I was pondering if I should buy a Blue Yeti microphone when my previous one just died today, but I am unsure if I can use it with my current setup where I have my computer in another room and use 10m extension cables for every peripheral. I am only interested in buying this if it works with an extension cable like mine since I am unwilling to adjust my regular setup. I do not want to blow ~120 bucks in vain. So I was wondering if anyone on this forum has tried this? I have read that the Blue Yeti mic actually benefits from using a usb hub as it reduces static noise. Some also describe active usb cables to be similar to usb hubs in this regard, so it might even be a good thing? But anyway, I am unsure and would love to hear any feedback.
We have extended sound services to double recommended USB lengths by putting an active, wall-powered hub in the middle. I don’t see any reason it wouldn’t work for you.
Yes, there is some evidence that the process can help with USB microphone noise because the battery service in the USB cable is coming from your wall instead of the computer. We recommended that right up until the day somebody found a crappy USB hub that substituted wall power noise for the computer noise.
You can’t always bottom-feed on this stuff.
Koz
One more note. You can’t use the hub for anything else. That’s not optional. You can’t share a hub with sound services and anything else.
Koz
There is a common problem with USB audio interfaces in general of a 1 kHz whine (that Koz likes to call “frying mosquitoes”) that results from the fact that the USB data is transmitted in bursts every 1 mS. Longer cables probably make this problem worse, as does the multiple ground paths.
As to whether or not that configuration will work or have noise issues, it’s pretty hard to guess. If the “active extension” is well designed it will probably be fine.
If starting over from scratch I’d suggest going with a separate microphone and either a USB interfaced mixer (which usually have their own power), or one of the many USB microphone interfaces out there, and make the “long cable” the analog microphone cable. However that will almost certainly be a much greater investment than a new Blue Yeti.