Topic: Actives or regular/silver cables?

[ts]

I love using actives. Real small, easy to setup and tear down, and I don't even stealth. I used them when I owned Schoeps and I'm now using them with my C460's. But is it a compromise? I remember Doug saying he didn't like using them. Are we sacraficing sound quality? Thoughts.....

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

Maybe some, but I look at it this way:  When I run the actives, I can get into positions where I could not fly full bodies and cables.  I think that whatever I'm losing to the actives is more than compensated by the better location.

[trajhip2000]

Jerry Bruck, long-time Schoeps distributor, told me that in situations where I didn't need to run actives I was better off w/o them, cause the Schoeps actives are unbalanced (vs the balanced output from e.g. the CMC6 bodies). Don't know if this applies to other brands of actives.

Steve

[creekfreak]

hmmm, how does that work though when you use the actives that the bodies screw into with the schoeps?

[Nick Graham]

Good question...

With the exception of KCY cables and a Lemosax, pretty much every "active" setup I know of (KM140s, MBHOs, AKG 460s, etc.) the signal ends up passing through the mic body and regular XLR cables.

Hmmm....

[trajhip2000]

I assume those last two questions are directed to my post. I used to run actives with my Schoeps pretty much all the time, even when it didn't matter. Since I run on-stage a lot I started to worry about the Schoeps active cable design and whether the shielding on them was good enough that I wasn't picking up noise from all the monitor and power cables they were laying on. Jerry's point was that the output from the capsule thru the active cable and to the body is unbalanced - which means that it's more susceptible to picking up electrical noise, RF, etc. If your actives are fairly short it might not matter too much, but longer runs will be more susceptible to picking up noise. So now when I don't need low profile I run with the bodies mounted to the caps, with a balanced output from the body running to the rest of my gear. I can't say I've heard a big change in the recordings I make since doing this, but at least I know the bulk of the signal path is thru good quality, balanced cables.

Steve

[creekfreak]

cool, thanks for the info. I have compared using both types of cables, never heard a difference, but running on stage around a lot of other cables and equipment I could see adding noise

[ts]

That's pretty much exactly what Doug said some time ago. Thanks for clarifying that Steve. I couldn't remember just how Doug put it, but it had to do with noise. My reason for posting this was not so much about the potential noise problem, but more about the quality of the cables themselves versus nice silvers or leegeddy cables.

[trajhip2000]

yeah, that's a valid point also. Schoeps says they use good cable in their actives, and they do have a Kevlar jacket for protection, but I would guess that you could find something with better shielding, higher-quality conductors, etc - altho then you'd have to get it wired up to the active ends (hmmm, I wonder if Schoeps sells the connectors w/o the cable?). I've actually been talking to leegeddy about having him make replacements for the cables that come with the Schoeps tubes, which looks to be the same stuff as they use in their actives. This is mostly to replace the thin, tangle-prone Schoeps cables with a single-jacket version, but I'm hoping that I might get some sonic benefit too.

Steve

[ts]

Let us know how you make out on that possible leegeddy fix. My Akg extensions/actives are somewhat stiff(prolly due to age)and difficult to deal with. I would love a cable replacement solution.

[creekfreak]

I feel the schoeps actives are of outstanding quality...but for the $500 I paid for a used pair they had better be, new they are rediculous now in price.