• Registered: 2010-01-13
  • Posts: 7

Topic: FFUC needs a 10 foot USB 2.0 cable HELP!!!

Hi, so i have a FFUC and the standard 6 foot cable is just about 2 feet short of my rack and I was wondering... if I could use a 10 foot usb 2.0 cable?

Thinking I could solve this myself... I went to my local computer store yesterday and purchased a standard 10 foot USB 2.0 cable... brought it home and hooked it all up. I powered on my MacPro and tried to play itunes and logic 9 for a sound check and It was unbelievable how bad it was. Cracks and pops are an understatement! So, I called Sweetwater where I purchased the FFUC from and the sales engineer told me it should work. So, I went back to the electronic store and got a new cable thinking the first on was defective... Well, needless to say the 2nd one works, but now I'm worried if my ears are playing tricks on me and the sound quality in not as wih the 6 foot cable... it sound about the same but I don't know now... I was hoping to get a tech on here who could help me out! I just want this to work to the best of it's potential, and if that means moving my studio around then so be it... but if I can avoid that with the 10 foot cable I would LOVE TO!

I guess I have 3 questions about this
1. Am I going to lose sonic quality with the 10 foot cable vs standard 6 foot?
2. What about latency issues? the reason I got the FFUC is for low latency... I don't want to lose that!
3. Does RME have a solution?

  • Registered: 2008-01-01
  • Posts: 3,025

Re: FFUC needs a 10 foot USB 2.0 cable HELP!!!

Just put a hub in between.

  • Registered: 2010-01-13
  • Posts: 7

Re: FFUC needs a 10 foot USB 2.0 cable HELP!!!

First I wanted to say thank you for your response earlier. I don't mean to be a nuisance, but  I just had a few questions I would love to have answered... Plus I just want to make sure I get the right hub lol so if you could just walk me though this whole usb hub thing that would be sweet! So, first off... What do you mean exactly by USB hub? Is it like the hubs you use to plug multiple things into 1 usb port or is it like an extender? Does this hub need to be powered and What brand/type is the best or can you recommend one for me? I want to get the best possible performance out of the FFUC... this runs into my main question... What about the latency and sound quality using the longer cord and hub? B/C the whole reason I got the FFUC is for the reduced latency of the interface plus the sound quality. The last thing I would like to do is ruin this with a cable thats 4 feet to long. lol Im really most concerned with this issue, and cant find anything on the subject on the web and Im really concerned with it.  You see I have that 2nd 10 foot cable and its working fine now... should i still use the hub? will using the hub make things better? Thank you for your response in advance! Spelling all this out for me really helps!

Jtolly

  • Registered: 2008-01-01
  • Posts: 3,025

Re: FFUC needs a 10 foot USB 2.0 cable HELP!!!

You're welcome! wink

1. The Fireface Settings window has an error counter (at least on Windows) with two numbers. The first number are the really bad errors and the second number are small click errors. If those numbers don't increase your sound is not compromised.

2. If the new 10 food cable works then you are good to go. Nothing more to worry about!

3. Latency is not depending on cable lenght, electrons travel near light speed and meters are nothing to worry about in the microsecond range.

4. If you need to extend a cable every powered usb-hub (the ones that allow to connect several usb devices to a single port) *is* a repeater. You may need to power it with its own supply though. No one can tell you which hub to try, because there are myriads of hubs. But any hub *should* work properly, if it doesn't return it.

Personally I'm successfully using both an cheap USB hub and a switch (allows to switch USB ports between two computers) by "Xystec", which is the cheapo "no-name" brand of the big german electronic shop "Pearl".