Does the length of the Cable matter?


I've got to rig a 15 ft cable to my turntable.

A Mistake?

The sales person says no.

TIA

128x128jjbeason14

As a general rule, as I have been told by repeated 'experts', keep the interconnects as short as possible, ~1 meter.  Amp to speakers can be much longer, but use high quality speaker cable, not lamp cord....

elliottbnewcombjr

IF hum is a problem, adapters exist to convert from rca to Balanced, simply to use a better noise resistant balanced cable for the run.

Using an RCA to XLR adapter does not convert the signal to balanced; the signal will remain unbalanced. As for a noise resistant cable, that’s actually more likely to be an RCA cable. Balanced interconnects usually start with an assumption that they’ll be used in a true balanced circuit, where they’ll benefit from common mode noise rejection.

A phono cartridge is technically a balanced (floating) source. It only becomes unbalanced when you use it with a single ended preamp.

All cables are tone control by nature, longer cables will have more effect. Maybe the first cable you will try will not be satisfactory. A shielded cable may affect the top end from its capacitance and at this length an unshielded cable may pickup hum. Also the dielectric of the cable degrades the low level texture of the music, accumulating over the length of the cable.

To maximize the SQ at that length, a DIY approached would be to build and experiment with RCAs  assembled from a pair of spaced cotton covered bare wire, or with a central the cotton wire with layers of further cotton dielectric sleeve to get a diameter of 3/8 and fish the assembly in a 3/8 tin copper braid to get a shielded RCA of lowed capacitance.

cleeds

thanks for the clarification. Is the construction of a balanced cable more resistant to interference than a typically shielded rca cable, that was my assumption to suggest the conversion.

Over the years, I've used long and inexpensive rca cables, even 25lf to reach a sub, with no hum or problems, so I think OP should be ok.