[black350z]

Hey fellas -- I wasn't sure if this was the right spot to post this but since this is more an audio signal question than anything else, I figured I was close enough.


I need your help with setting up my outdoor (OD) theater. I house all of my equipment in my pool house. The receiver, DVD/CD player, TV etc. Unfortunately, the place I want to set up the screen and projector is near my OD kitchen (has a roof to protect projector) 75-100 ft away. I have decided to simply run movies off of another DVD player that will be housed in the OD kitchen. This player will feed video to the projector, but I will still need to run audio into the pool house to get the signal to the receiver/speaker.

My question: should I run 100 foot RCA cable or 100ft fiber optics??? Both will be run in conduit. I have used both of these sites b4 and they both make great cables. I am just worried about the length of the run and the degradation of the signal.

Options:


1. http://www.monoprice.com/products/pr...seq=1&format=2


2. http://www.pccables.com/cgi-bin/orde...les.com&rcode=


3. http://www.pccables.com/cgi-bin/orde...les.com&rcode=


Any help you can provide would be appreciated!!!!

Current Set-up:


(7) JBL S36AWII -- http://www.jbl.com/home/products/pro...at=IWO&ser=OUT


Onkyo TX-SR503 -- http://www.us.onkyo.com/model.cfm?m=...s=Receiver&p=s


Onkyo SP 1000 DVD Player -- http://www.us.onkyo.com/model.cfm?m=...&class=DVD&p=i


Mitsu .. SD300U Projector -- http://www.mitsubishi-presentations....shi_XD300U.pdf


150" elite screen -- http://www.elitescreens.com/product_manual.htm


Thanks,

 

[Mikeb53]

Pool house.................................. can I come over to your house to play.

Must be Parkland Florida.


I would go the fiberoptic way. With fiberoptic there should be no signal degradation at 100'.

 

[vantagesc]

I'd be skeptical of a TOSLINK connection working reliably at 100ft, unless you use a signal booster.


This article suggests you could only do 30 feet:
http://www.epanorama.net/documents/audio/spdif.html


Blue Jeans Cable says their optical audio cable can go up to 50 feet:
http://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/...udio/index.htm


Monoprice suggests that you should use real glass cabling after 100 feet, so maybe this run is okay? I'd verify with a 3rd party. I happen to have this Monoprice cable in the 3ft. size. Works fine, but the connector is very loose fitting on both my DAC and my PS3.



On the other hand, regular stereo cables might be subject to interference at that long of a run. I think Monoprice has a good return policy, maybe you can try both? I'd be inclined to try the RCA, but honestly, I don't know that much about this.

 

[Mikeb53]

I guess I'm wrong again...............dooh.

 

[black350z]

This is my dilemma. I am getting mixed info. Some say yes while others say no. I have used a 100 ft RCA line in the house to sync up three tv over a long run in the basement and it has worked but I get a hiss or hmm when turned up. Plus I need to turn it up much higher to get results. So there is significant degradation using RCAs.


Worse case, I will have to try both but I was hoping to avoid that. I hate paying shipping!


Anyone have opposing (additional) views?


Also, this is my layout just to clarify:

 

[black350z]

Ok .. so I just got off the phone with bluejeanscable.com and they agreed that there is a chance that that the FO line will not work at distances over 50ft. They said it was pretty much hit or miss.


The solution would be to go with a coaxial digital audio cable. I have never used these b4 but he beilives that there will be NO loss.


I will give it a try and report back.


Thanks again for your input.

 

[iresq]

I would use RG6 with RCA ends.

 

[black350z]

Belden? or are other brands as good. supply house?

 

[richard11]

Another solution would be to get a line balancer type tool to balance it at one end, run XLR cables, then unbalance it at the other end. Would make sure you don't get a bunch of noise on the cable for that long of a run.

 

[Aphasia]

Toslink with plastic fiber has a maximum "good" lenght of 10 meters, although it depends on the fiber run and the transmitter/reciever. I bought separate toslink components and built an addon to an old soundcard, that worked fine for 25 meters with a home spliced cable. Still do with the normal soundcard i have today. They all used the toshiba toslink modules.


Still, this is with plastic fiber. Which is far from optimal. There are other fibers, etc. The question is really not if fiber can do it, but how to make it do it since toslink really wasnt made for long runs.


But XLR or similar balanced cabling should work fine.

 

[sivadselim]

Are you trying to transmit 5.1 audio or not? By "RCA" do you mean for a digital coax connection or an analog connection? If this is for a digital connection, I'd go with coax. The suggestion of using RG6 with RCA ends was a good one. Just buy a cheap 100ft RG6 cable with F-ends and use 2 F to RCA adapters at the ends.

 

[carolinablues]

I was running some optical sources across about 30ft, through a 3play switch (optical), and then trying to split it to 2 different amps. It was hit or miss.

Personally, I think the splitters are much too lossy.


Anyway, I just order an optical amplifier (repeater). This should fix my problems. (about $15bucks)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000I94FRM


If you are not splitting the signal, then this should definately solve your problems. Plus no buzzing or hissing!


If it actually works as advertised, it should solve both of our problems.


Good luck, I'll post back when I get this thing installed!

 

[JohnFR]

I would also try using RG6 quad shield coax cable. I think you may be getting to the outer limits with that length, but hook it up and see if it works. No reason to spend a lot on some kind of designer cable because you're not going to get any better than the RG6. You can buy crimp-on RCA connectors or get the ones from Radio Shack that screw into a standard F connector.