Question regarding cable length

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

Question regarding cable length

Im playing a gig boxing day at a clothing store… they want me to play with a PA system at the front of the store but also through the stores sound system. The only problem is that the receiver for the stores sound system will be ~100 feet from my mixer. Are RCA cables good with that length of distance? Or will I need a wireless transmitter or something?

thanks

2

Damn! thats a long way to run rca leads.
If it were me, I would run xlr out of my mixer and down to a little mixer(audio type, not dj type) and from there into the stores system.
Presuming your mixer has xlr outs and you can borrow or hire an audio mixer.
Otherwise its a little more complicated

3

yeah im using a djm 800 so it is possible. this whole situation is a huge pain in the ass.

4

Run XLR cables if you can. I’ve actually run 100-foot RCA cables and it’s worked but I only did it because I had no other choice, and I wouldn’t recommend it. You don’t really need another mixer if you have enough outputs on your mixer, but it might help to isolate the levels that way.

5

is there gonna be any serious distortion or static if I run a 100 foot cable?

6

If someone’s standing next to one of your cables with a cell phone it may pick up interference. Plus there’s all the register crap and other electronics that may interfere with it.

7

Can’t you use ferrite clamps for this? If distortion is the only problem with having such a long lead the clamps are a pretty good option. Apparently work pretty well.

8

if you can get a radio tx & rx, then for ease of setup and less chance of tripping up customers id go that road. if not, two long runs of balanced cable (xlr) will do. id advise not using normal rca’s because over that distance you’ll pick up interference from lighting etc…

9

If you have to do it with RCAs, don’t worry about it…it’s a store…people are used to shitty audio quality.

If you can use balanced cables and have ready access to a small audio mixer or DI boxes to go back to unbalanced cables to connect to their receiver, do that. But, don’t sweat it.