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Are XLR cables with wall plugs ok for active speakers?

o2so

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Hi all,

I am going to have to move my music source across the room and the XLR cables to my active speakers will have to go through a doorway, which is not possible. So I am planning to run the cables underfloor and place XLR plugs in the wall at each end. Is this (i.e. two XLR connectors along the signal path from preamp to each speaker) going to affect the signal quality to any audible extent, compared to running the same length cable straight to the speakers?
Also, I am doing the same with RCA cables for the two subs (length about 6m), but my understanding is that for subs this is ok. Am I correct?
Thank you!
 

Blumlein 88

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MaxwellsEq

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Recording studios are laid out with patch panels all over the place, so you are describing a very common approach which works reliably over quite long distances.
 

Blumlein 88

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Thank you. Does all of this also applies to AES EBU cables?
You do have to worry about the characteristic impedance of digital cables and I don't know if all of the plenum rated cable is correct for that. It should be 110 ohms. At least some of it is.
 
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o2so

o2so

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You do have to worry about the characteristic impedance of digital cables and I don't know if all of the plenum rated cable is correct for that. It should be 110 ohms. At least some of it is.
Thank you but I guess my question was, what if I use 110ohms XLR cables under the floor, rather than standard XLRs. Will the fact that there are 2 plug connections along the way become important if I wanted to send a digital signal through that cable? If not, I might as well install 110 ohm underfloor cables so I can switch to digital in the future should I need to.
 

Blumlein 88

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Thank you but I guess my question was, what if I use 110ohms XLR cables under the floor, rather than standard XLRs. Will the fact that there are 2 plug connections along the way become important if I wanted to send a digital signal through that cable? If not, I might as well install 110 ohm underfloor cables so I can switch to digital in the future should I need to.
Most regular analog XLR cable is around 110 ohms which is why it was chosen as the standard. So that studios could use existed cable for both analog and digital. So it should work for you even if you switch to digital over it later.
 

Frgirard

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Hi all,

I am going to have to move my music source across the room and the XLR cables to my active speakers will have to go through a doorway, which is not possible. So I am planning to run the cables underfloor and place XLR plugs in the wall at each end. Is this (i.e. two XLR connectors along the signal path from preamp to each speaker) going to affect the signal quality to any audible extent, compared to running the same length cable straight to the speakers?
Also, I am doing the same with RCA cables for the two subs (length about 6m), but my understanding is that for subs this is ok. Am I correct?
Thank you!
It's what it do in studio.
 

MaxwellsEq

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Thank you but I guess my question was, what if I use 110ohms XLR cables under the floor, rather than standard XLRs. Will the fact that there are 2 plug connections along the way become important if I wanted to send a digital signal through that cable? If not, I might as well install 110 ohm underfloor cables so I can switch to digital in the future should I need to.
Assuming you use cable with the correct characteristic impedance, don't have too many patches and don't exceed the maximum length, it should be fine. Again, Digital-based studios need to patch AES3 sources and destinations, so this should be OK.
HOWEVER - you should really make certain you label everything correctly. I would use cable designed for AES3.
 
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