Simultaneous Analog, AES3 and COM Down Cat5e Cable

[@amackclassic6737]

These boxes you have created will allow me to create a seamless experience for my private music school. I have been searching for products like yours for months and literally jumped for joy when I saw your Cat box. Ty so much for knowing what people need and creating it!

[@markallen4127]

Internet: question Dave in 4 minutes: answer with working proof of concept

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍

[@alanblumlein]

Great video, and thanks, Dave - Concise and to the point 👍

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍

[@GChizo]

This is great! I could have used this yesterday... I'm a freelance Audio Engineer in Atlanta, I was using a QL1 and the company I was working for always sends out the Digital snake in a huge case no room to really hide it... the space was small...This is awesome for small gigs. Thanks.

[@GChizo]

I went old school and just ran XLR to the PA i was using...

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍

[@Edwin-van-der-Putten]

Didn't know this... Cool Dave! Thanks!

[@DaveRat]

👍🔧👍🔧

[@audioquest1]

I'm a Happy SOUND TOOLS user. Never had any issues. And it gave me many convenience and solutions.

[@DaveRat]

Hells yes!!!

[@michaelhardingjr2665]

This was definitely great information thanks

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍

[@sirdrakey]

Amazing

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙

[@ranna.]

Superb product demo...

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙

[@SessionsintheOrdinary]

Recently discovered your channel and SoundTools - learning a ton, thank you for sharing! Wanted to request a video explaining and showing the differences between CAT5e, CAT6, and CAT7 etherCON cables. Just ordered some SuperCAT 7 for analog over ethernet as it looks to be the best you can get, but would still love to see/hear what the difference is.

[@napynap]

Better than any user manual!

[@DaveRat]

🤙🔧🤙

[@kelvinfunkner]

awesome!

[@DaveRat]

👍🎤🎛️👍

[@MikeDrohman]

Hi Dave, I’ve coincidentally been working on an idea for this kind of scenario . Need to do a show and tell for ya!

[@DaveRat]

Awesome and let me know how it goes!

[@simonrussell77]

What about a ribbon mic and also a high level line signal with zero crosstalk occurring?

[@DaveRat]

As long as you use a cat 5e or cat 6a cable that has individually shielded pairs your crosstalk rejection will be equal to or better than it is with a normal audio snake With a normal audio snake it's generally not advisable to run high level signals down your mic line multicore but in most of many scenarios you can do it just fine Same thing applies to running high level and low level signals down individually shielded pair cat cable except cat cable performs a bit better than normal audio snake The reason is that the twisted pairs in cat cable are much more precise and designed for rejection of much higher frequencies which tend to have the biggest cross-talk issues. So pretty much do anything you would normally do with a normal audio snake except you can expect better results over individually shielded pair cat cable In fact cat cable performs so well with its twisted pairs that you can get excellent performance from cat cable that does not have individually shielded pairs and just has an overall shield. Something that's unheard of and would never even be considered with audio cable

[@simonrussell77]

@@DaveRat Yes! Thanks for your response. I have had numerous conversations with people who say 'nah its fine any cat 5 cable will work' and I've seemingly been butting my head against a wall telling them the pairs have to be individually shielded. It's a very cool solution though I must say! The unshielded pairs thing works obviously because of phase cancellation along a twisted line when they are all at similar levels, but vastly varying voltages - ie my example, there will most definitely be crosstalk on the lover voltage line.

[@DaveRat]

Well, I think you may be taking that angle farther than testing and real work plays out. In this video I am using cable without individually shielded pairs. 328 feet of unshielded pairs, just an overall shield and crosstalk is low enough to be a non issue. Crosstalk tend to be a high frq issue and high level signals like COM and many line level outs don't have loads of high freq content at high level. And as long as you are not adding loads of HF gain to a low level signal, crosstalk will not be an issue. In you example of a ribbon mic which unless it is a Royer that has a phantom powered preamp, would need an extra 20 dB of gain or so, is an extreme scenario and individual shield would be important. So in summary, individually shielded Cat cable has better crosstalk rejection than audio snake cable. Cat cable without individual shields has excellent crosstalk rejection that is so good that it will work perfectly for all but the most extreme situations Running extreme high level and low level signals down the same multicore is not advisable for audio snake or cat cable. For scenarios where the signal levels are similar like normal mic levels and normal line level, you do not need individually shielded pairs in cat cable.

[@simonrussell77]

​@@DaveRatYour summary is absolutely spot on! It's just like crosstalk on a tape machine re HF. I will however say re the not advisable point, running audio levels of extreme high and low levels down the same audio snake has been done since they were invented. A blaring line level synth and a ribbon mic or headphone return, same snake, individually shielded - done since the 60s with no (or negligible) crosstalk. Induction stopped in it's tracks by the shield. Click track from a line level headphone return cross talking into your ribbon mic line that was on the players acoustic guitar on the same individually unshielded cat6 cable channel - would happen. That is 100% a real world scenario, and a high and low voltage signal being sent down the same cat cable. Shouldn't any protocol have a blank canvas (as a figure of speech) that will cater for any scenario? If not there will always inevitably be a scenario where something is compromised. So in effect, with this system you ALWAYS need individually shielded twisted pairs, unless the application is set in stone, or at least completely understood per the four signals you are dealing with. I'd like to see real world cross-talk tests on similar level line-level signals that were all completely different that were sent down a 30m un-individually shielded cat 5 or 6 cable. My guess iwould be an unreasonable level of crosstalk which may not be an issue in some scenarios, but in others - most likely studio recording - definitely. Unless the system was almost 100% perfectly balanced and phase cancelled between both connected devices and down the entire cable per pair. The discrepancies of which obviously having a shield negates. I would love to eat my words though! I think my point is never use unshielded individual pairs cable unless you know FOREVER exactly what is being sent down it and it is not an open blank canvas scenario where the signals could change from day to day. I guess this is a studio infrastructure scenario. Hope I'm not coming off like trying to sound like a know-it-all (or a know-it-none!!), just love a good discussion. I love your channel mate!

[@DaveRat]

Well typically that synth should go through a DI box and back in the '60s running plus four out of a synthesizer was not really happening. Everything ran much lower levels then and it was transformers everywhere to get things to the proper levels. I would say the cross talk in those old consoles probably exceeded the cross talk of unshielded pairs in a cat cable. And Ruben Mike's have been a source of cross talk issues I can remember from way back. I bought a bunch of Buyer rib and Mike's and we had returns running down the mic snake and adding high end to the ribbon mics created an RF type feedback squeal. That said with cat cable being four channel it's easy to compartmentalize your high and low level signals into separate runs unlike those 24 channel audio snakes with 20 mic inputs and four returns. As a manufacturer of sound tools products, and a manufacturer of various cables including individually shielded and non-individually shielded pair versions, I can honestly say that CrossTalk issues are not manifesting in world deployment. We have literally sold hundreds of miles of non-individually shielded Super Cat cable for analog over cat and we do not have cross talk complaints returns or issues. I will tell you what we do run into is that with unterminated pairs. When the twisted pairs are plugged into an input channel with significant gain and there is nothing on the other end plugged in to that line, The non-shielded twisted pairs tend to act more like an antenna than a shielded twisted pair. The solution is to not turn on the inputs that don't have anything plugged into them or to plug something into them. The twisted Paris work really well at reducing crosstalk, on old audio snakes they're tended to be places leading into and out of the multi-core ends that were not twisted nor shielded as well as the non-twisted non shielded lengths of wire attaching to the XLRs. Plus the lower amount of twists involved. With cat cable all of these vulnerabilities are minimized and the cable remains well twisted. Lots of variables but I can tell you that in practice the cross talk concern and issues are minimal. The bigger issue is RF interference and issues with people using unshielded cat cable. Or using shielded cat 5 cable but not terminating the grounds properly or using the right connectors that allow the shield to pass through

[@Hipyon]

High-level stuff rats and cats are compatible

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍

[@TheCarlosAlfaro]

Random question, Dave what rental management software do you guys use?

[@DaveRat]

We use Flex

[@TheCarlosAlfaro]

@ thanks Dave!

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙🤙

[@markussagichnicht5494]

Try a microphone + a DMX Line ;-)

[@DaveRat]

That works just fine as long as you use CAT7 cable or Cat6a with individually shielded pairs. Sound tools makes three cables that work well for that. The Super Cat 7, the Super Cat sound, and the Super Cat XM

[@leeandersonofficial]

STP for the win!

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙

[@iamjohnnytrox]

Would there be any issue with running low voltage power down one of these lines? I know there could be if the amps are too high for the gauge of wire of the cat6 cable. I ask this because currently I am running 2 mics with phantom power, one midi channel (Made a midi to xlr adapter for each end) and spliced a 5v 200ma power supply in half, put xlr ends on each side, and am sending it down a 35ft shielded cat6. It seems to work fine but I just curious if you know of any issues I could run into that I haven't thought of.

[@DaveRat]

Yes you can run Phantom power and clear com is actually much higher DC power than Phantom power. You can individually fandom power the channels and it won't affect the other channels and you can individually clear come channels and it won't affect the other channels. Here's a leak to a video where I ran and tested an SM58 and a Phantom powered AKG c414 down 6 mi of cat5e cables kzbin.info/www/bejne/iaDVgGCHpdaMiLcsi=6vqwDt1XyNi_dSMP

[@Motorman2112]

That's fine a long as you check the voltage and current specs for the cable and stay within it. Power Over Ethernet is a thing, though it uses somewhat higher voltages to reduce the current requirements. Just be careful with the term "low voltage" around this, as it's often used in the electrical industry to refer to the 120V or 240V AC that comes out of the wall, because it's low relative to the kilovolt levels on the distribution network.

[@adamcoe]

Out of curiosity, what was/is the situation that you're using this setup? Sounds neat

[@DaveRat]

@adamcoe we don't use this exact scenario but we do use a similar setup for our Comms racks. We have these 12 space racks with an analog mixing console and a clear com base station, In a drawer there are two four-channel cat boxes one for front of house and one for monitor position. Down the four lines we run the front of house mic and monitor Mike and mixer output and clear com. Then there's a self-powered monitor speaker at front of house end monitor position they can plug into the cat box. And the front of house in monitor engineer have shout mics they plug into the cat box. Andy carries the com lines as well. So you pretty much have a fully self-contained communication system that relies on a single cat5 cable to interconnect it to various places. We have found that using this separate system is more reliable and easier than trying to rely on communicating while using the actual mixing consoles that are used for the show. Because many bands bring their own consoles and for whatever reason if you swap consoles the shout system always stays alive We also use these fade boxes for vocal mics down front and simple splitter systems.

[@iamjohnnytrox]

@@adamcoe I have a Grand Piano with a QRS PNOscan installed. It is a midi sensor that triggers a Yamaha Motif XS rack off stage for the piano sound. I have 4 lines running to/from the piano, 2 mic lines for dpa4099's as backup/blend channels, a midi line, (which is midi to xlr) and then the pnoscan needs a power supply, so i cut the cable to it in half and soldered xlr ends to each side to send it down the cat line. I have the cat box permanently installed in the piano and in the rack, so all I have to do is plug in a cat5 cable and we're rocking.

[@djrenault]

you know this is an old video because the phone has a headphone jack!!

[@klarstrup]

Us squeaks are buying phones based on that criteria alone. You can still get new phones with minijacks.

[@DaveRat]

Agreed, yes, an ald video back from 2015! And yes, we squeaks do seek the 1/8" I have a main phone with no 1/8" and still have a phone like the one in the vid that that has a 1/8" that I use for sound testing.

[@MinimaDomum]

My current model phone has a headphone jack, it's just not a shitty fruit based system