EDIT: Thanks Line Level Folks We have a decision. I went speaker Cable
Question for Line Level folks:
DEDIT#2: I bought a $3 Monoprice USB-A to USB-B 15ft 28/24AWG Gold Plated and it works flawlessly. 15ft is GTG.
Now I also have 2x50ft of speaker cable. Now I can place my components anywhere. Thx folks.
I have speakers, AMP, KEF KUBE EQ, Preamp, PC. For best sound in my room, I now have a crazy cable party train strung across furniture from PC to DAC/Preamp via 3foot USB, Preamp to KEF KUBE EQ 3 ft RCA, KEF KUBE to Amp with 3Ft RCA. and AMP to Speakers with 6ft of speaker cable 12 gauge .
I want to consolidate my components. Do I buy new equidistant speaker cables ~15Ft, do I buy a 15Ft USB cable, or do I buy a 12ft RCA cable from preamp to KEF KUBE EQ?
Which component will suffer less over the distance travelled? I'm thinking Speaker cable? Just Like to hear your thoughts. Which is best kept short and what can I get away with.
Question for Line Level folks:
DEDIT#2: I bought a $3 Monoprice USB-A to USB-B 15ft 28/24AWG Gold Plated and it works flawlessly. 15ft is GTG.
Now I also have 2x50ft of speaker cable. Now I can place my components anywhere. Thx folks.
I have speakers, AMP, KEF KUBE EQ, Preamp, PC. For best sound in my room, I now have a crazy cable party train strung across furniture from PC to DAC/Preamp via 3foot USB, Preamp to KEF KUBE EQ 3 ft RCA, KEF KUBE to Amp with 3Ft RCA. and AMP to Speakers with 6ft of speaker cable 12 gauge .
I want to consolidate my components. Do I buy new equidistant speaker cables ~15Ft, do I buy a 15Ft USB cable, or do I buy a 12ft RCA cable from preamp to KEF KUBE EQ?
Which component will suffer less over the distance travelled? I'm thinking Speaker cable? Just Like to hear your thoughts. Which is best kept short and what can I get away with.
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Hah, I’m sure you’ll get votes in favor of every option.
I’ll start with recommendation against long RCA cables. They have, on average, 100 pF/m (3 Ft) capacitance. Average preamplifiers may have slight treble roll off with long RCA cables and tube preamplifiers would definitely suffer. Though, there are SS preamplifiers with very low output impedance that would be unaffected even with 5 – 7 m long RCA cables.
USB works perfect with 5 – 7 m long USB cables. Just don’t be tempted to purchase any ‘audiophile USB cable‘ of a Chinese origin. I did such mistake and bought 5 m long cable which indeed look high quality, OCC single crystal copper and whatnot: USB cables to be avoided
PC didn’t register that DAC is plugged in, probably high capacitance and fact that data wires are not twisted but straight. It’s made with usual Star-Quad cable that our Chinese friends are using for everything audio related, never mind the standards. Avoid anything similar if more than 1m length is required.
OTOH, DAC worked perfectly well with pure crap 5m USB extension cable + 2m original USB cable from DAC. You’ll may get some FUD stories about noise and ‘lost data' with long USB cables, but that is fiction.
I’ll start with recommendation against long RCA cables. They have, on average, 100 pF/m (3 Ft) capacitance. Average preamplifiers may have slight treble roll off with long RCA cables and tube preamplifiers would definitely suffer. Though, there are SS preamplifiers with very low output impedance that would be unaffected even with 5 – 7 m long RCA cables.
USB works perfect with 5 – 7 m long USB cables. Just don’t be tempted to purchase any ‘audiophile USB cable‘ of a Chinese origin. I did such mistake and bought 5 m long cable which indeed look high quality, OCC single crystal copper and whatnot: USB cables to be avoided
PC didn’t register that DAC is plugged in, probably high capacitance and fact that data wires are not twisted but straight. It’s made with usual Star-Quad cable that our Chinese friends are using for everything audio related, never mind the standards. Avoid anything similar if more than 1m length is required.
OTOH, DAC worked perfectly well with pure crap 5m USB extension cable + 2m original USB cable from DAC. You’ll may get some FUD stories about noise and ‘lost data' with long USB cables, but that is fiction.
Longer speaker cables without doubt.
This is al low impedance connection so less prone to interference and little extra capacitance.
This is al low impedance connection so less prone to interference and little extra capacitance.
Another vote for longer speaker cables. Least chance of introducing any 'nasties'.
Thank you. I'm getting favorables for USB and Speaker so RCA is out. USB as digital with "error correction" and polling to fix errors. I read 15ft,~5m, is the max on USB 2.0. The cheapest is a 15ft Monoprice USB cable at $3, 12 Gauge speaker cable is $30+ for 100ft. I guess I'll try USB and go from there.
Long speaker cables will have low but significant resistance, so will slightly alter sound because speakers are not flat impedance.
That said, it´s known and predictable so in general preferable to possible highs loss and hum pickup in weak signal audio cables and even worse, high frequency data transmission and timing problems present in Data cables (such as USB)
FWIW what Galu said using less words 😉
That said, it´s known and predictable so in general preferable to possible highs loss and hum pickup in weak signal audio cables and even worse, high frequency data transmission and timing problems present in Data cables (such as USB)
FWIW what Galu said using less words 😉
So active speakers with BT connection. - Just the job for great sounds.....
I want to get away from BT. A wifi Streamer at $100 like a Wiim but I'm old school and like wired stuff. PC to Speakers through good stuff.
Speaker cables for the distance, keep data and unbalanced signal cables short.
I run PA mains with 12g cable over 50ft with no problems (calculated 0.34db power loss, capacitance rolloff -3db at 50Khz)
power loss of 12g @ 15ft would be 0.1db
https://products.electrovoice.com/na/en/cableloss
I run PA mains with 12g cable over 50ft with no problems (calculated 0.34db power loss, capacitance rolloff -3db at 50Khz)
power loss of 12g @ 15ft would be 0.1db
https://products.electrovoice.com/na/en/cableloss
I'd say go with what is going to be the most workable, which is probably pc/dac/pre/amp all located centrally with speaker wire. Cable loss on any of the approaches can be quite small, especially at 15'.
None of these wires is "long". Where do YOU want these boxes? Put them there and then get wires.
Is USB not a less than ideal method for audio data as its a packet system unlike spdif.
Are packets dropped (lost) if the error correction detects an error?
Long USB leads are surely the worst of the three options the OP has.
Are packets dropped (lost) if the error correction detects an error?
Long USB leads are surely the worst of the three options the OP has.
I did think of using two cheap DACs, with an optical splitter, so I could have a DAC for each channel, with a light dependant resistor volume control so there would be no RCA or speaker cable, just a monoblock, DAC and volume control under each speaker.
If the error correction in the system works (involves sending a packet again if corrupted) you won't hear any issues. If it doesn't, you get dropouts.
Error correction is just what it says - it corrects the error.
If it can't it goes into error concealment which can't be missed, the stuttering type of sound.
So as long as you don't hear stuttering or dropouts it's bit-perfect and no issues.
The analog cables always lower the sound quality, varying from very little to a lot.
It is best to concentrate on the best analog cables which includes the shortest ones.
Jan