John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

so, i ve read a ton here lately about the benifits of low capacitence cables and the benifits of it in a studio. so im not sure if its good for most anything balanced and unbalanced. i am doing a total wire job in my studio complete with a snake, patchbay, the works. should i go all aes, or just on certain things?

could anyone pont me in the right direction. im just a bit unclear on where these different cables are most beneficial.

also, if anyone could point me towards the best aes cable for the money. i was looking at the mogami stuff, but i hear alot about other producers also.

thanks so much in advance and sorry if im asking something thats already been answered. i looked through the forum but still wasnt clear on way or another.

I am interested too,... mind if I tag along?

Tom

AES/EBU cable is 110 ohm cable typically for digital signals.

Isn't regular mic cable 75 ohm?

Yes.

Huh??

Aes/EBU digital comes in single or multiple twisted pair with shield and is 110 ohm characteristic impedance; this doesn't matter much with audio signals - what does, is that the stuff is typically under 13 pF per foot capacitance which helps unbalanced and higher impedance balanced lines maintain high frequency response.

Coax digital (Sp/DIF) cables are 75 ohms impedance, same as composite and component and RGB broadcast video, as well as coax antenna feeds for video (coax antenna cables are 75 ohms, flat "twin-lead" antenna cable is 300 ohm, sometimes shielded and sometimes NOT.

MIc cable doesn't really have a characteristic impedance, but is generally optimised to work with microphones which may vary in impedance from maybe 50 ohms up to 600 ohms impedance. It is also twisted shielded pair(s) similar to AES cable, but almost never as low capacitance.

Word clock sync on BNC connectors is 75 ohm cable, but works better for longer runs when using actual digital cable for word clock, which typically has a lot lower capacitance than standard video coax. Video coax will work for short runs, but the higher capacitance rounds off sync pulses with less cable length than would a true "digital" sync cable, so the lower cap 75 ohm cable is better for sync distribution.

Typical unbalanced audio cables aren't all that low capacitance, typically around 40-80 pF per foot. Typical output impedance of these circuits runs anywhere from maybe 1 k ohms, to a normal 10k ohms, and INPUT circuits are usually more in the range of 100k ohms. This means that it's OK to plug one output into several inputs without loading down the output signal appreciably. It's this higher impedance that causes extra capacitance to form a lower frequency filter circuit and "bleed off" high frequencies when running more than a few feet of cable per run.

Got work in 5 hours, so gotta go for now - HTH... Steve

Ahh! I see. I mistakenly thought the higher the ohms the higher the capacitance.

Well I'm a drummer...what can you expect!

Tom

Hi
I´m thinking of buying new cable soon and have been wondering then whether I should just buy 110 ohm cable for everthing,ie mics interconnects etc ? Was thinking of mogami W 3080.
Noticed at last live recording I playing in, ORF(Austrian Radio) was using only 110 ohm for mic cables
Violinman

Violinman wrote:Hi
I´m thinking of buying new cable soon and have been wondering then whether I should just buy 110 ohm cable for everthing,ie mics interconnects etc ? Was thinking of mogami W 3080.
Noticed at last live recording I playing in, ORF(Austrian Radio) was using only 110 ohm for mic cables

If I was setting a studio from scratch, I would do that. Aside from greater versatility in running signals, the lower capacitance permits longer mic runs.

Andre

Thanks AVare
100 metres of 110 ohm it will be then
Much cheaper than 2549 too
can not believed how expensive monster cable is
Mogami 3080 is 1.40 € plus tax a metre,Monster is 20€ unbelievable

Mogami 3080 is 1.40 € plus tax a metre,Monster is 20€ unbelievable

Almost 15 times more expensive?

Shocked also:
Andre

There is nothing wrong with using AES lines for everything, but the cost will be more.

I just finished wiring a very highend mobile truck had a large amount of PTHD and interface patching (probably 400 xlr tie lines through out) which was all configurable to their needs.

So because so much of what they do is in AES, now every line in the truck can be used for AES if the need. If they didn't do that and they ran out they would be out of luck.

We used Gepco Dig as the properties are great and it's much more durable than Mogami and a significant savings as well.

We sell both depending on the job, but when you thousands of feet Gepco can save alot of $$

For me the cost will be a lot less with 110 ohm with 3080.As I only need 100m.
Cheers and
Happy new year