Introduction
A while ago we decided to question the 50ft MIDI cable length
maximum. It was spurred on by two things, first the need to make
longer runs with MIDI, the second a comment about why would you
need to run it longer that 50ft (we say, why not?). We sell a
great many 50ft cables and have never heard of a problem with
them. So if we can safely do 50ft cables, why not go farther and
see what happens?
Testing
We did testing on a couple pieces of gear, figuring you could
test all day and get similar but different results. We tested to
the reasonable extreme, using our top grade cable at the longest
reasonable lengths most anyone would need. With the top lengths
of 250ft of Mogami 2948 MIDI wire and 100ft of Mogami 2930 2 pair
analog snake the MIDI continued to work flawlessly.
Doing a signal analysis of the MIDI signal, it was clear the
longer you ran the signal the more degraded the signal was, but
with our gear it was not bad enough to cause a problem. There
were definite differences in the degradation between different
pieces of gear, most likely due to different input and output
construction.
Where theory meets reality
MIDI is a digital signal passing 1's and 0's from gear to gear
in a data stream. The natural signal is a perfect squared wave.
Even through with one foot of cable you can see some degradation
in the data. With digital it all really comes down to tolerance,
so if you run a cable 100ft will the input tolerate the resulting
amount of degradation. Logic dictates gear is designed to handle
some degradation otherwise the MIDI maximum length would be 0 feet.
Tolerance is going to be gear specific; you might have one
combination (gear out to gear in) that only tolerates 75 feet,
where you might have another combination that tolerates 400ft.
The only way to know is try it.
Testing disclaimer
While we have had good luck with making these extreme runs, these
where all performed in one environment at our offices. We have
never had any major noise problems on any gear we have tested
caused by our power or RF in the environment. The gear tested
with is fairly modern that seems to meet modern electrical
standards.
Terms of Sale
We have decided to offer longer than specified MIDI cables.
Though we believe you will most likely have no problems with them
we cannot guarantee them with all gear and in all environments.
If you have very old gear or a high EMI/RFI noise environments
these lengths might not work or work well. These cables should
not be depended on with unknown gear or in new environments.
Warranty/Returns
We offer these cables with our Limited Return policy listed on
our "Shipping and Returns page," however we will make
exceptions to the cables lengths over 50ft that did not work with
your gear or environment. Restocking fees will depend on options
purchased and condition of the cable upon return, to be handled
on a case by case basis. For used cables past initial trials, we
can cut the cables down to make standard length cables; fees will
apply for labor and parts.
By purchasing these cables you agree to the terms listed
here.
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