Cables 101 #4 - Techflex: Braided Plastic Protective Shield

What is Techflex?

Just like how the brand Thermos is synonymous with hot flasks, Techflex is the brand name that is synonymous with braided plastic shielding for cables. We use them with all of our ION and NEX series cables because having tried many brands on the market, we simply haven’t discovered any others that can surpass the sheer unadulterated American-made quality of Techflex.

Having established just how good Techflex is, why do we use braided plastic shielding for our cables?

Here are the three most important reasons.

Longevity

By far the most important factor. If you haven’t realised, instrument lead cables take the most amount of abuse among all music gear. Guitarists carry their guitars and move their pedalboards as though they were made of glass, but fling their cables around with abandon.

Even if you were someone who takes really good care of their gear, we’re pretty sure you end up stepping on your cables a fair bit. If they’re unprotected, this means the core of the cable’s going to take a beating.

Beyond just having kinks in your cable, this might lead to a broken core. Broken core = no sound. It inevitably happens when you’re having the most fun. Ideally something you never experience on stage.

By encasing the entire cable in braided plastic shielding, you won’t have to worry about that happening. The shielding spreads the force of the blow so that the cable bends over a longer area, lessening the risk of acute bending.

This means that the DreamVibes ION and DreamVibes NEX cables have a lifespan that is far superior to other cables without braided shielding.

Besides, take our word for it – we’ve stepped on our own cables barefoot before. The Techflex is so tough that our feet hurt instead of the cables.

No other brand hurts our feet that much. Ha ha.

Heat Resistant

Another reason we have for using Techflex is its ability to resist melting in the face of high heat. The benefit of this is twofold.

Firstly, you never know when you might encounter a high heat source while playing live. Power adaptors, stage lights, screens, or perhaps even pyrotechnics are all things commonly found on stage and can easily melt the PVC outer layer of a cable with the slightest touch. Techflex prevents your cable from coming into contact with these, and is far more resistant to heat compared to other brands. We know that because we work with heat in the manufacturing process of our cables.

That brings us to the second benefit. Because we use heat in very close proximity to the Techflex covering, its high heat resistance allows us to work quickly without worrying about it melting. This means that we can get our cables out of our shop and into your hands far more quickly.

We challenge you to order as many cables as you can right here to test this out~ ;-)

Colour

We can hear you scoffing all the way from wherever you are but just stop for a moment would you? Having a coloured cable is far more helpful than you might think. Here’s why.

If you’ve been using a generic black cable all this time, we’re willing to bet you’ve lost one amidst a writhing sea of similar cables in the aftermath of a gig before. Or at any rate, just left one behind.

To date, we’ve not heard of a single customer that has lost one of our cables before. That’s because even black Techflex is shiny. Sure, the black and gold G&H plugs we use catch the eye, but mainly, it’s the coloured braided sleeve that’s responsible for grabbing your attention. It's hard to miss packing one of our cables in, especially when it’s dressed in an alluring neon pink.

Don’t like pink? No worries – we have 11 different Techflex colours to pick from! Our cables don’t just remind you to pick them up, they allow you to express your individuality too.

Click here right now to check them out!

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