The Proper Braided Instrument Cable

We’ve always had a love-hate relationship with braided cables. When we started Signal Chain Audio Labs in 2022, many guitar cable brands were (and still are) using PET (polyethylene terephthalate) braided sleeving—popularized by manufacturers like Techflex. It’s durable, expandable, and available in endless colors, allowing brands to easily offer various aesthetic options.At first, we followed suit, assuming it was what our customers wanted. Turns out it wasn’t. At all. Something about it never felt right to us, so we pulled our braided cables from our product offerings. Here’s why: polyethylene terephthalate is plastic. It’s stiff and reduces a cable’s flexibility. It’s also very abrasive - if you run your cable between your strap and guitar body, say goodbye to that flawless lacquer finish.

Bottom line: PET sleeving is terrible for guitar cables.

I thought we were done with braided designs until one of the professional artists we work with made a request: He wanted a simple red cloth-braided cable that was soft, flexible, and road-worthy—no fraying, no bunching at the ends, and tough enough for the stage.

So, we started down another rabbit hole to find a solution.

Enter Military-Grade Nylon

I’d always wanted to create a braided cable using a material similar to the exterior (mantle) of paracord and climbing ropes. We asked one of the top paracord manufacturers in the U.S. how easy it would be to swap out the inner strands of a traditional rope (the kern) and braid over our 20AWG cable. Turns out it's relatively simple.

After multiple test runs tweaking materials, strand thickness, and braid configuration, we nailed it - a design that’s soft, ultra-flexible, yet incredibly durable and fray-resistant. The result? A proper braided instrument cable without compromise. We love it so much, we made it our flagship cable.