about using a looper that enables you to change the order of pedals I guess

BMS

I've been using the same old bunch of George L's for almost 15 years. If you assemble them correctly and give them an occasional haircut after tours, they're pretty dang reliable and quick to build.

Winny_Pooh

Trick with George Ls is not to bend the cable down to the sides too much. Jam it in, tilt slghtly and tighten the cap.