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Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums => LAB Lounge => Topic started by: Nate Armstrong on May 05, 2014, 11:15:21 AM

Title: 4 Channel cat5 snake
Post by: Nate Armstrong on May 05, 2014, 11:15:21 AM
Has anyone used this product before ?  I was thinking about getting a Male and Female for a drive snake.

http://www.markertek.com/CATV-Headend-Interface/CAT-5-Transmission-Systems/Audio-Over-CAT5-Systems/Energy-Transformation-Systems/PA202F.xhtml?utm_medium=shoppingengine&utm_source=googlebase&cvsfa=3786&cvsfe=2&cvsfhu=4554532d504132303246&gclid=CIKT6KGJlb4CFexZ7AodASwARQ
Title: Re: 4 Channel cat5 snake
Post by: TJ (Tom) Cornish on May 05, 2014, 11:56:50 AM
Has anyone used this product before ?  I was thinking about getting a Male and Female for a drive snake.

http://www.markertek.com/CATV-Headend-Interface/CAT-5-Transmission-Systems/Audio-Over-CAT5-Systems/Energy-Transformation-Systems/PA202F.xhtml?utm_medium=shoppingengine&utm_source=googlebase&cvsfa=3786&cvsfe=2&cvsfhu=4554532d504132303246&gclid=CIKT6KGJlb4CFexZ7AodASwARQ
No personal experience, but doing simple math means that if they're getting 4 runs from a Cat 5 cable, that means you need to use shielded Cat5 to get a ground at all, and all 4 runs will be grounded together.  Whether this is acceptable depends on your application.
Title: Re: 4 Channel cat5 snake
Post by: David Sturzenbecher on May 05, 2014, 12:23:30 PM
Also check out...
http://www.soundtools.com/catsnake.html




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Title: Re: 4 Channel cat5 snake
Post by: Brian Jojade on May 05, 2014, 12:59:58 PM
The price seems obscenely high for what it is.  There's nothing inside the box other than a cat 5 jack and 4 XLR connectors.  Maybe at 20 bucks a pair, it would be worth it. At $120 each, it seems a bit obscene.
Title: Re: 4 Channel cat5 snake
Post by: Bob Leonard on May 06, 2014, 02:48:35 AM
I don't see any benefit to using what really should be designated a stage snake setup. If I had a special application, maybe, but if I'm running extensions or splits I want the security of a good snake on the stage.
Title: Re: 4 Channel cat5 snake
Post by: Keith Broughton on May 06, 2014, 06:59:14 AM
These would be handy for running com .
Shielded cable would be a must.
You could build them for less but $120 is not unreasonable.
Title: Re: 4 Channel cat5 snake
Post by: Tim McCulloch on May 06, 2014, 09:53:27 AM
I don't see any benefit to using what really should be designated a stage snake setup. If I had a special application, maybe, but if I'm running extensions or splits I want the security of a good snake on the stage.

I used the system shown on Markertek on an industrial show where the client added stuff after all the cabling had been flown.  The video dept put in 2 spare CAT5 runs from techworld to backstage (for projection spare or alternate confidence monitor feed).  The graciously let me use 1 of the runs for the extra audio.

I see these as more of "oh shit, we need to do WHAT?" devices than as infrastructure.
Title: Re: 4 Channel cat5 snake
Post by: Jordan Wolf on May 06, 2014, 10:26:22 AM
I see these as more of "oh shit, we need to do WHAT?" devices than as infrastructure.
+1

Spare lines are always handy; heck, I've done 4ch. of analog, balanced line-level down CAT5 when I needed to get audio between rooms (network hardware was patched around, of course).  It worked great, and I only had to build break-in/break-out adapters, and re-patch from room-to-room via the patchbay.  I still have them in case there's a need to a makeshift 4ch. snake.
Title: Re: 4 Channel cat5 snake
Post by: Craig Hauber on May 06, 2014, 10:37:29 AM
These would be handy for running com .
Shielded cable would be a must.
You could build them for less but $120 is not unreasonable.
clear-com type analog com acts weird through these.  You do get audio but call light function doesn't work and the whole system acts like it doesn't have enough power.
I was using 500' of unshielded cat-5 so that could have been the issue. 
For audio use it worked flawlessly -it was across sand buried on a beach and I didn't want a couple drive-snakes being exposed to those conditions for the amount of time (days) the show was active.
Title: Re: 4 Channel cat5 snake
Post by: Cory Ramsey on May 10, 2014, 07:59:25 AM
They work well. We have many of them that we use for corporate events. No noise issues. . Use the shielded cat5 as mentioned. Also a Cost effective way to fedex a snake to a small show.
Title: Re: 4 Channel cat5 snake
Post by: Kevin Graf on May 10, 2014, 11:55:55 AM
The Steve Lampen, Beldon Blog about audio and Cat 5.

"The Strange World of Cat 5e and Cat 6"

Posted by: Steve Lampen on October 08, 2013

http://www.belden.com/blog/broadcastav/The-Strange-World-of-Cat-5e-and-Cat-6.cfm
Title: Re: 4 Channel cat5 snake
Post by: Lou Kohley on May 10, 2014, 04:56:38 PM
I just started using one of these to send midi data to the stage for an x32.

I got mine from CBI for $90 a pair. I also got the shielded Cat5e cable with ethercon. I've been able to pass audio talk back and headphone cue back on the other two lines.

This is my low budget way of making a FOH split. The console lives on stage with or without a monitor engineer and I can control FOH with the ipad/ midi fader bank.

Here's a link to the CBI version.
http://www.cbicables.com/products/dmx_to_cat__shuttle_snake.aspx
 
LOU