What's the longest a USB cable can be ?

[rockinrocker]

….without malfunctioning?

I know there are active repeater cables out there, but even using those is there an upper limit? Can I get over 50 feet?

Would be using for recording/sequencing so flawless timing is a must.

Thanks

 

[Julien]

I think the USB spec is 5 meters. I doubt you can find a cable much longer than 15' to 20'. You may could stretch the 5 meter spec a little but I doubt all the way to 50' and it work (at least reliably/fast).

You can get active USB gables relatively inexpensive like here.

 

[paulrbeers]

….without malfunctioning?

I know there are active repeater cables out there, but even using those is there an upper limit? Can I get over 50 feet?

Would be using for recording/sequencing so flawless timing is a must.

Thanks

As stated, it's 5 meters or approx 16 feet. I've even had problems with some cables over 10'. You'd be better off with something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/IOGEAR-Ethernet-Extender-GUCE51-Black/dp/B000O2X2OA

 

[g4cube]

Active USB cables are actually single port hubs. Spec permits up to 5 levels of hubs so perhaps 5M x 5 = 25M or around 80 feet for copper cables.

Corning has been demoing some USB optical cables that can go quite far. This is an offshoot of their Thunderbolt optical cable development.

I've also seen some gadgets that provide a "wireless" USB connection.

 

[rockinrocker]

Hmm…. I'd think latency would be an issue for any wireless options…

I didn't even think about an ethernet adaptor, I wonder if that wouldn't give the best performance over all?

The Tripp Lite cable looks cool, but won't be quite long enough...