Cable length for audio interfaces ? ?

rxkevco

rxkevco

New member
With regard to audio interfaces connected to a pc (usb or firewire), , does it affect performance/latency the longer the cable is ?

I have a steinberg interface for my cubase 4 and the cable is just an inch or so short of its destination(arent we all ) :), , , so, am going to need a longer cable cos its too much hasle moving the DAW around.
Does it matter how long it is, , am only talking about maybe a 6 or 7ft cable to replace the 5.5" cable that came with the interface.

Also, whilst i am here, , , i hope i am right in thinking that the interface side of the cable is just a standard mini usb connector, and not something special specific to steinberg. It certainly looks standard and both my midi controllers usb cable and a digital cameras cable both fit the interface perfectly and appear to look exactly the same.

Many thanks, , kev
 
rxkevco said:
With regard to audio interfaces connected to a pc (usb or firewire), , does it affect performance/latency the longer the cable is ?
Click to expand...
No, not at normal cable lengths (less than 50 feet). Latency is a non-issue because electricity travels at (I think) 3/4 the speed of light. If your interface was in New York and the other end of the cable was in Philadelphia, you will get some latency. But, from one end of the house to another, no.
 
Electricity moves at 18inches per one-millionth of a second.

So a millisecond latency would take 1,800ft of cable.

...and you would not really notice any audio delays until the cable length reached five or ten MILES.

(What can I say, I'm a geek for remembering my basic computer classes... the CRAY supercomputers were designed in semi-circular towers so that no wire in the box was more than 18inches long for that very reason... it would throw the processing out-of-whack.)
 
TimOBrien said:
Electricity moves at 18inches per one-millionth of a second.

So a millisecond latency would take 1,800ft of cable.

...and you would not really notice any audio delays until the cable length reached five or ten MILES.
Click to expand...

One caveat. This is true only if you are talking about an audio cable. If you are talking about a USB or FireWire cable, anything over a certain length (4.5 meters for FireWire, 3 or 5 meters for USB depending on the device) would be an active cable, which is essentially a hub/repeater device. Those do add a little bit of latency (though not a lot) because they have to decode the signal and retransmit it.
 
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