50' XLR Cable to Machine Room - Loss of Quality?

Started by Tony.C on 22 August 2007. 3 replies.

Originally posted at johnlsayers.com, topic 9292.

Hey Folks, Can I run a good quality XLR to XLR 50' back to my audio interface in my new machine room without losing too much signal? I'm looking forn the best quality guitar recordings from an AKG 414 that I can get - I know shorter would ideally be better, but i'm torn between the long mic cable and moving the firewire audio interface on 2 x extenders/repeaters which could be expensive and problematic... Any help would be fantastic, also any suggestions on buying/making a 50' cable from suppliers in the UK...? Many thanks Tony
Hi Tony, Sorry for the delay, I've been on vacation this past week. As long as you use a good quality cable, you should be ok. Such as Mogami, etc. In a typical studio, between the multipair snakes and and then mic cables, they often are about that distance. Try and have a straight run if you can, minimizing connections.
Great stuff . . . thanks very much. I found a company called Canford here in the UK that have a good tech support... they supplied me with 40m of starquad cable and the connectors I need - never realized I'd have so many problems with this distance! I think in the near future I'll move the machine room closer to the studio... want to future proof it against having to have long firewire runs etc- not healthy... Cheers again, Tony
Yeah, usually the closer, the better. (or shorter cables). The starquad stuff is good, and usually has a good shield with most of those cables. If you run into any issue's, you can also put a mic pre closer to the mic source, so you boost the signal before the long run.