I have one console that looks to be (in pre-construction planning) about 140' of wire length away from my Omnipro2 panel. The console (33A00-4) states that the maximum wire length for the shielded microphone cable and speaker cable is 100'. Are there any options to increase this length? Will increasing the microphone gauge size to greater than 24 and the speaker gauge size to greater than 16 allow this console (and microphone / speaker) to work? Are there any other options other than moving the OP2 panel? Thanks for any suggestions!
33A00-4 Console and Microphone / Speaker Wire Length
- Thread starter Russ55
- Start date
pete_c
Guru
Thanks Pete - unfortunately that product has been discontinued. I looked at some similar products, though, that might work. I think I will run lots of wire options for the speaker and mic lines and hope for the best. In reading elsewhere, 100' is pretty short for maximum mic runs, even with unbalanced cable that HAI recommends.
I was hoping that someone here had pushed the length limits before with any of the HAI audio products and could give me an idea of what problems, if any, I might encounter.
Thanks again!
I was hoping that someone here had pushed the length limits before with any of the HAI audio products and could give me an idea of what problems, if any, I might encounter.
Thanks again!
StarTrekDoors
Active Member
The type of wire and quality are more important that wire gauge with the microphone. Yes, there is increasing resistance/impedance with length, which will cause significant loss, but using a very high quality stranded wire will yield longer distance runs for the microphone. Speaker wire on the other hand can use a large gauge low resistance wire and you should be fine if you don't need full volume at the speaker. Avoid parallel runs to power cables and light fixtures also.
The issue with the microphone wire is finding a vendor that doesn't overstate the wire quality. I'm reminded of a couple years ago, a major wire vendor got caught by UL indicating their wire was UL Listed and it was not and worse, the quality was so bad, the wire had smoking issues when used with PoE and had to be recalled.
As pete_c suggested, an extender/repeater either cabled or fiber is the key to 140% maximum wire length. There are also some wireless solutions just beware the quality on those so you don't have unwanted noise.
The issue with the microphone wire is finding a vendor that doesn't overstate the wire quality. I'm reminded of a couple years ago, a major wire vendor got caught by UL indicating their wire was UL Listed and it was not and worse, the quality was so bad, the wire had smoking issues when used with PoE and had to be recalled.
As pete_c suggested, an extender/repeater either cabled or fiber is the key to 140% maximum wire length. There are also some wireless solutions just beware the quality on those so you don't have unwanted noise.
