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Hey guys, I recently build an isobox for my speaker cabinet so I can crank my tube amp without disturbing the neighbors too much the head amp I've been using it's most of the times just a couple of inches away from the isobox but now I want to move the head to where my control room is at witch is considerably a long distance. I have heard that the longer the speaker cable the worst your signal becomes I was thinking in using a couple of D.I. boxes to run a short speaker cable from the amp to the first D.I. then a long balanced XLR going to another D.I. then finally another short peaker cable from the D.I to the cab, will this work? anyone else know a different way of getting the best signal while running long distance connection from an amp to a cab? Please let me know if you got any ideas, thanks.

Comments

Alejandro GW Sun, 12/12/2010 - 13:59

Yeah it's provably 7 meters... I just thought because it is an unbalanced signal I should somehow try to use the D.I.'s so I can run a balanced XLR but I didn't know I could damage the boxes in the process... thanks for letting me know. Do you have any recommendations for speaker cable brands and gauge? I usually use planet wave but I don't think they sell rolls at least not for speaker cables... and where could I find high quality gold plated plugs? thanks again.

BobRogers Sun, 12/12/2010 - 14:44

If you are making you own speaker cables I'd go with 12 gauge wire. It may be overkill for the length you are talking about (14 or even 16 is probably fine) but why the heck not. You do not need expensive wire or gold plated connectors here. Thinks of the difference in power between what is generated by a microphone (a dynamic mic is really just a tiny speaker run "backwards") and that needed to power the heavy magnet of a speaker. You would be fine with 12 gauge lamp cord from the local hardware store, but you may want something that coils more neatly. If you are buying premade cables I'd buy something decent quality like ProCo just because I'd trust them to use connectors that won't fall apart and have good QC when putting them together.

Alejandro GW Sun, 12/12/2010 - 17:18

Thanks Bob I found a 30ft ProCo cable at a fair price in amazon, I think I'm gonna get it. BTW have any of you guys tried the radial headbone vt? I have another amp although I don't necessary would need to switch between amps... I much rather get another cable and safe the money... it did intrigued me a bit. Does it change your tone? I know radial it's a great company I have a passive D.I. which sounds great but it does change your tone a bit... so I was wondering if this headbone changes your tone at all, also if it affects the signal or it could damage the cab? does anyone know?

Kapt.Krunch Mon, 12/13/2010 - 13:17

Alejandro seems to have confused a high-powered speaker output with a low-level signal output, or he wouldn't have mentioned DI and balanced cables. Long TS signal cables will create loss with the low-level signals, but speaker cables are much less affected because they pass higher level output (as comparing, say, 30 feet of instrument cable for a low level signal to 30 feet of speaker cable).

Your Isobox has no amp. You use your guitar amp to drive it. You want your guitar amp in the room with you, and your cab in another room. You run a speaker cable (not a musical instrument signal cable) from the amp speaker output to the cab. That's all there is. You COULD even run it through wall plates if you wanted, though that creates more possible points of failure...and you DO NOT want to lose your load on a tube amp. (Well...we all drool over some amps, but...uh...never mind...)

About the Radial stuff...anything you put in the chain can change the sound, somewhat. ONLY if you absolutely need to switch between amp heads to one speaker cab for a particular tune, would I try to connect a Headbone, especially in a recording situation. How often are you going to need to do that? It's possibly a good device to use live, if you use two heads and one cab and have to switch them, but I'd just rather use two cabs with two amps, or if nothing else, something like a split Marshall cab. (My slanted cab is wired to split left and right). Actually, though Radial does make good stuff, I won't let anyone run my Marshall through anything like a Headbone, or a THD Hotplate, or any of that. It SHOULD be OK, but I refuse to gamble that amp on it.

Anyway, I'd just get a good-quality heavy-duty speaker cable for that.

Kapt.Krunch