Which cables for rack gear?

[The Magic Hoof]

I've never used rack gear but will soon, so here's a simple question or two.

What kind of cables would I need to run the Quad into the 50/50? Just any ol' TRS/balanced cables?

Is TRS always preferred in rack gear over TS?

From the 50/50 to my cab, I'm positive that I'll need just 'speaker cables'. I've got some here - those 'big' and thick. meaty cables for connecting a head to a cab, so I'm fine with that.


Just give me the rundown on cables for running rack gear and I'll be set

 

[ak47]

Any TRS cables will work fine from the Quad to your 50/50. Just use good cable / connectors so as to avoid uneccessary signal degradation and most importantly... use the same brand of cable for the whole signal chain.

Make them up yourself... easy + cheap and you get a custom length too... always advisable when running cable in rack systems!

 

[The Magic Hoof]

Any TRS cables will work fine from the Quad to your 50/50. Just use good cable / connectors so as to avoid uneccessary signal degradation and most importantly... use the same brand of cable for the whole signal chain.

Make them up yourself... easy + cheap and you get a custom length too... always advisable when running cable in rack systems!

I don't know how to make them myself, but I do have a friend that's made all of my others. My entire studio is wired with his custom cables

Though, I do want to get into making cables myself... I guess I'll ask him how i'd go about doing that. Would you maybe have some info on that?

And thanks for the reply!

 

[The Magic Hoof]

EDIT:

Simply, I just want to know which cables to use. TRS, or regular TS. Does it matter?

Another question I have is about length.

As far as I know, you're supposed to keep the cable length as short as possible at all times. Well, let's say that I wanted my rack/head and my cab to be really far apart. For example, keeping the cab in one room and the head in the next room (to avoid noise coming from the poweramp fan, etc). How would you go about this when you're supposed to use really short cables? You'd need some LONG speaker cables to do that, and I'm not sure that that's recommended. How do pro studios do that?

 

[daveyboogie]

Not sure why you'll need TRS balanced cables between a Quad and a 50/50 or any effects... There are no balanced outputs on the back of a Quad to my knowledge and the runs are so short that I doubt noise will be a problem. I made all my interconnects using good quality VDC guitar lead cable! Also, you won't easily be able to run balanced speaker outputs from the power amp to a cab. There are some high-end PA power amps have balanced power outputs but I've never seen a guitar tube power amp equipped with this. (Anyone?) Just use good quality speaker cable or even screened speaker cable if it makes you feel better. I use quite long speaker cables (10m each approx) and I have no noise / signal degredation probs.

Interestingly, my peavey classic 50/50 has left/right balanced line outputs on the back which are sometimes useful if I need to DI live into a desk over a long distance like down a long patch cable or something.

 

[The Magic Hoof]

Thanks for the reply!

I'm getting some cables made very soon for my new rack. I'll ask for short, regular, unbalanced cables. I'm going to inquire about getting some long speaker cables though, because it'd be nice to separate the cab and the rack poo.

Thanks again.