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Serbtastic
You Know How Many People I Have Buried?
Premium Member
join:2002-02-24
Stoney Creek, ON

Serbtastic

Premium Member

50ft 3.5mm to RCA cable

As the title says, I need a 50ft cable to connect a laptop 3.5mm headphone jack to the inputs on a sound board using RCA plugs.

Anyone know of a local source in the Hamilton, Ontario area that sells something like this that I can pickup tomorrow (need it for a wedding on Saturday)?

Thanks.

ArthurS
Watch Those Blinking Lights
Premium Member
join:2000-10-28
Hamilton, ON

ArthurS

Premium Member

Try
»nutechelectronics.com/
in Hamilton, or if they don't have it, try
»www.sayal.com/zinc/index.asp
in Burlington.

Though you might want to consider using a stereo direct box because running an unbalanced signal is risky at those distances. Rent one from Long & McQuade in Burlington. I'd favour the direct box route.

Serbtastic
You Know How Many People I Have Buried?
Premium Member
join:2002-02-24
Stoney Creek, ON

Serbtastic

Premium Member

Risky how? And what else would I need from L&M in order to connect the laptop's headphone 3.5 mm jack to the board?

ArthurS
Watch Those Blinking Lights
Premium Member
join:2000-10-28
Hamilton, ON

1 edit

ArthurS

Premium Member

said by Serbtastic:

Risky how? And what else would I need from L&M in order to connect the laptop's headphone 3.5 mm jack to the board?

Usually you don't want to run an unbalanced audio signal more than 25-30 feet. Running it longer than that exposes you to the risk of noise interference (eg. hum, buzzes, etc), particularly if the cable is run closely to AC power cables. Furthermore many audio output sections from laptops can be very noisy, especially when you plug the laptop's AC adapter into the wall! Blame it on the cheapening of audio components in many modern laptops today. They may sound fine with just a pair of headphones plugged into the output jack, but as soon as you plug it into a sound system, things worsen.

To play it safe, I either use a stereo direct box to convert the unbalanced source to a balanced one (keep the unbalanced portion as short as possible), or get a USB/Firewire based Audio I/O box that has a balanced output.

If going the stereo direct box approach, make sure they supply a 1/8" mini stereo cable to plug into the direct box (shouldn't be more than 10 ft long), and then two 50 ft XLR mic cables to run from the direct box outputs to the mic inputs on the mixing console. If you're going the audio interface route, then you just need the XLR cables, but before leaving the store, have them help you set up the software on your laptop to ensure the audio interface is working correctly with the laptop.

Here's a couple examples of decent stereo direct boxes:
»www.radialeng.com/r2011/jpc.php
»www.rapcohorizon.com/p-3 ··· lox.aspx (converts it to mono)
»www.rapcohorizon.com/p-1 ··· 100.aspx
»whirlwindusa.com/catalog ··· xes/pcdi

And of course a plethora of USB/Firewire audio interfaces from Roland, Presonus, etc that are available from their recording department.

Serbtastic
You Know How Many People I Have Buried?
Premium Member
join:2002-02-24
Stoney Creek, ON

Serbtastic

Premium Member

Wow, 5 bucks to rent a stereo direct box and cables from L&M for the night. That was a great call, thanks!