Noisy Preamps and Lengthy Cables

If the cables are balanced then I fail to see any noise increase over shorter lengths, maybe live where cable runs are much longer in aspects. In pre-amps you usually get what you pay for, and in the electronics hooking it up all together. In the end the EIN is the lowest noise you can have over a bandwidth of frequencies, so it is all relative on how you end up learning your equipment and finding how it works and the best you can set it to. The more you pay for equipment, the usually better it will be - simple fact is "Let the Consumer Beware".  But there is a point where the more you pay you are paying for preceived differences no one may actually hear. A relatively good cable is about the best you can get unless you go and pay quite a big hike in price more, which most people would shrug off as marketing hype. If the equipment is made good at any price point and if you use the equipment the best it can be used, then the only difference between better equipment and cheaper equipment, will be what you perceive you hear and  the difference that actually is. The only way usually to tell is to hear it and the reasons why the better equipment is better - more variance in input and output so home equipment to me is still only home consumer equipment whether it states it is pro or not, but if you are going to build a studio and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars then yes, that is going to make a difference then a few thousands spent for home consumer so-called pro equipment.
 
People still pick out what they can afford and what they hear with the equipment and the rest I guess is left to those who have a track record or so-called golden ear to hear some of the difference. Without the equipment in the signal chain to keep it all great equipment or just the norm equipment then price jump for the equipment may just keep you getting what you can for your budget.
 
And spending money on equipment usually was not done first by being in music, but working at something else like being a business leader or engineer or one of the pro professions. But even then good enough equipment can be bought by a good working person also nowadays if you have time left to spend on it.
 
Well, in all fairness I am not sure what you meant by your questions and to me home consumer equipment although it can be good will never equal a adequate set-up professional studio. The professional studio has more equipment in the end it can pull out to make a recording with and quite expensive equipment and although the home consumer equipment can reach there in a sense, it usually has been the same for many a many years ever since sound recording came about being.
 
Well, like usually usual, I plan to make no sense in trying to explain it, experience and reading will give yourself a better answer then ever I can give you.
It is not the age, it is the mileage!
 
You can not be a jack of trades with everyone with even the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, they may listen and still it will be the same as anything else - some will like it, some will not, and some and probably a lot will not even care.
 

 
Yet there will be serious people and funny people playing music and those who you may never consider that do a night club act in various places like Las Vegas or Branson MI, or any of the other places or around the world.
 
I am not sure what I am talking about anymore, so I take my leave.
 
 

Get the appropriate legnth balanced cables you required.  I don't know if your soundcard mic in is balanced, probably not.  But every connection is a chance for something to go wrong (cables seldom break in the studio before connections).  You are discovering why people pay good money for good stuff, though.
 
Your best bet is for online cables, guitar center and such put a premium on "last minute" items, when you need something for a show or finish recording.  So get 2 - one as a backup.
 
Good preamps cost money too.  Many (not all) professional preamps use transformers at $100 a pop.  So it adds up.  There are professional transfomerless preamps, and most interface preamps don't have preamps.  But they are good, fully spec'ed preamps.  I doubt the soundcard preamp is up to any musical standard.  Even if you get a good signal out of it, it will be fuzzy, indistinct.  A better preamp is easier to set.  Has more gain.  And simply sounds better, more like what was in the room.  Even those on a garden variety music interface.  Unless you know what you are listening for, the better preamps don't sound that much better, even w/ the "sound" of transfomers.  That is the last 5 or 10% people talk about.  But plenty of good acoustics have been captured with interface preamps.
 
@

Yes, I was mainly typing about low impedence connections. High impedence (guitars and cords) are another subject.
Then you get into Sound System Engineering - like football stadiums and such and line voltages and other factors to consider or with extra-large concerts and places like Carnegie Hall and other sound system venues.
All different and engineered with respect to that.
 

I have short balanced cables and nice pre-amps :-)
 
A UA LA-610 and an Avalon 737 VT (Love them both like my children)

quality preamps and quality cables makes good sense for investment if you are serious about recording.
everytime you improve either, or both, you make better sonic choices.
 
don't use cables any longer than you need.
i have mine custom made to order.
they are cheaper than off the wall cables.
 
 
 

"Then you get into Sound System Engineering - like football stadiums and such and line voltages and other factors to consider or with extra-large concerts and places like Carnegie Hall and other sound system venues.
All different and engineered with respect to that.

Hmmm... not at all actually! The fundamentals for a proper sound system design change very little from critical listening system to small club to large arena."
 
Well, yes it does in a football stadium and arena type stadium.
There are books on Sound System Engineering, and college courses to become a Sound Engineer and measurements in places like Carnegie Hall and other places like that. They just do not hire the hook up a band in a night club people, they hire Professionals in those places.
 
And they do not use balanced cables, they use line-voltage cables with 26,400 whatever watts to run it all plus anything else they need. I do have a book on it, and even the formulas used are quite extensive.

http://www2.jblpro.com/products/installed/

http://www2.jblpro.com/index.html
 
http://www2.jblpro.com/catalog/general/Installations/Default.aspx
 
Now in your local small type church you may get by with it, but if they want it done like some people want it done, they pay, pay, and pay for professionals to figure it all out before giving them a price and doing the work.
Lest you be 40 feet up hooking up those speakers to cover an area in a church or any place like that.

 
But nowadays I suppose a lot of people think they are a recording engineer (except only in their own brain and those they can convince). Will it be done by people like that, well yes, but still the person is going to have to know something about any of it.
(and still convince others to spend the bucks on it).
 
 

Hi Spacealf,
 It seems as if you are speaking about constant voltage sound systems. That's a technology for playing back or presenting sound through arrays of loud speakers spaced throughout a facility.
 
 Large venues routinely use balanced interconnections for low level signal communications. I work in football stadiums and on golf courses as a sound technician frequently. At golf tournaments we lay down many miles of line level balanced cable so that the microphones strewn around the course can be pott'd up when the director cuts the camera shots to the various locations. Football stadiums are similar. Some permanent installations have adopted digital interconnection over stuff like Cat5 cables too.
 
 best regards,
mike
 
 

Dang. this is some dense information... The way I understand it, impedance is the amount of power needed to raise the signal to line level? If not, could someone explain that?
 
And MY GOODNESS, I see it. The preamps found in my BOSS BR-532 are very clean, enough that I cannot hear noise when monitoring thru them! I mean in comparison to the toy, it's like night and day! And I still get a nice signal, not too quiet. This proves the degree to which I need to purchase a USB interface REALLY soon...

Well, its been years since that book and I took something else but had taken calculus and such in college way back.
It's way beyond usually what is perhaps the usual home setup. And yes speaker connections and mic hookups yes are different or can be even down to the gauge of wire used to hook up your speaker system at home depending.
 
I think a lot of home studios are usually at the low end of the totem pole so to speak with equipment that can be used to make a recording or anything else in the recording field, unless one has thousands of dollars to put into it, then it probably would not be used for home personal recording use, but have to be a business.
 
Things will change that is for sure.
 
It's not like I going to have this type of studio anytime soon or ever. Sardines in a can. (a little humor). (and where is the cello at). Well, that studio has been brought up before here. It will never happen for me.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exQRfHbSwn0
 

And yes I just realized last night I quoted instrument cable instead of line level impedance, which usually has an output impedance of 100 to 440+ ohms and an input impedance of around 10,000 ohms in some cases.