USB cable for Mbox

  • Thread starter Thread starter anton
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anton

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Hello,

I have an Mbox but seem to have lost the USB cable. I replaced it with another one i had around. I seem to recall the original USB cable that came with it having that cylinder thing on one end. What is that for, and will the Mbox work with a normal USB cable, or do i have to have that cylinder thing on the end?


thanks


anton
 
Keep em short!

Any standard USB cable will do, some have diferent sized plugs so watch what you get. Otherwise keep the length short, I have been told the length of cable matters with USB audio. :rolleyes:
 
MichaelM said:
The cylinder around the cable contains a ferrite bead, which is there to help reduce interference. See here:

http://www1.jaycar.com.au/productVi...d2=&pageNumber=&priceMin=&priceMax=&SUBCATID=

I doubt you will have any problems using a regular USB cable. If you do think you are getting problems or are paranoid you could always go to an electronics store and buy one.
Click to expand...

I doubt that any source of noise inside your computer is going to produce anywhere near the noise level on the USB power wires as the actual USB data lines do.... That sort of isolation absolutely has to be done at the device level.

For that matter, I can't see how a ferrite bead on USB wouldn't significantly degrade the data stream. It just sounds like a really bad idea to me....
 
blazingstrings said:
Otherwise keep the length short, I have been told the length of cable matters with USB audio.
Click to expand...

Shouldn't matter in the slightest unless it starts to verge on the maximum length and you get occasional packet loss. You don't want to get close to the limit (3 meters or 5 meters, depending on the device speed).

What could easily cause problems is putting a USB audio device at the end of a long chain. You should always have USB audio devices attached directly to the root hub (the USB port on the back of your computer). Adding hubs in-between can cause problems.
 
Yeah exactly, you're not sending audio down the wire, but data.
 
Um, well....

A while back I was talking with a good friend from M-Audio about the USB Mobile Pre and I asked him directly does the length of a USB cable have anything to do with USB audio issues? his reply was : "yes Latency and audio timing, So keep the cable short".....

That is were I got my info on USB cable length, And I have had such issues with it when using a longer cable. that is generaly why they provide a 6ft cable. I am certin that a 10 ft cable wouldnt be a huge diference but with USB audio latency gets awfull......

just my experiance with it take it or leave it.

-Blaze
 
I'd say thats a limitation of USB. Just notice it with audio because you're sending a lot of data down the wire at a pretty high rate... But yeah probably wouldn't hurt to keep the cable short.. What are we talking about again?
 
Yeah I would venture that you are right on that! USB 1.1 is so limited that I wont use it for anything but MIDI I/O I hate playing a guitar part when monitoring it through hardware and then hearing a lagg in my playing on play back when I know I can play on time.
PCI, Firewire or USB 2.0 is all I can say......
 
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