Spending a decent chunk of change on a cable isn’t something every guitarist is willing to do. Let’s face it – your guitar, pickups, amp, effects and fingers should be doing the bulk of your tone-shaping. However, your cable is easily the largest piece of your signal chain – go cheap there and you have no excuse for not being happy with your sound.

So, how do you do yourself a favor and select the right cable that will effectively transfer and perhaps even help color your tone, depending on your needs? If there’s one thing we learned during our recent roundup of high-end cables, it’s that players and cable manufacturers have many goals in mind when it comes to cables – aligning your specific cable needs with a manufacturer’s particular design is what it’s all about.

Having picked the brains of a many a luthier, amp builder and effects guru by now in our Builder Profile series, we thought it was high time we went deep with a cable guy. We had a chance to chat with Steve Seropian, owner of Accusound cables, about the matching process between players and cables and what’s involved with catering to such a nuanced area of tone hunting.

Tell me about your background and what you bring to the table.

In addition to instrument cables, I also manufacture microphone, patch and multi-pair Silver Studio Pro Cables. Basically, I started out back when everybody was cutting tape as a studio engineer. And that was back in the early eighties, when you kind of had to know your way around the studio, so everybody had an electrical or audio background -- at least some general knowledge. As part of your job you had to calibrate tape players, work on equipment -- the boards were constantly breaking down -- you had to know what you were looking at and how to fix things. What we're doing now in the studio now was just a dream back then.

I had a lot of aptitude with electrical gear and most of my clients would bring their gear to me to repair or modify. This was a great opportunity for me to dig in and work on all kinds of equipment, from vintage to current.  It wasn’t long before the repair business fanned out to the local music stores and I kept this going for a while. After tweaking and modifying all this wonderful equipment, it only made sense for me to take the next step. I wanted to get into a market where I could make a difference and I felt that in building and designing cable I could make something that would be viable in the market and make a difference for people.

So when did Accusound get started -- what was your approach to design and manufacturing?

We started about five and a half years ago. I really wanted to put out a cable that would make a difference in one's sound, tone or whatever quest they're on. Something that would be substantial; which is easier said than done, it's a pretty fine line to walk!

The approach we took was to use the best possible materials available and to figure out why some things sound better and others don't. I investigated what makes one cable different than another – considering lifespan, ease of use and all sorts of things. Then I got involved with other people with similar goals, in order to get the product out at a reasonable cost. I wanted to make and assemble everything in America, and that's a very tough thing to do when most cable companies are outsourcing their products. The only foreign part on our cables is the connectors -- Neutrik for a mic or patch cable, Amphenol for an instrument cable -- both of which are outsourced.

What we found is a lot of this is about balance -- that's really where all the magic lies. It's not having too much or too little capacitance. Everybody has a different twist on those things. What we found was in the manufacturing process and materials, and the balance you keep between all of that really makes the difference.

Why is it so important to keep your manufacturing in the States?

The costs in the United States are considerably higher than elsewhere, but we want to make sure our quality control is consistent to produce the best product possible.

We use a proprietary winding technique and as a result, Accusound cables boast phase shift and distortion that is unmeasurable between 0 and 200kHz. To obtain this test result we used an AP-Audio Precision.

Let's say you're using half a dozen cables in your rig and each cable is off even a degree. By the time you're down the line you're already out of phase six degrees from where you started. And that may not sound like much, but if you're recording it is.

As I'm sure you're aware, we recently had somewhat of a shootout with a number of your peers and, based on reader feedback, found there are still a lot of players out there who are skeptical about the entire concept of high-end cables. What would you tell a reader who's out there thinking, "Yeah, I get great tone from a pretty cheap cable, I don't know about this."

For those people out there that are happy with what they're doing, I applaud them. If you've got something that's working and you're happy with it, and it's holding up in all the different environments, and it's part of what your tone is, then great.

What I am finding is a lot of people spend a lot of their money on an amplifier, pickups and their guitar, and then they'll go buy a much lesser quality cable they can find to hook everything up. It’s not a mortal sin; however, you do want to have at least some integrity and continuity to what you're doing. You want to have your best possible signal path for what you've just purchased.

The whole reason behind my research was to bring to market a cable that had good value and solid construction with improved sound. We took the opposite approach. As a matter of fact, if another company looked at our advertising they'd say, " How on earth are you even operating?" What we've done is we've put everything back into our company -- back into the cable. We don't spend thousands of dollars on advertising. We are growing our business one customer at a time, through various means of advertising, including word of mouth and sponsorships. Our advertising budget obviously can’t compete with the major corporations. We're a small company in Massachusetts making a quality product and standing behind it all the way.