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

Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 4:53 am
by Tony.C
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

Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 12:07 pm
by Aaronw
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.

Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 4:57 pm
by Tony.C
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

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 12:44 am
by Aaronw
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.