Flawed Livewire Cable Tester test

Guitar center put these Cable testers on sale for $20 in January 2022 and I'm like, wow that is cheap! The roosevelt square store in Seattle had two other similarly cross wired units that light up a third channel LED when testing the first channel, and vice versa.

[davidlingg]

This is not a flawed cable. It is a TS cable, not TRS. All the yellow light is showing that it is wired to that pin. Since the sleeve on a TS cable touches both the sleeve & ring connectors inside the tester, the yellow lights show up for both the Sleeve (position 1) and the ring (position 3). The cable is good if the green light shows up under position 1 and position 2. (The green light will also show up on position 3 because the sleeve is making the connection to both the sleeve and ring testers. Hope this makes sense. No reason to throw those cables away!

[VideoTV]

There's nothing wrong with the tester or the cable. That's a TS cable, not a TRS. A TRS cable has three connections, tip, ring, & sleeve. A TS cable only has two connections, sleeve, & tip. Just for the sake of clarity in this situation, you can think of a TS cable as having the sleeve and ring combined, ie, connected. For this tester, position 1 tests the sleeve, position 2 tests the tip, and position 3 tests the ring. Put a good TRS cable in there, and you'll get one green and one yellow light for positions 1, 2, and 3. Put a TS cable in there, and you'll get a green light and two yellow lights for position 1 & 3; the tester is just telling you there's a connection between the sleeve, and the "ring". "But there is no ring on a TS cable!" you say... Right! It's just one continuous piece of metal (the sleeve). The tester doesn't "know" whether the cable is a TS or TRS. It's just telling you there's a connection between the sleeve and the "ring", which is exactly what you would expect with a TS cable. I have the same tester and used it while making my own cables. All good TS cables (even store bought ones) get the same result as in this video. I did make a lot of TRS cables, which can be tricky to keep the connections separate. This tester caught any of my bad cables, and I was able to take them apart, find where it was shorting and fix them.

[Ender_Wiggin]

You tested a TS 1/4inch and not a TRS 1/4inch. The TS only has 2 contacts! So only the first two like should come on. The problem is the tester has a prong for a 3 input on a TRS cable . That is why it is also lighting up the 3 input.

[AceGuillenOfficial]

Why do you think it's flawed? It's working exactly like it's supposed to.

[aaronpierce]

All the 1/4 cables I’ve tested show the same thing. They all work. Does that mean all my cables are bad or is the tester bad?

[ModeradoresMielSanFernando]

I did not learn anything the guy dont say nothing how do i know when the cable is good?

[Kampsy]

I mean you do have a TS 1/4inch and not a TRS 1/4inch. My question is if the lights that came on for the TS cable you used mean it’s working or not 😅

[sttrumpet]

I think this means that the cable is bad. Not that the tester is bad. Have you tried other cables?