Hey all, we're getting down to the wiring phase of building our new facility and are considering audio over Cat 5 as a possible solution. Anyone have any experience using one of the various "digital snake" systems out there? Thanks, John.

Hi John. What distances are you looking at? And what sort of audio format do you want to pass?

Here we use Cat5 cabling for just about everything now, be it AES, analog, RS422 and even... Ethernet!! I have a few long runs (50+ meters) with AES that work flawlessly. ON the other hand, if you have lots of i/o to cable on medium distances (around 50m) it might be worth using two RME ADI-6432 AES to MADI converters, and run just two 75 Ohm RG59 BNC cables between the two units.

It all depends on your budget. Also Cat5 come in different flavours: STP (Shielded Twisted Pair) and UTP (Unshielded...). The STP version has the advantage of allowing you to connect the ground for each connection in a Sub-D easily. It's not the case with UTP but then if that cable connects the same machine on all it's connections you might not need grounding for all?

Last thing: Cat5 cables can be quite stiff if you buy the regular stuff. Even the Belden ones are a job to work with. IN the UK and Europe Canford sells extra flexible cables that feel just like good quality microphone cables. Costs a bit more but really worth it for ease of installation. I dont know where you can buy the same thing in the US. Call Canford direct and they may be able to point you to a reseller.


Have fun!


Steven

Thanks Steven. We're looking at it to carry tie lines between rooms, audio from control room to machine room and back and possibly even mic lines. The MADI stuff looks great but overkill for our little market here. Fredo mentioned that he's using the Hear Extenders for ADAT which looks good, we'll probably go with that and then perhaps the AVIOM stuff for the rest of it. Thanks for the tip on the cable itself too, good to know. john.

John,

My biggest problem with the Cat-5 snakes in a studio situation is that you're relying on that products A/D, D/A and sometimes even mic pre that are built into the snake. A lot of times, the input stage has a micpre then some sort of limiter before the A/D. The digital solutions are less of an issue since they typically are passing AES (or ADAT) data over ethernet (so it's not changing the sound at all).

From my experience, I've used the AVIOM stuff in a live situation... and it sounded fine; but never had a chance to hear it in a studio.

We've also gone the MADI route for our facility and it's great!

Hope the helps,

Thanks Ryan, that is helpful. We're going to avoid the mic pres from the snakes and just use it to feed line level. It's starting to shape up as Madi or a combination of Cat 5 and audio cabling. Don't you just love puzzling this stuff out!?

Another inexpensive solution to carry digital audio over Cat5 is the use of the ADAT Multicore Extenders. They bundle 32 or 64 channels of digital audio (4*ADAT/8*ADAT) over one or two Cat5 cables, up to 100m. A wordclock signal can also be transmitted, and multiple units can be daisy-chained for additional monitoring and recording.

Here's how they look:




Pricing is $349 for the 32 channel unit and $549 for the 64 channel version.

A 8 channel extender (like the Hear Technologies Extreme Extender) is also available, $99 for the complete kit (sender+receiver+power supply).

Best Regards
Rolf

PS: I am the developer of this, so please feel free to ask ......