Quality of FireWire cables for recording

C

Celdor

New member
I have to buy a new FireWire 400 to 800 (6 to 9 pins) cable to connect Focusrite Saffire 24Pro to my PC machine. The range of cost is between 0.5 pends to £25 in UK. Could someone give me some clues or brands I would search for? I can't figure out what would make a good FireWire cable? I need something like 2m.

I don't have much experience in using cables for digital signal transfer. I was always using those provided for me. I read reviews and the opinions are strongly divided into "quality matters a lot" and "it doesn't matter at all". I would say it's still important to have decent connectors and shielding to avoid inferences, even though signal is digital.

I tried to figure out what would make a decent cables and to be honest I can't find a definite answer. I can't see if I need cable for £3.99 $9.99 or £24.99. What sort of information I should look for?

Thanks
 
Digital audio (and video) cables will either work, or it won't. Firewire I've used for years for video, less so for audio. However - up to 3m, virtually anything is perfectly fine. The thicker ones, often with transparent outer and visible braid seem toughest and give no grief with video on the 4 and 5m versions I have. More than this length and you start to get impedance issues which can do two things. Turn the leading edges of the square wave data waveform slightly bent/gentler which can cause the receiver to lose lock and it just stops. Doesn't get gradually worse, it simply stops dead! The other impedance issue is reflections - as cable length gets longer the non-standard impedance causes the data to be reflected back up the cable, resulting in a little signal loss, but importantly, multiple, lower level data waveforms in the same cable. These reflections then get mis-interpreted at the receiver and again it fails. Quality cables don't actually help this very much because firewire doesn't have a proper impedance spec people work to, unlike AES/EBU 110Ohm systems. I think the maximum length for firewire in the spec was 4.5m but I have a few 5m ones that work between the video kit I have - apart from on one model of JVC camera where short ones less than 3m are fine, but longer ones simply won't work. Other brands are happy at 5m here.

For 2m, virtually anything will be fine. I've never had interference issues, but to be honest, with digital you'd never know why it didn't work because interference, though destructive, can't be resolved in the way a hum or buzz can in analogue. With digital audio and video, you can never predict if you could squeeze a little more out of the lengths. You never know how close to the danger zone you are. Oddly, SDI and HD-SDI video cables often are promoted with specs on their maximum lengths. One brand may say 50m, another 100m etc. These specs are usually right. I used one that when I checked was 10m too long and it was right on the edge. A tiny waggle of the cable, or a twist would stop the video. Great, up to the point it isn't.

Your audio quality will be no different with the expensive or cheap one. If the cable is really awful, it just won't work, but I've never had a short one fail - ever. even those hard, stiff, plastic things seem to actually work with 2m lengths. Don't waste your money here - just buy the cheapest you can find that doesn't look really nasty.
 
I've never given the quality of the cable a thought. I have a range of lengths, from about 1m to maybe 4m, which I use for a variety of configurations including daisy-chaining and off-site recording. I just wander into the computer shop, look through the various cables until I find what I need, and get it. I've never had a firewire cable failure since I got my first Firepod about 14 years ago.
 
The main difference in Firewire cables is the quality of the builds.
There's no real difference in performance between cheap firewire cables and expensive firewire cables, but better quality builds will be less prone to failures and will most likely have better longevity.
The firewire cables included with the 003 are bottom of the barrel in terms of quality builds.
That said, I used mine for years with my 002/003, and never had a problem.
 
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