Who is uses a cable tester for trouble shooting their rigs. Something like the Ebtech swiss army cable tester or Behringers similar product. Are these things worth it ? Is there something better out there ? Should you test resistance with a load on ? Besides the obvious snap, crackle, and pop, can you test for tone with anything else besides your ear ? Just wondering....
Testing for tone is so dependent on the impedance of the gear it's connected to that no gadget will do a good job of that for you. As for buying a tester, all depends on how much testing you need to do. It can be handy at the band level. Resistance isn't usually a variable with a cable, mostly they're either connected or not.
Here's another "no". All those things that I've seen just do a basic continuity test. Useful, but no big deal. About the only credit I can give the ones *I've seen* is that they're in a box with mounted jacks so you can twist, yank, and wiggle the cable at the strain relief to see if the cable's dodgy. Can't imagine using one of those things unless I owned a studio, was a touring band, or otherwise had to check cables on a very regular basis. Better to invest the money in a good multimeter IMO. Solder wires to some connectors with banana plugs on the ends if you need something more convenient.
The Ebtech or Behringer are great. The being able to wiggle the cable to find intermittent problems is a HUGE deal. That is something a meter won't do. A meter is good to have to but I use one of the little Behringers all the time and it is a huge time saver. Get a meter as well as it is useful for tons of other stuff besides cables.
I have a Behringer too and it works great I mainly used it when making George l cables to make sure they were fine.
