Long IC Cable Run



Hi, I'm in the process of sorting out a new room in a new house. The configuration I'm shooting for requires running 16 feet of cable from my preamp to amp, and I'm wondering if an unbalanced RCA type configuration will be ok considering the long length? Otherwise, can my components be modified and made balanced (they are all unbalanced)? My system consists of a Rogue 99 Magnum preamp, Threshold S300 amp, and Arcam cd36 player. My speaker cables are Synergistic Designer Reference, power cables are VH Audio flavor 4, and no interconnects yet . . . Thanks.
128x128bdalessio
There are two main considerations:

1)The cable should be well shielded, to minimize noise pickup. It's hard to be more specific than that, because success or failure would depend on how large and how close the nearby sources of electrical noise are.

2)The capacitance of the cable should be low, so that it does not roll off the highs in combination with the output impedance of the preamp. Determine the capacitance per foot of the cable (you may have to ask the manufacturer), then multiply by 16 to get the total capacitance, then calculate the capacitive reactance (impedance) at 20 kHz based on the formula 1/(2PiFC), where Pi is 3.14, F is 20,000 Hz, and C is the total capacitance in farads. C will probably be on the order of 500 to 1000 picofarads (a picofarad is a trillionth of a farad). If the result of that formula is significantly larger than the preamp's specified output impedance, you'll be ok.

Regards,
-- Al
IC's of that length are fine, but please do pay attention to the post by Al regarding cable shielding and capacitance. You need a cable that is designed to handle that length of run. Please note that if you have an sources of nearby electromagnetic noise (AC wiring for example), a coaxial style interconnect will not be a good choice. You need a cable with ability to reject electromagnetic and electrostatic noise.
Even XLR cables this long can degrade the sound- RCA much worse. Check with Rogue that the output of your preamp can drive it.

Your best bet is to rethink positioning the system to accomodate <1.5M cables