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[Snuffy2]

I'm looking for reccomendations for running a cable from my PC to a receiver a distance away.

I'm looking to run a cable from the 1/8" audio out of my computer to a receiver (Stereo RCA jacks) over 100 ft away (probably no more than 150ft).

What would be the best cable to do that. I'm looking for a fair trade-off between $$ and sound quality.  I'd really like to minimize (eliminate) any humming / feedback from the cable running that long.

Also I have craploads of CAT 5e cable lying around, is there anway to use that (besides attaching 2 computers together  ).

Thanx for your advice.

[MGD_King]

Also I have craploads of CAT 5e cable lying around, is there anway to use that (besides attaching 2 computers together  ).

Snuffy2,

I once made a cable of about 50+ feet using CAT 5e that I had 1/8" male plugs going into my soundcard's input and output with male RCA plugs on the other going into the input of the receiver and the tape deck's record out. Worked like a champ with very little of not no hum when playing from PC to stereo and vice versa. I don't know if the additional length would be much of a problem though. Try it and find out.

Good luck!

[pank2002]

I think wireless would probably be the best way to go. best as in easiest mind you...

Resistance increase with length in a cable so you would need a thick cable to justify for that. Also the cable made out of expensive materials like silver (or even better gold) tend to do better (due to vacant electrons.) Copper would work too.

On head-fi.org there's a whole forum dedicated to cables there also guide on how to make on yourself.  

[dcpete]

For longer distances, use thicker gauge cables.  You should not use less than 14 gauge for your application.  It should work fine.

Chris

[dcpete]

Camper,

You're right.  I misread the question.  I thought Snuffy2 was talking about running a long run of speaker cables.  I see he was talking about running a long run of interconnects from a sound card.  As a datapoint, I have a 50 foot run of miniplug to RCA cable.  It was designed to run off of an USB audio device from a computer.  I actually haven't tried the cable, but it was designed to do basically what Snuffy2 is talking about.  The cable is a good quality cable from all appearances.  I don't know if doubling that distance would be significant audibly, especially if it's intended for background music.  I would give it a try myself.

Chris

[lalittle]

Actually, 100ft is not really considered all that long in many circles -- it's not uncommon to find installations that run audio AND video for this distance without any problems.  People tend to assume that this length will be a problem without actually trying it, or they incorrectly blame problems on the cable length when this is not the issue.  The problems that arise in these situations are typically related to ground loop and other hookup issues that have nothing to do with distance of the run.

I just did an installation where a sound card is used to send audio roughly 100ft to two different stereo systems.  I called Belden and they recommended 1505A for this purpose.  This is a fairly inexpensive cable that's easy to find and is quite popular for both audio (digital and analogue) and video in professional installations.  Make sure that you use black if there are any exterior sections to the run since only the black is UV safe (although I would avoid direct sun anyway.)

I used 1505A terminated with Canare F-10 solder-on RCA plugs (also extremely popular in pro circles while still being very inexpensive.)  This has worked well for me -- the audio is totally clean with ZERO hum or added noise resulting from this run.  The only issues I had to deal with were ground loop issues related to the video -- some problems caused by the cable TV hookup, which is common.  The distance, however, was not a factor in this.

It's true that low capacitance is key to long runs (guage is really not an issue.)  This usually means it should be in the neighborhood of around 20 pF/ft (1505A is 16.3 pF/ft.)  I'm not sure if it really gets much low than this.

Larry