How long can I run a cable before signal loss?

[Re-tox_stl]

Hi all! My family is about to move into a new house (YAY! ), and I get to dedicate the whole basement to music and recording. All of my gear and instruments will be in he main room, which is roughly 12' x 23'. Down the hall though, there will be a spare bedroom that so far we have no plans for, and I have a though in the back of my mind, about turning that into a vocal/isolation room. Now I know that I don't at all NEED one, but I just think it would be kinda cool . The problem though, is that I would have to run approx a 50' cable to reach from my desk to the room (it is a couple doors down the hall). Now would this result in a substantial amount of signal/quality loss, and I should just forget it? Or Will I be ok?

Cheers, Drew

 

[Sky Blue Lou]

Three hours or so. Maybe four if it's a Monster.


lou

 

[Re-tox_stl]

Lol sorry, I meant, how long can the cable be before it starts to lose signal? 50', 100'?

 

[Sky Blue Lou]

I'm just yankin' ya'. I don't honestly know but I have a 100' stage snake that never had an issue. I think the quality of the cable will make a difference and one long run is probably better than plugging three or four into each other. I believe there are some impedance reservations but I don't have that knowledge on dial up. Do a search - "cable length". It must have been asked a half a hundred times.


lou

 

[c7sus]

If you use balanced cables and have balanced ins and outs on the gear you are connecting 50-feet is no problem.

IIRC you start running into problems with balanced cables at about 300 feet or so.

 

[stevieb]

The standard it to limit balanced (XLR and TRS) cables to 200 feet. Beyond that, noise can develop.

 

[c7sus]

The standard it to limit balanced (XLR and TRS) cables to 200 feet. Beyond that, noise can develop.

All good and fine, but your reply is sparse to the point of being useless. All you are doing is stating your opinion- unproven and unsupported. It might not be so bad, if you at least presented it as your OPINION, rather than a declarative statement.

There is no industry standard for balanced analog audio transmission length.

 

[stevieb]

When one puts forth one OPINION, it is meaningless without a supporting arugment. When one reports FACTS, the facts stand on their own. You quite obviously don't know the difference, and allow your hurt feelings to cloud your judgment. I count myself luck to not know you personally.

Good day, sir.

EDIT: Please see below. Besides this note, no changes to this particular post have been made.

 

[Sky Blue Lou]

The standard it to limit balanced (XLR and TRS) cables to 200 feet. Beyond that, noise can develop.

There is no industry standard for balanced analog audio transmission length.

When one reports FACTS, the facts stand on their own.

It would appear that the FACTS are in question. There is a standard or there isn't. Shouldn't be too hard to establish that FACT.


lou

 

[moresound]

I've made some pretty long runs at festivals using XLR 100' linked together as many as 7 maybe 8 and never had a problem.
Heck most of my FOH snakes are 250' long with 50' and 75' mic cables on the stage box end, which isn't that uncommon at all!

 

[Lt. Bob]

You are an ass. When one puts forth one OPINION, it is meaningless without a supporting arugment. When one reports FACTS, the facts stand on their own. You quite obviously don't know the difference, and allow your hurt feelings to cloud your judgment. I count myself luck to not know you personally.

Good day, sir.

considering the fact that you routinely insult people for the same thing I find this pretty funny.

 

[stevieb]

After reading, and responding to your post in the "other" thread, I hastened over here, but Bob got here before I did.

Bob, right again, at least in spirit. I am a jerk for resorting to name calling. Shouldn't have done that. Took both your posts and someone doing that to me for me to realize it. No excuse for that, I was wrong. I will say, "routinely" is a bit overstated- twice in two days does not establish a routine.

I don't believe in deleting or editing my previous post in this kind of stupid exchange- doing so only confuses people, making them wonder what all the fuss is about. I think it much better to let my words, even stupid ones, stand, and make amends when I can. Consider this making amends. I don't think C7 should have referenced that other post, but I should not have resorted to name calling.

I've seen the "200 feet" rule so many times, I accept it as fact. Perhaps it is only "conventional wisdom," which is neither as powerful as fact, nor as mercurial as opinion. It is, at least, a good rule of thumb: If you have a XLR run of OVER 200 feet and know your cables are good ones, but you have noise, your cable run is a good place to look for it.

I am going to re-read the TOS, paying particular attention to anything that addresses "mutual respect." Maybe that would be a good exercise for many of us...

Now, I am going to leave this forum for the day, and go get some work done.

 

[RazorLandStudio]

Personally I never run any unbalanced cable more than about 15 to 20 feet. My personal experience in the live sound world with balanced lines have been cable runs of up to 500 feet or more with no audible noise or signal loss. If that concernes you , invest in good Quarda-flex cable with a braided shield, the quadra-flex provides you with 2 twisted pairs for your hot and neutral legs, they are a bit of a challenge to solder cleanly, but with a little practice you can get good, clean, noise free connections, the extra money is well worth the extra expense. I have also integrated a cable trough up along the ceiling between the control room and tracking room instead of permenamtly mounting cable within the walls, this allows ease of repair and an easy way to conceal and repair, replace any cables giving you problems.
I am currently only running a max length of about 40 feet on any of my balanced runs with no noise problems whatsoever.

 

[Lt. Bob]

After reading, and responding to your post in the "other" thread, I hastened over here, but Bob got here before I did.

Bob, right again, at least in spirit. I am a jerk for resorting to name calling. Shouldn't have done that. Took both your posts and someone doing that to me for me to realize it. No excuse for that, I was wrong. I will say, "routinely" is a bit overstated- twice in two days does not establish a routine.

I don't believe in deleting or editing my previous post in this kind of stupid exchange- doing so only confuses people, making them wonder what all the fuss is about. I think it much better to let my words, even stupid ones, stand, and make amends when I can. Consider this making amends. I don't think C7 should have referenced that other post, but I should not have resorted to name calling.

I've seen the "200 feet" rule so many times, I accept it as fact. Perhaps it is only "conventional wisdom," which is neither as powerful as fact, nor as mercurial as opinion. It is, at least, a good rule of thumb: If you have a XLR run of OVER 200 feet and know your cables are good ones, but you have noise, your cable run is a good place to look for it.

I am going to re-read the TOS, paying particular attention to anything that addresses "mutual respect." Maybe that would be a good exercise for many of us...

Now, I am going to leave this forum for the day, and go get some work done.

that's very cool man.

 

[bdenton]

As an alternative, put a mic preamp in your vocal room, then run a balanced cable from the preamp to your interface/mixer/whatever.

Since the long-distance run will be at line level, any signal loss will be less a problem than it would with a long mic cable...

 

[Flyinace1]

.............

He basically apologizes for being rude to you and backs up his reasoning behind the 200' cable length and all you can do is throw more insults? Not to mention that there are minors who use this forum, heck, for that matter there are adults who use this forum who don't want to see all the bad language and sexual references.

This forum is supposed to be helping other people who have the same interests/work/hobbies as the rest of us and the side conversations are annoying. Put in your opinion and if someone disagrees, then oh well.

I have noticed that in the sound business most "facts" are simply common wisdom and a lot of advice is based on opinion or experience, so it all tends to vary greatly.



To answer the threads original question: I use a 100' snake with 25' mic cables on a regular basis with no problem, so you should not have any problem with a 50' cable.

 

[c7sus]

You HNFI what you are talking about re StevieB.

Stevie followed me from one thread to another, chiming in with his 2-cents worth of don't-know-shit-from-apple-butter.

Then he only offered his apology after LtBob pointed out what an asshole he was being and that it wasn't the first time.

I've been on this BBS for 11 years and you signed up 5 minutes ago and are gonna tell me how things run around here???



He can back up his statements all he wants. The FACT remains that THERE IS NO INDUSTRY "STANDARD" FOR BALANCED ANALOG AUDIO TRANSMISSION.

For digital audio, there is indeed an industry-wide standard known as AES/EBU or AES3, first published in 1985 and revised in 1992 and 2003.

The op's question was answered correctly by me before stevie or you ever got involved.

 

[Sky Blue Lou]

You HNFI what you are talking about re StevieB.

Stevie followed me from one thread to another, chiming in with his 2-cents worth of don't-know-shit-from-apple-butter.

Then he only offered his apology after LtBob pointed out what an asshole he was being and that it wasn't the first time.

I've been on this BBS for 11 years and you signed up 5 minutes ago and are gonna tell me how things run around here???



He can back up his statements all he wants. The FACT remains that THERE IS NO INDUSTRY "STANDARD" FOR BALANCED ANALOG AUDIO TRANSMISSION.

For digital audio, there is indeed an industry-wide standard known as AES/EBU or AES3, first published in 1985 and revised in 1992 and 2003.

The op's question was answered correctly by me before stevie or you ever got involved.

+1 and then some. Some people need to get slapped upside the head and a first or second post chastisement smells like alias or idiot.


lou

 

[Re-tox_stl]

Nice words only on my thread, plox =)

 

[Sky Blue Lou]

Nice words only on my thread, plox =)

This doesn't concern you, junior.

I think yer question's been answered though, eh?


lou