I use these for our gigs and at my rehearsal rooms. We have a 5 piece, so I run a 4 channel stage box to each musician. I can backhaul everything over 5 simple cables. Each musician only needs some short XLR cables to patch their audio in. Nice and slick.
I use one of these type of systems in a broadcast setup with an OB van for commentary. Inputs 1 and 2 are used for the commentators and the 4th is a return to talk to commentators. I used to run multiple cables but have since replaced with this system, I also just ordered another unit to run to my field and presenter mics
Awesome video. This helped me with an install im doing. I had to figure out how to convert RCA, over long distance but didnt want to buy a whole nother amount of cable i didnt have. Being able to use cat 5 saved me $100 or more.
With the risk of sounding old.. :) We built this kind of setup back in the 90's at our community radio station. We needed to connect an audio signal from a nearby (150 m?) venue - and this was way before you streamed audio over 4G..! So we bought shielded Cat5 cable and a garden hose cart - worked just fine! :D
12:40 A combo jack would be a good variation too. Or a modular system where the sockets can be swapped out individually with a female/male/combojacks. Indeed, it will be a very specific design that's not been done yet.
Love these. Used them on a number of gigs, where we've put a number of these at different points around the stage for musicians/vocalists to plug into. Saves having lots of cables running across the stage to a larger stage box. Keeps it clean and we can run the cat5 around the edge of the stage
I'm asking because I'm looking to rewire the stage and move from solder connections to replacement parts that if a cable goes bad or anything, we can just swap it out without having to solder the connections. Especially if I'm not available to solder connections, any person can replace the part. Looking to get the rack mount patch bay from cat 5 to XLR to patch into a DL32. Starting with 2 racks which will get me 24 inputs/outputs over 6 cables. And we can simply patch from the patch bay into either an input or output as needed. Am I making this much harder than it needs to be, or is this a good idea? We have 6 stage boxes and I can have the breakout boxes ran under each stage box and run short XLR cables to the stage box panels in the floor to make the terminations.
@@mchenryjeremy Did you ever start using these? I'm intrigued, but the price of the Sssnake ones is sort of concerning (it's so cheap!). Adam Neely has a few videos about the IEM rig they're using in his band Shoegazer, he briefly mentioned them using these ones but had to scrap them due to reliability issues...
11:25 another cool thing you can do is take those two female boxes and put 2 female to male adapters on 2 of the female exits on both of the boxes and now you have 2male to female and 2 female to male seperatly.. could be great for a talkback system
Another nice thing is the four channels are isolated and don't have to be the same kind of signal. For example - you could send a couple of mic signals through it AND some DMX data. It all works fine. Agree that a nice variation would be 2x male and 2x female on each end.
15:00 i dont think splitting the eth cable from the output would cause problems.. like if i get an eth cable running from the output to a eth splitter and connect them into 2 boxes, i would just get the output on both of them no?
I am now in another church setting and bought a different brand of them via Amazon this week. I have opened them up and they use XLR connectors soldered directly onto the PCB. This makes swapping the connectors over much more difficult as the holes on the Female connector sit in a different location than the Male connector. So my advice is, if you are planning on doing a modification to these to switch one or more end points, go for the SSSnake ones, as otherwise you may find your can't do it easily if at all. I am sure the units I bought are fine if you just want a drop snake you don't want to mod. The ones I bought are these: Copkim 2 Pack 4 Channel 3 Pin Multi Network XLR Cable.
I've just bought 3 of these for my music room (2 female & 1 male). I've spent hours today searching for whether the transmission between boxes truly is analogue or if it's digitzed first. So a massive thanks for clearing up that basic point! I intend to use mine initially for my pedal board. It has tuners & effects units on it for guitar and bass as well as a drum machine. It has a veritable rat's nest of XLRs and other audio cables emerging from it for connecting to the desk as well as for my own monitoring. I rarely take it gigging these days because of the hassle of disconnecting and reconnecting all the cables. I'm going to put the male on the pedalboard. This will allow me to get rid of a lot of the rat's nest and just carry a female unit (plus a decent network cable) when I go gigging. And with the transmission being purely analogue it also gives me the option of putting the drum machine elsewhere and using one of the ports to trigger it remotely using the footswitch on the pedalboard. Thanks again for clear explanation.
The thing that makes it analog just looking at it as it doesn't require power. Power would be required to do ADC and DAC conversions, either being through a wall transformer or 48v phantom. I wish someone made a self contained AES-50 esk transceiver/transceiver snake that doesn't reqiure a digital board. Yeah I know digital boards are quite inexpensive. Though thinking about the digital self contained snake, the price might be a wash...
We love to use them for DJs on festivals. Stereo Out into 2 channels. 1 channel for the Cue/Monitor Out from the Pioneer Desk itself and one with reversed adapter as output for the onstage monitor.
I used a similar setup in the living room once to run 5.1 surround while having the computer/console beside the couch. I installed a rj45 jack and ran cat5 through the wall into the ceiling into a breakout box rj45-rca(f). It worked very well and allowed a clean install as there were no visible cables or gear on the entertainment wall besides the TV.
13:10 Instead of soldering, if you look back on 8:26 it looks like each group of two XLR connectors are going to a single connector (two connectors total). No soldering required, just unplug one set and move to the other box. I could be wrong, but it looks like it's split to me.
@@PluggedinAV IMHO, it would still be easier to cut the connector in half then to mess around with soldering. I just noticed an indention in the middle of the connector and wondered if it was actually two separate pieces or one.
These come to the market on here about three years ago, and I got myself a quite good set of two boxes (4x XLR male/4x XLR female) for my little workshop, cause it was cheaper to buy than to build. Mine also have a second RJ45 on the other side, so you can daisychain these for a passiv split or for exampe using channel 1 and 2 on the first and channel 3 and 4 on the second box. But I still use Ethernet cables for a bunch of signal for more than ten years now. Serial stuff, power, sensors, and also audio. I built myself some of these with 1/4" TRS jacks more then ten years ago, cause it's a great way to run signals between my guitar corner and my workbench over a single ethernet cable. Also built a insert looper box some years ago which carry send, return, switching and status LED over on RJ45 connection. So I can switch from guitar corner or workbench and also seeing the state of the looper on both places. You also can use these boxes to run audio over existing CAT.5 runs in a building. All you need is a direct connection, which is usually easy to made with just a ethernet cable connecting two ports on a patch panel in the network room directly. I used it once in a building to run audio for some delay line to an second higher audience area where only power and Ethernet have been available. We just patched a ethernet port on the FOH area with one on the audience area and used the boxes to run the audio signal up there.
With your TRS input that you made, can you plug an unbalanced signal like direct guitar into it without any hum/EMF? Check away that’s not really converting to the guitar to a balanced signal, is it? I’m looking into what type of five or six shielded cables installed behind my home studio walls before I put drywall up.
A few important points: Cat5/5e/6/7 have different amounts of shielding. Cat7 has each pair shielded. Phantom power can be a problem over ethernet. It depends how they're wired. I'd trust the boxes Dave Rat sells, but I hope you know what you're doing if you use generic ones. If you're in a pro audio environment where people are allowed to hook up random nonstandard stuff like this, things can get sketchy fast! Are there networking cables anywhere? There probably are somewhere! Are you running any PoE access points? Phantom power doesn't have much current. You're probably not going to blow up a router by plugging phantom power into it. But there's a LOT of stuff you could destroy if you accidentally route PoE into an audio input.
You are a 100% correct there, any piece of kit in the wrong hands can and probably will go horribly wrong 🙂 You seem to know what you talking about, I have a question? Can you run for example, 48V down channel 1+2 for a pair DPA 48V lectern mics and no phantom on channel 3 + 4 as you may be running dynamic mics so you won't need 48v on those channels. Thanks a lot.
I planned on building a snake with cat 5, but the boxes make more sense for adaptability. Plus I can make the boxes in my garage or basement with whatever plugs necessary for my rig. Splitting the signal for analog monitor mixes wouldn't be all that tough either. Cat 5 is cheaper and easier to replace than mic cables. I might see some signal loss on my 30 year old mixer, but not on my new one. The i/o sensitivity and modern filters on modern mixers make analog signal losses minimal.
Update: I plan to finally build my first set of boxes in a week or so. Will use them for FOH and DMX for now. I will have my music running on my main bus with vocals on a sub mix bus, sending the music to subs before tops then vocals will go to channel 2 of my tops. The low cut filters on my board seem like a suggestion more than a functional filter, so I'd like to not run vocals through my subs. I'll also run my DMX through the boxes . Eventually I'll have a need for using them as i/o snakes, but for now, just need them to get FOH covered so I can mix in front of the PA. It's mainly a karaoke/DJ rig, but will be doing more bands in the coming year.
I’m using Cat7 analog connections with a Cranborne system in my home studio setup. The signal doesn’t have to travel far, but I am using the 50’ cables that came with the N8 bundle to carry two condenser mic sends carrying 48v phantom power and two audio return channels from my monitor station. I have to say beside eliminating 4 xlr cables, the superior shielding of the Cat7 cable cleaned up 60 cycle hums I had been plagued with when using xlr connections. I definitely intend to use more Cat7 connections in and around my studio and I am very pleased with using it in place of xlr cables where I can.
I built a couple of these audio over analog cat 5 cable distributors for my church setup. I think it would be useful to add a DIP switch or selector to the design that would allow the user to distribute on all four outputs and disable the other three. Vice versa, 4 input to one selected output. Like mixer or a splitter. I think it will still be a passive connection.
Nice for live room use They handle 48 volt So the vox booths get one box for 2 mic positions and a headphone amp for talent to self adjust I’m surprised there are not more cat connectors on newer gear or patch bays yet I think Henery Engineering has a male/female xlr, trs and rca for EtherCON
Somebody knows if we can use this box with mixers like Midas MR18 or Behringer XR18 ULTRANET conection? It have just 6 monitor outputs, and I´m trying to get 3 extra outputs to send inears monitor mixes (using 3 of the 4 effects channels). I just know DN4816-O splitter, but I need only 3 extra mixing channels, and these can be PERFECT!! Thanks a lot and nice review bro 😎
I studied to become an Audio-Engineer in 2001 and we've used CAT5 and 6 cables for analog audio a lot. In high-end Studios, on sets, for experiments ... pretty much anywhere. The cables where much cheaper and readily available straight from a 50m or 100m roll. It never stroke me as "odd" to be honest... It's high quality cables with very little loss for what they are. We didn't have fancy XLR-RJ45 adapters back then though :) which to be honest strikes me at the only "weak point". directly into a solid good quality XLR feels better to me.
For a small home studio is there any benefit to using 6a over 5? As long as there is one shared shield/ground? I believe that I’ve read individually shielded pairs stronger resistance to EMF for my case I’m only running 50’ max. I need to commit to shielded 5 or shielded 6a before I put my Drywall up. I suppose I’ll go with solid copper instead of stranded since it will be a permanent install. A little feedback from your expensive experience! Trying to avoid mistakes lol
I'm actively looking for a variant like the one you mentioned, where I can have two-way analog audio using one single cat5. 2+2 would be perfect, but I can't find any such variant of any brand. Are you sure there's no electrical reason for this? I have no use for these if I'm not certain that it will actually work after resoldering them.
Great video! I’ve got 2 questions: 1) Does it make sense to use these boxes in a 30m2 studio? 2) I use Canare cables in my studio. What brand for Cat5 cable should be used to keep the consistent signal quality?
Yeah, I think it definitely makes sense to use them. In terms of quality I don’t it will make much difference. CAT cable is capable of sending signals at a much higher frequency than audio so even a budget cable will be very suitable to send a full audio spectrum. If you want to get a higher spec cable maybe look at CAT 6 or above. The thing you might find is a higher quality cable will coil better and be a bit more durable. I’m not sure I can recommend and brands though. I just use the budget options and they work well
@@PluggedinAV I thought the whole point of it(other than a convenient and cheap way to run audio in live production) was that the signal is created from analog and digitized to ethernet signal? So one need an interface that can receive the ethernet signal and 'reconvert it to audio so it can be fed to the computer? Like,,, a super expensive RME interface or similar that cost $1500 and more ? great savings,,,,
The behringer system is digital and sends digital audio over Cat5. This is analogue . The Behringer system costs a few thousand, this costs about £50 👍🏻
Hi Joe, I don’t know this console specifically but these boxes use XLR connectors. I assume you will have XLR ins on the back of the console so you just plug direct into your XLRs
If we have a digital io box on stage would these make sense to use to connect to that stage box even if they are analog? Trying to find a solution that doesn't require a bunch of mic cables running back to the io box.
You need a box at each end, but yes essentially this works well. Come out of your digi stage box on XLR into one of these then run a cat 5 to your musician location and then short XLR patch to the analogue box on stage. Think of it as 4 XLRs down 1 cat 5
I haven’t set everything up yet, but in theory it should work: I am the percussion director for a marching band. In the marching arts it’s ubiquitous to have a front ensemble of marimbas, vibraphones, etc that are all mic’d. A common way to coordinate this for setting up in under 5 minutes, performing, and breaking down in 2 (as per the time limit regulations in Texas), is by running DB25 snakes from the board, to your center-most instruments, using a DB25-XLR breakout, sending 1 or 2 to that instrument, and running the extra XLRs down the frame of the instrument, and “daisy chaining,” so to speak, to the next instrument. This method requires either excess XLR that hangs off the end of an instrument so that it can reach the next instrument in the chain, or what I have done in the past, a 3rd intermediate bundle of XLRs in between the instruments. I’ve made XLR snakes with 6 channels in one cable. It’s nice to only have one cable in between, but that’s still up to 12 connections that must be made repeatedly day after day. My solution to that this coming up season is to put these XLR-CAT5 boxes on both ends of each instrument, and running a singular 5 foot ethercon cable between. It should be less stressful overall. Fingers crossed.
@@ebowdan3138 I don’t know that specific model I’m afraid but it’s not uncommon to add more outputs to a digital mixer through a stage box but it would need to be a Midas stage box that works with that mixer
Hi, I'm questionning about the feasability of sending audio from xlr to rj45, then pass it through 'prise cpl' (in french, I dont know the english trad), then go back to xlr on the other side. To you, is it possible ?
Hi, I think the think you are talking about we call 'ethernet over mains'. You can't use one of these devices no. It has to be one straight cable with nothing in the middle.
Cranborne Audio makes a series of product you might find interesting (N8, N22, etc.) based on their C.A.S.T. system. They have boxes with both Ins and Outs.
hey there, could you use N22H with two cat5 in and outs leading out into another room with these two male and female varions to be able to send and receive audio easily from a seperate room ?
I've used these with a SOLO/Duo acts on my stage... '4 channels' is Perfect for 2 vocals and 2 Acoustic guitars. I'm building a 3IN/1OUT for a friend....Guitar to Amp(wireless receiver on Pedal Board), Vox1/Vox2 to FOH, Monitor Return FROM FOH to Powered Monitor that 2 people share..... Drop some AC for Power and your good to go...
Whirlwind has a 4 male /4 female on the same box configuration.
8 місяців тому
I think you're wrong about the cable shielding. There can't be any interference in the XLR signal; the interference is canceled out in the sum of the signals. In fact, a shielded cable is necessary because it uses it as ground. If it's not shielded, only 3 pairs can be used; one will be used as GND.
One thing - phantom power ready? Ethernet cable is mighty thin to carry any sort of current so no real limitations on that. Ethernet does POE but the switch will protect against over current but mixers aren’t that smart.
There is definitely no problem on short distances. The only question will be how far can you go before the voltage drops too low to power something. My guess would be you can still get pretty close to 100m but I’m not 100%
@@PluggedinAV MOST phantom powered mics work from 48v (standard from a mixer) down to 1.5v from a AA battery, so I don't think volt drop would be an issue from a mixer fed system. The current is extremely low.
Great video. I was reading through your comments and @Dave Rat just did a video using over 1-5 miles of Cat5e cable, test dynamic and condenser mics. There was very little difference on the volume dropping for the dynamics and just about 0 volume drop-age using condensers. ua-cam.com/video/f0nKK43Oeas/v-deo.html
I truly am curious how much farther you can send the signal. I can understand 100m was always said when it came to data. But with cat5,6,7 with its much higher bandwidth I’d bet you could double it without much degradation. In a pinch. I wonder if anyone has done any scope testing on that.
A useful, informative video. Thank you (but I hate the side camera technique; it detracts from the narrative!). I've made my own, and instead of using XLRs, I've used stereo 1/4 inch. That way, each I/O is gender neutral, then I've provided a selection of tails - 1/4 inch to XLR male and female. That gives the best of all worlds.
Important addition: another big reason (maybe the most important) to use shielded CAT cables: without the shield this system doesn't work at all. 😅 The shield is being used as (combined) ground wire for the 4 XLRs.
CAT5 cable has four twisted pairs of wires, it can only support four channels in analog use. In digital use it can carry many channels, but that will require a digital stage box. A 16 channel Behringer digital stage box costs almost as much as my 18 channel Behringer XR18 mixer!
CAT5,6 etc cable is meant for fixed installation and doesn’t take kindly to being packed and unpacked. Also RJ45 plugs are rather delicate and wouldn’t be reliable on the road. If it’s a fixed installation for a venue Studio then it would be ok. On the road it would be a disaster. The cable with hardwired XLR plugs would be a better option
My band Sutalkerah use one get from cab sims on bass guitar pedal guitar player pedal as don't use amps and backing vocals and thing getting more make cat 6 big stage box for my drum kit
CAT5e! PLEASE LEARN THE DIFFERENCE!!!!!! Cat5 will only get up to 100 Mbps up and down. It is CAT5e that will get you 1 Gbps which is 1 Gigabit (1000 Mbps) I constantly see AV people making this huge mistake.
@@PoxyBear that is all correct, but not the point. For this application any twisted pair data cable will do, so I don't get why you talked about cat5e in the first comment. Doesn't matter for this
@@svenlakemeier Thanks for proving the differnce between tech people and AV. Tech people always look to future proof as much as possible not get by what will minamally work.
Where is the test of the signal and actual quality? The Mogami vs Ethernet? etc. LAME, LAME, LAME....this is the little girls version. Where is the pro audio assist version? It took you to the Min 4 mark to just state the simple proposition of the video. Man this is the longest video to nowhere in a sea of others vying for that same title.
I use these for our gigs and at my rehearsal rooms. We have a 5 piece, so I run a 4 channel stage box to each musician. I can backhaul everything over 5 simple cables. Each musician only needs some short XLR cables to patch their audio in. Nice and slick.
I use one of these type of systems in a broadcast setup with an OB van for commentary. Inputs 1 and 2 are used for the commentators and the 4th is a return to talk to commentators. I used to run multiple cables but have since replaced with this system, I also just ordered another unit to run to my field and presenter mics
Awesome video. This helped me with an install im doing. I had to figure out how to convert
RCA, over long distance but didnt want to buy a whole nother amount of cable i didnt have. Being able to use cat 5 saved me $100 or more.
@@SFOPS great, glad the install worked out
With the risk of sounding old.. :) We built this kind of setup back in the 90's at our community radio station. We needed to connect an audio signal from a nearby (150 m?) venue - and this was way before you streamed audio over 4G..! So we bought shielded Cat5 cable and a garden hose cart - worked just fine! :D
@@larslengberg ha, you should have gone into business
I have been using them on drum kits for several years with no issues. They are the bomb!
12:40 A combo jack would be a good variation too. Or a modular system where the sockets can be swapped out individually with a female/male/combojacks. Indeed, it will be a very specific design that's not been done yet.
I suppose ‘high quality’ gender bender XLR adaptors would work ok?
Love these. Used them on a number of gigs, where we've put a number of these at different points around the stage for musicians/vocalists to plug into. Saves having lots of cables running across the stage to a larger stage box. Keeps it clean and we can run the cat5 around the edge of the stage
How reliable are they?
I'm asking because I'm looking to rewire the stage and move from solder connections to replacement parts that if a cable goes bad or anything, we can just swap it out without having to solder the connections. Especially if I'm not available to solder connections, any person can replace the part. Looking to get the rack mount patch bay from cat 5 to XLR to patch into a DL32. Starting with 2 racks which will get me 24 inputs/outputs over 6 cables. And we can simply patch from the patch bay into either an input or output as needed. Am I making this much harder than it needs to be, or is this a good idea? We have 6 stage boxes and I can have the breakout boxes ran under each stage box and run short XLR cables to the stage box panels in the floor to make the terminations.
@@mchenryjeremy Did you ever start using these? I'm intrigued, but the price of the Sssnake ones is sort of concerning (it's so cheap!). Adam Neely has a few videos about the IEM rig they're using in his band Shoegazer, he briefly mentioned them using these ones but had to scrap them due to reliability issues...
11:25 another cool thing you can do is take those two female boxes and put 2 female to male adapters on 2 of the female exits on both of the boxes and now you have 2male to female and 2 female to male seperatly.. could be great for a talkback system
Another nice thing is the four channels are isolated and don't have to be the same kind of signal. For example - you could send a couple of mic signals through it AND some DMX data. It all works fine. Agree that a nice variation would be 2x male and 2x female on each end.
15:00 i dont think splitting the eth cable from the output would cause problems..
like if i get an eth cable running from the output to a eth splitter and connect them into 2 boxes, i would just get the output on both of them no?
I am now in another church setting and bought a different brand of them via Amazon this week. I have opened them up and they use XLR connectors soldered directly onto the PCB. This makes swapping the connectors over much more difficult as the holes on the Female connector sit in a different location than the Male connector. So my advice is, if you are planning on doing a modification to these to switch one or more end points, go for the SSSnake ones, as otherwise you may find your can't do it easily if at all. I am sure the units I bought are fine if you just want a drop snake you don't want to mod. The ones I bought are these: Copkim 2 Pack 4 Channel 3 Pin Multi Network XLR Cable.
Thanks for the heads up
I've just bought 3 of these for my music room (2 female & 1 male). I've spent hours today searching for whether the transmission between boxes truly is analogue or if it's digitzed first. So a massive thanks for clearing up that basic point! I intend to use mine initially for my pedal board. It has tuners & effects units on it for guitar and bass as well as a drum machine. It has a veritable rat's nest of XLRs and other audio cables emerging from it for connecting to the desk as well as for my own monitoring. I rarely take it gigging these days because of the hassle of disconnecting and reconnecting all the cables. I'm going to put the male on the pedalboard. This will allow me to get rid of a lot of the rat's nest and just carry a female unit (plus a decent network cable) when I go gigging. And with the transmission being purely analogue it also gives me the option of putting the drum machine elsewhere and using one of the ports to trigger it remotely using the footswitch on the pedalboard. Thanks again for clear explanation.
The thing that makes it analog just looking at it as it doesn't require power. Power would be required to do ADC and DAC conversions, either being through a wall transformer or 48v phantom. I wish someone made a self contained AES-50 esk transceiver/transceiver snake that doesn't reqiure a digital board. Yeah I know digital boards are quite inexpensive. Though thinking about the digital self contained snake, the price might be a wash...
We love to use them for DJs on festivals.
Stereo Out into 2 channels. 1 channel for the Cue/Monitor Out from the Pioneer Desk itself and one with reversed adapter as output for the onstage monitor.
Perfect
I used a similar setup in the living room once to run 5.1 surround while having the computer/console beside the couch. I installed a rj45 jack and ran cat5 through the wall into the ceiling into a breakout box rj45-rca(f). It worked very well and allowed a clean install as there were no visible cables or gear on the entertainment wall besides the TV.
Shield (STP)?
I'm curious of these, for our band to use on stage with all our instruments/vocals, but unsure of their reliability?
Hi man, please show us how you re soldered and flipped them ?
Sorry, this video will be coming soon
13:10 Instead of soldering, if you look back on 8:26 it looks like each group of two XLR connectors are going to a single connector (two connectors total). No soldering required, just unplug one set and move to the other box. I could be wrong, but it looks like it's split to me.
I believe that’s one single connector block but I would need to go back and check that.
@@PluggedinAV IMHO, it would still be easier to cut the connector in half then to mess around with soldering. I just noticed an indention in the middle of the connector and wondered if it was actually two separate pieces or one.
These come to the market on here about three years ago, and I got myself a quite good set of two boxes (4x XLR male/4x XLR female) for my little workshop, cause it was cheaper to buy than to build. Mine also have a second RJ45 on the other side, so you can daisychain these for a passiv split or for exampe using channel 1 and 2 on the first and channel 3 and 4 on the second box.
But I still use Ethernet cables for a bunch of signal for more than ten years now. Serial stuff, power, sensors, and also audio. I built myself some of these with 1/4" TRS jacks more then ten years ago, cause it's a great way to run signals between my guitar corner and my workbench over a single ethernet cable. Also built a insert looper box some years ago which carry send, return, switching and status LED over on RJ45 connection. So I can switch from guitar corner or workbench and also seeing the state of the looper on both places.
You also can use these boxes to run audio over existing CAT.5 runs in a building. All you need is a direct connection, which is usually easy to made with just a ethernet cable connecting two ports on a patch panel in the network room directly. I used it once in a building to run audio for some delay line to an second higher audience area where only power and Ethernet have been available. We just patched a ethernet port on the FOH area with one on the audience area and used the boxes to run the audio signal up there.
With your TRS input that you made, can you plug an unbalanced signal like direct guitar into it without any hum/EMF? Check away that’s not really converting to the guitar to a balanced signal, is it? I’m looking into what type of five or six shielded cables installed behind my home studio walls before I put drywall up.
A few important points:
Cat5/5e/6/7 have different amounts of shielding. Cat7 has each pair shielded.
Phantom power can be a problem over ethernet. It depends how they're wired. I'd trust the boxes Dave Rat sells, but I hope you know what you're doing if you use generic ones.
If you're in a pro audio environment where people are allowed to hook up random nonstandard stuff like this, things can get sketchy fast! Are there networking cables anywhere? There probably are somewhere! Are you running any PoE access points? Phantom power doesn't have much current. You're probably not going to blow up a router by plugging phantom power into it. But there's a LOT of stuff you could destroy if you accidentally route PoE into an audio input.
You are a 100% correct there, any piece of kit in the wrong hands can and probably will go horribly wrong 🙂 You seem to know what you talking about, I have a question? Can you run for example, 48V down channel 1+2 for a pair DPA 48V lectern mics and no phantom on channel 3 + 4 as you may be running dynamic mics so you won't need 48v on those channels. Thanks a lot.
Hello!! I don't understand the wiring diagram🙃🥲🥲🥲? Where is the shield/ground?
on the chassis
Good video and mention of needing audio to go the other direction. A xlr gender changer barrel does the job.
I planned on building a snake with cat 5, but the boxes make more sense for adaptability. Plus I can make the boxes in my garage or basement with whatever plugs necessary for my rig. Splitting the signal for analog monitor mixes wouldn't be all that tough either.
Cat 5 is cheaper and easier to replace than mic cables.
I might see some signal loss on my 30 year old mixer, but not on my new one. The i/o sensitivity and modern filters on modern mixers make analog signal losses minimal.
Update: I plan to finally build my first set of boxes in a week or so. Will use them for FOH and DMX for now. I will have my music running on my main bus with vocals on a sub mix bus, sending the music to subs before tops then vocals will go to channel 2 of my tops. The low cut filters on my board seem like a suggestion more than a functional filter, so I'd like to not run vocals through my subs. I'll also run my DMX through the boxes .
Eventually I'll have a need for using them as i/o snakes, but for now, just need them to get FOH covered so I can mix in front of the PA.
It's mainly a karaoke/DJ rig, but will be doing more bands in the coming year.
In a church setting I used these to send wired in-ears to singers and musicians worked a treat.
Yep, it’s a great way to do it 👍🏻
Cat 5 shielded With phantom power? All balanced signals, no problem?
@@GregoryGuay yep, all good
I’m using Cat7 analog connections with a Cranborne system in my home studio setup. The signal doesn’t have to travel far, but I am using the 50’ cables that came with the N8 bundle to carry two condenser mic sends carrying 48v phantom power and two audio return channels from my monitor station. I have to say beside eliminating 4 xlr cables, the superior shielding of the Cat7 cable cleaned up 60 cycle hums I had been plagued with when using xlr connections. I definitely intend to use more Cat7 connections in and around my studio and I am very pleased with using it in place of xlr cables where I can.
Still using cranbourne CAST?
Still a viable solution?
I built a couple of these audio over analog cat 5 cable distributors for my church setup.
I think it would be useful to add a DIP switch or selector to the design that would allow the user to distribute on all four outputs and disable the other three. Vice versa, 4 input to one selected output. Like mixer or a splitter. I think it will still be a passive connection.
That’s what ‘Dante’ or Ultra net setups can do - I think- but it’s more costly.
How come the 1/4" jack versions are so much more expensive than the XLR versions??
Nice for live room use
They handle 48 volt
So the vox booths get one box for 2 mic positions and a headphone amp for talent to self adjust
I’m surprised there are not more cat connectors on newer gear or patch bays yet
I think Henery Engineering has a male/female xlr, trs and rca for EtherCON
Somebody knows if we can use this box with mixers like Midas MR18 or Behringer XR18 ULTRANET conection? It have just 6 monitor outputs, and I´m trying to get 3 extra outputs to send inears monitor mixes (using 3 of the 4 effects channels).
I just know DN4816-O splitter, but I need only 3 extra mixing channels, and these can be PERFECT!!
Thanks a lot and nice review bro 😎
Is phantom power carried by the shielding?
Yes
My brother uses these for wireless guitar rigs on tour. They have two in and two out for stereo guitar rigs.
I studied to become an Audio-Engineer in 2001 and we've used CAT5 and 6 cables for analog audio a lot. In high-end Studios, on sets, for experiments ... pretty much anywhere. The cables where much cheaper and readily available straight from a 50m or 100m roll. It never stroke me as "odd" to be honest... It's high quality cables with very little loss for what they are.
We didn't have fancy XLR-RJ45 adapters back then though :) which to be honest strikes me at the only "weak point". directly into a solid good quality XLR feels better to me.
For a small home studio is there any benefit to using 6a over 5?
As long as there is one shared shield/ground? I believe that I’ve read individually shielded pairs stronger resistance to EMF for my case I’m only running 50’ max. I need to commit to shielded 5 or shielded 6a before I put my Drywall up. I suppose I’ll go with solid copper instead of stranded since it will be a permanent install. A little feedback from your expensive experience! Trying to avoid mistakes lol
I'm actively looking for a variant like the one you mentioned, where I can have two-way analog audio using one single cat5. 2+2 would be perfect, but I can't find any such variant of any brand. Are you sure there's no electrical reason for this? I have no use for these if I'm not certain that it will actually work after resoldering them.
I’ve just done it to mine. New video coming soon 👍🏻
@@PluggedinAV Cool, thanks! I'm subscribing 👍
Can you link the video with the variant? Or what were your results?
Great video! I’ve got 2 questions: 1) Does it make sense to use these boxes in a 30m2 studio? 2) I use Canare cables in my studio. What brand for Cat5 cable should be used to keep the consistent signal quality?
Yeah, I think it definitely makes sense to use them. In terms of quality I don’t it will make much difference. CAT cable is capable of sending signals at a much higher frequency than audio so even a budget cable will be very suitable to send a full audio spectrum. If you want to get a higher spec cable maybe look at CAT 6 or above. The thing you might find is a higher quality cable will coil better and be a bit more durable. I’m not sure I can recommend and brands though. I just use the budget options and they work well
Can these be used with an analog mixer to send signal direct to a ethernet port on my Mac/Logic Pro?
No, it doesn’t digitise the signal. You will still need something to convert the signal from analogue to digital
@@PluggedinAV I thought the whole point of it(other than a convenient and cheap way to run audio in live production) was that the signal is created from analog and digitized to ethernet signal? So one need an interface that can receive the ethernet signal and 'reconvert it to audio so it can be fed to the computer? Like,,, a super expensive RME interface or similar that cost $1500 and more ? great savings,,,,
@@mark-ze4en not these ones. It’s analogue only.
Great info. So how does this differ from say a Behringer S16/S32 carrying multiple bi-directional signals over a single Cat5 cable?
The behringer system is digital and sends digital audio over Cat5. This is analogue . The Behringer system costs a few thousand, this costs about £50 👍🏻
Hi there my name is joe i have a presonus studiolive 24 4 2AI console how would i hook these up
Hi Joe, I don’t know this console specifically but these boxes use XLR connectors. I assume you will have XLR ins on the back of the console so you just plug direct into your XLRs
Hello sir can i run a audio signal from mixer too powered speaker with that? like hte main output
Yes you can, it’s a good way to do that
If we have a digital io box on stage would these make sense to use to connect to that stage box even if they are analog? Trying to find a solution that doesn't require a bunch of mic cables running back to the io box.
You need a box at each end, but yes essentially this works well. Come out of your digi stage box on XLR into one of these then run a cat 5 to your musician location and then short XLR patch to the analogue box on stage. Think of it as 4 XLRs down 1 cat 5
I haven’t set everything up yet, but in theory it should work:
I am the percussion director for a marching band. In the marching arts it’s ubiquitous to have a front ensemble of marimbas, vibraphones, etc that are all mic’d. A common way to coordinate this for setting up in under 5 minutes, performing, and breaking down in 2 (as per the time limit regulations in Texas), is by running DB25 snakes from the board, to your center-most instruments, using a DB25-XLR breakout, sending 1 or 2 to that instrument, and running the extra XLRs down the frame of the instrument, and “daisy chaining,” so to speak, to the next instrument.
This method requires either excess XLR that hangs off the end of an instrument so that it can reach the next instrument in the chain, or what I have done in the past, a 3rd intermediate bundle of XLRs in between the instruments. I’ve made XLR snakes with 6 channels in one cable. It’s nice to only have one cable in between, but that’s still up to 12 connections that must be made repeatedly day after day.
My solution to that this coming up season is to put these XLR-CAT5 boxes on both ends of each instrument, and running a singular 5 foot ethercon cable between. It should be less stressful overall. Fingers crossed.
Sounds good, and lots of fun. Enjoy!
Radial Catapult and Whirlwind Catdusa have four male XLRs paralleled with four female XLRs in one box.
I make my own boxes ...even a reel of cat5 using an old mains extension lead reel with XLRs mounted on it and a neutrik plug on the other end
Good work 👍🏻
Can these be used with other brands?
Please cover the brand of shampoo you use.
Is it possible to use with an Midas 18 rack mixer for monitoring? Those mixers have only 6 aux, so it would be really helpful to use that way.
Yes you can use it for monitors but it wouldn’t give you any more than your 6
@@PluggedinAV I see. Thanks.
@@PluggedinAV I was told those mixers are able to handle 6 analogue aux and other 6 digital aux, am I wrong? So I was expecting to use 12 aux.
@@ebowdan3138 I don’t know that specific model I’m afraid but it’s not uncommon to add more outputs to a digital mixer through a stage box but it would need to be a Midas stage box that works with that mixer
Hi, I'm questionning about the feasability of sending audio from xlr to rj45, then pass it through 'prise cpl' (in french, I dont know the english trad), then go back to xlr on the other side. To you, is it possible ?
Hi, I think the think you are talking about we call 'ethernet over mains'. You can't use one of these devices no. It has to be one straight cable with nothing in the middle.
Thank you! Great video!
Cranborne Audio makes a series of product you might find interesting (N8, N22, etc.) based on their C.A.S.T. system. They have boxes with both Ins and Outs.
Thanks, I will take a look
@@PluggedinAV and they also make a N22H which adds a headphone amp. Either plug in power or 9v. Very cool.
hey there, could you use N22H with two cat5 in and outs leading out into another room with these two male and female varions to be able to send and receive audio easily from a seperate room ?
I built 4 of these with a male and female XLR on each channel. Basically they become a splitter when we've played festival situations.
Can this be plugged into a network switch for Dante?
No, it’s analogue audio so has to be point to point
@@PluggedinAV thanks
I've used these with a SOLO/Duo acts on my stage... '4 channels' is Perfect for 2 vocals and 2 Acoustic guitars.
I'm building a 3IN/1OUT for a friend....Guitar to Amp(wireless receiver on Pedal Board), Vox1/Vox2 to FOH, Monitor Return FROM FOH to Powered Monitor that 2 people share..... Drop some AC for Power and your good to go...
Whirlwind has a 4 male /4 female on the same box configuration.
I think you're wrong about the cable shielding. There can't be any interference in the XLR signal; the interference is canceled out in the sum of the signals. In fact, a shielded cable is necessary because it uses it as ground. If it's not shielded, only 3 pairs can be used; one will be used as GND.
ive seen a video of some dave and he showed how the signal is still clear on a 2.5KM(1.5miles) cat cable
One thing - phantom power ready? Ethernet cable is mighty thin to carry any sort of current so no real limitations on that. Ethernet does POE but the switch will protect against over current but mixers aren’t that smart.
Oooh, good question. Not sure is the short answer but that’s going on my test list!
@@PluggedinAV That was my first question on the list. I was waiting for you to mention it, without that, this is pretty much useless.
There is definitely no problem on short distances. The only question will be how far can you go before the voltage drops too low to power something. My guess would be you can still get pretty close to 100m but I’m not 100%
@@PluggedinAV MOST phantom powered mics work from 48v (standard from a mixer) down to 1.5v from a AA battery, so I don't think volt drop would be an issue from a mixer fed system. The current is extremely low.
PoE on cat5 is often 48 volts at higher current than I mic will put out. This is also why they must be shielded cables, though.
Great video. I was reading through your comments and @Dave Rat just did a video using over 1-5 miles of Cat5e cable, test dynamic and condenser mics. There was very little difference on the volume dropping for the dynamics and just about 0 volume drop-age using condensers. ua-cam.com/video/f0nKK43Oeas/v-deo.html
Hay where can I get them
I get mine from Thomann
I truly am curious how much farther you can send the signal. I can understand 100m was always said when it came to data. But with cat5,6,7 with its much higher bandwidth I’d bet you could double it without much degradation. In a pinch. I wonder if anyone has done any scope testing on that.
Dave Rat (check out his videos) has done one sending it over 1km
@@PluggedinAV WOW! thanks for the info. Very cool stuff.
I used mine for a simple drum snake. But I found out the phantom power did not work. So that was a bit of a drawback for that usage.
That’s strange. I use Phantom no problem
Probably due to an unshielded cable. Phantom Power requires the a cable shield that is connected to XLR Pin 1 on both ends.
I have bought them to. I twisted the ethernet connector for 180’ so I can reach the savety clip better. Or maybe my fingers are a littlebit thick😮
What software do these things use?
They don't use software, as they are all analog. Similar digital solutions may use software like Dante
A useful, informative video. Thank you (but I hate the side camera technique; it detracts from the narrative!).
I've made my own, and instead of using XLRs, I've used stereo 1/4 inch. That way, each I/O is gender neutral, then I've provided a selection of tails - 1/4 inch to XLR male and female. That gives the best of all worlds.
Important addition: another big reason (maybe the most important) to use shielded CAT cables: without the shield this system doesn't work at all. 😅 The shield is being used as (combined) ground wire for the 4 XLRs.
Exactly
also new product is an 8(4M and 4F) exit product with parrallel
The shield is also the shared ground. They use the each pair in the cat5 cable for high, and low, while sharing ground on the sheild
How many channel does this analog stage box have ?
Jona. I think this was covered in the video many times. It is ONLY available as 4 channel.
CAT5 cable has four twisted pairs of wires, it can only support four channels in analog use. In digital use it can carry many channels, but that will require a digital stage box. A 16 channel Behringer digital stage box costs almost as much as my 18 channel Behringer XR18 mixer!
All you need to do is convert any male or female with the required converter
CAT5,6 etc cable is meant for fixed installation and doesn’t take kindly to being packed and unpacked. Also RJ45 plugs are rather delicate and wouldn’t be reliable on the road.
If it’s a fixed installation for a venue Studio then it would be ok. On the road it would be a disaster.
The cable with hardwired XLR plugs would be a better option
Tell me you don't work in live music without telling me you work in live music.
I want it in 15- 20 channels
😂 I think that’s just called a digi stage box
My band Sutalkerah use one get from cab sims on bass guitar pedal guitar player pedal as don't use amps and backing vocals and thing getting more make cat 6 big stage box for my drum kit
and CAT cables are much more affordable than audio cables.
VENOM-X Ethernet
CAT5e! PLEASE LEARN THE DIFFERENCE!!!!!! Cat5 will only get up to 100 Mbps up and down. It is CAT5e that will get you 1 Gbps which is 1 Gigabit (1000 Mbps) I constantly see AV people making this huge mistake.
For the requirements of analogue audio a cat 3 cable would be enough looking at the carried frequencies.
@@svenlakemeier Cat 3 is outdated and next to impossible to find. Cat5e is not expensive and gives you the versatility to use in multiple applicatons.
@@PoxyBear that is all correct, but not the point. For this application any twisted pair data cable will do, so I don't get why you talked about cat5e in the first comment. Doesn't matter for this
@@svenlakemeier Thanks for proving the differnce between tech people and AV. Tech people always look to future proof as much as possible not get by what will minamally work.
Where is the test of the signal and actual quality? The Mogami vs Ethernet? etc. LAME, LAME, LAME....this is the little girls version. Where is the pro audio assist version? It took you to the Min 4 mark to just state the simple proposition of the video. Man this is the longest video to nowhere in a sea of others vying for that same title.
@@zdogg8 ha 😂, thanks for the feedback. Sorry you didn’t enjoy it. Have a great day
@@PluggedinAV It's a great subject, just needs to be concise (the bane of most UA-camrs) and a little more pertinent info. Cheers!
Check out ‘Wallcats’ by Soundtools, been checking them for a while