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Sound cart cabling


Bert Foley

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Hello. I am finishing my portable sound cart this month. Cart is for film location recording. I need slightly help about internal cabling. We are using Canare L-4E5C for boom operators externally. The cart have XLR panel and i need build really short XLR patches for it. What do you recommend? It's cable quality very important on short (1 meter max) lengths? 

Thank you in advance. Bert

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2 hours ago, Derek H said:

If you want something very thin but still quad and with a durable jacket try Belden 1804a. It’s often recommended here and my favorite for line level in a sound bag. 

Thanks. But it's microphone cables. I have some proel and rean microphone cables and wondering if i will use them for it.

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Bert,

 

Sorry, I'm not sure if I understand what you're wanting to know.

 

To answer one of your basic questions, of course, you should always use quality components.  If you meant instead "type of cable," that's a different story.

 

What makes something a "microphone cable" is simply the application and what you choose to call it.

 

What qualifies a particular cable for any given application are things like flexibility, durability, chemical resistance, shielding qualities, thickness, and sometimes capacitance.  However, unless you're working under a 50kW broadcast tower, almost any decent shielded cable will be fine for short bag or cart runs.  Quad cable is usually overkill in such an application, and any worry about capacitance in short audio frequency runs is like being concerned that spitting into the ocean will raise the tide.

 

So, if your question is if something marked "microphone cable" can be used for bag or cart interconnects, the answer is "yes, of course." 

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You can use 1804a for mic level too. 

 

Quad is likely unnecessary for short jumpers on a sound cart. Though it couldn’t hurt. So if you’d rather just use a good quality twisted pair, side benefit is that the diameter is smaller and it’s easier to terminate. I have some of Canare’s standard braid shield twisted pair and it’s nice. Can’t remember the part number off hand. 

 

I like to to stick with braided shield always. 

 

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2 hours ago, Derek H said:

...

I like to to stick with braided shield always. 

 

 

Agreed.  You can get by with spiral-wrapped when doing a permanent install and you're careful with any bends.

 

Even better than braided shield is a braided shield with an electrostatic wrap -- that can give 100% shield coverage.

 

 

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