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[Jay Marr]

Situation:
I have a sound proof room in my basement and it's amazing.
The one thing it's missing is wired internet.  As I'd like to be able to use tools like JamKazaam to rehearse, I am looking to bring wired internet down there.

The great news is - my office is right above the sound proof room, and my router/modem is in my office.
Because my sound proof room has walls that don't touch the foundation, I can easily drop cables through the wall of my office, down into the basement (and drill a small hole to bring them into my sound proof room).

I only want to do this once, so my question to those out there - if you were going to 'wire these two rooms together', what cables would you be running?
From everything I have read, Cat 6a is superior to Cat 5e, so I am thinking I should go with Cat 6a to future proof my room.  Per my understanding, Cat 6a is backwards compatible, so all my devices that use Cat 5e would be fine.  Someone please correct me if that is not true.

What else should I think about running down there?  I'm thinking maybe a couple of XLRs in case I ever wanted to mic up a guitar cab in the basement, and feed it to a studio interface that I have in my office?  Would be a quiet way to track loud guitars.

Any other suggestions??

[Taylor Hall]

There's really no reason not to go with cat6. It is backwards compatible so the only thing you would be 'missing' is the equipment required to take advantage of its 10Gbps max speed.

If you're looking into sound routing, why not go with a Dante AVIO setup and go digital? You would just need to segment the Dante traffic on your network via VLANs or through two physical cable runs on separate networks. That would also future proof your sound routing to many dozens of channels with a digital mixer down the line.

[Chrysander 'C.R.' Young]

Skip Cat6a, just use Cat6.  For your use, it is not worth the additional expense.

[Jay Marr]

Skip Cat6a, just use Cat6.  For your use, it is not worth the additional expense.

Good to know, it looked like 50' of Cat6a was like 20 bucks at Home Depot, so figured I'd just go that route.  But if Cat6 is there, and a decent amount less, I guess I'll go with that.

[Jay Marr]

There's really no reason not to go with cat6. It is backwards compatible so the only thing you would be 'missing' is the equipment required to take advantage of its 10Gbps max speed.

If you're looking into sound routing, why not go with a Dante AVIO setup and go digital? You would just need to segment the Dante traffic on your network via VLANs or through two physical cable runs on separate networks. That would also future proof your sound routing to many dozens of channels with a digital mixer down the line.

That's a great idea.  Just reading about Dante AVIO now as I'm not familiar.  Seems like a second Cat6 run would set me up nicely for that.  Do you agree?

[Taylor Hall]

That's a great idea.  Just reading about Dante AVIO now as I'm not familiar.  Seems like a second Cat6 run would set me up nicely for that.  Do you agree?

That would certainly be the cheaper alternative unless you have some managed switches laying around!

I would also look at the Neutrik NA2-IO, it's a bit more than the AVIO adapter, but gives you 2 XLR in/outs so you could also do monitoring/playback. Drop that in the recording space and get the USB AVIO adapter for your workstation and route to your heart's content. One important note about the AVIO and Neutrik devices mentioned, they'll need PoE power (with the exception of the AVIO USB device), so you'll need to also get a PoE injector or use a switch that has PoE ports on it. Neither are particularly costly (about $50 from reputable brands), just avoid the $20 Chinesium units on amazon/ebay and you'll be fine.

[Corey Scogin]

What else should I think about running down there?  I'm thinking maybe a couple of XLRs in case I ever wanted to mic up a guitar cab in the basement, and feed it to a studio interface that I have in my office?  Would be a quiet way to track loud guitars.

I'd certainly run a couple of XLR cables or better yet, a small snake. There's no replacement for direct analog lines in a studio. You don't want to run through digital/analog conversion multiple times just to get from one room to another.
To accomplish that, you could just run multiple CATx cables and use some for networking and some for an analog breakout.

Edit:PS: Most of those digital converters probably require line-level analog signals coming in which would not allow you to properly run, for example, a guitar extender to have an amp in the basement and performer in the office.

[Dave Garoutte]

How about running a large diameter conduit between the rooms.
Then you can pull or change whatever you want in the future.

[John L Nobile]

How about running a large diameter conduit between the rooms.
Then you can pull or change whatever you want in the future.

+1

[Barry Reynolds]

Good to know, it looked like 50' of Cat6a was like 20 bucks at Home Depot, so figured I'd just go that route.  But if Cat6 is there, and a decent amount less, I guess I'll go with that.

Is Home Depot Cat6 sufficiently shielded for audio or Dante?  Or does the OP need to get more expensive Cat6 that people get for stage and FOH runs?

[ProSoundWeb Community]