.

Subsequently, one may also ask, what is the difference between a speaker cable and an instrument cable?

The key difference between instrument and speaker cables are instrument cables are shielded with much smaller wires and speaker cables are unshielded with larger wire gauges. Since an instrument cable is used to connect your instrument to the amplifier in a high impedance environment, shielding is essential.

Beside above, why is speaker cable unshielded? Instruments put out a very weak signal path as compared to an amp. For this reason, instrument cables are shielded in order to keep unwanted RF interference (extraneous noise caused by other electronics nearby) to a minimum. Amps put out a lot of power. This is why speaker cables are generally unshielded.

Then, what is an instrument cable called?

TS cables are generally used for mono, unbalanced signals. ¼” TS cables are commonly called guitar cables because they're mostly used to connect a guitar to an amplifier. The audio signal travels over the tip while the ground uses the sleeve. That means T is positive and S is ground.

Is a TRS cable the same as a guitar cable?

The letters TRS stand for Tip, Ring, and Sleeve, and refer to the parts of the jack plug that the different conductors are connected to. A TRS cable has three conductors vs the two on a standard guitar cable. A guitar cable is a TS, or Tip Sleeve cable. The three conductors are separated by two black insulation bands.