Duke,
I've been aware of the Mogami 2524 cables for a while now, and I know they've been a popular choice for a lot of people. Here is something you might watch when you have the time. It's a video I checked out comparing the audio quality of cables for guitar. One of them is the Mogami 2524, one of the others is the Belden 9778. In this comparison, I hear the brightness come through with the Mogami cable, but I hear more of the low end come through with the Belden. Here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbik6OW77rQ&list=LL&index=458&t=2s
To my ears, this is a more balanced tone, especially since my primary guitars are Strats. Having the low mids and the bass come through helps tame the (sometimes) piercing high end of these guitars. Especially when you want to rock out with it.
Another thing which seems to have helped my tone overall in the rack, is shorter cables to link from one unit to the next. This kind of goes against what I've learned through the years of rack building, which was to keep my power cables to one side of the rack, the audio cables to the opposite side, and control cables up the middle. I did buy some short patch cables and used those to daisy-chain some of my rack effects, and the difference was like night and day. My tone didn't sound as "processed" as it did before, which was something I was always striving for. To keep my tone as natural as going from the guitar straight into the amp.
I also agree that some of the Monster cables are nothing to write home about, but some are quite good, although, difficult to work with. One of my guitar cables was a Monster cable I got in the 90's that was made for Fender, and it did make a big difference in all the extra noise I was getting. (I could hear the cable crackling and making static noise just from dragging it on the floor). The Monster cable cut that out and has a good clarity, but the center conductor is not copper strands of wire, it's copper FOIL! Not so easy to solder.
I am going to try what you suggest and get a few different 20' lengths and make guitar cables, then compare that way.
Richard,
You are absolutely correct, there is a LOT of debate about the fidelity of cables and the various connectors attached to the ends of them, even down to the content of the amount of lead/silver/tin in the solder you use for them. I've already gone down that rabbit hole, and decided it was just too damned much minutia that shouldn't be involved with the simple art of making a guitar cable that sounds good. Good wire, Switchcraft plugs, and the solder I use will be all I need to make the cables and tell me what I need to know.
There's also this to consider too; The difference in Mogami cables for use in a rack as opposed to stomp box pedals. The guy in this video makes pedal boards for people and uses two different Mogami cables for the guitar and the pedal connections. So there may be a difference yet again for connections to effects and connections to instruments. One thing for certain in the rack, I am going to use shorter cable runs.
By the way, the Belden cables I have in there now are from a bulk roll I bought and made about 20 years ago. It seems there are some improvements to cables since then, and I'm going to take advantage of that. There's a risk I may get some extra noise or buzzing in the rack with the shorter patch cable criss-crossing close to the MIDI cables, but that's pretty low voltage, and if the shielding on these cables is good enough, I may be able to get away with it. Just using the Monster patch cables in the smaller rack setups made a huge difference, so I may do the same thing with Mogami or some other cables. Maybe Belden, or maybe Gotham. We'll see...
Harley