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[Dan Mortensen]

The Music Tribe site:

https://community.musictribe.com/kba/article/KA-09432/musictribe
https://community.musictribe.com/kba/article/KA-03733/musictribe

In the 2nd article, in BOLD print, they say they only 'officially' support cat 5e cable.  Cat 6 maybe will work, but they don't officially support it.  I as many others have used cat 6 cable without issue.

Finally looking at those articles.

Note that the first one says "CAT5e Minimum", and the second says that CAT5e is the only officially endorsed cable, but that many users have reported success with CAT6. I would think that should be CAT6a since straight CAT6 has some kind of weird distance limitation to meet the CAT6 data spec, or so I've heard. I haven't heard if CAT6 meets the CAT5e spec, which is all we're interested in for our consoles. One would think so, but it's untested.

For quite a while, we were able to get information from Behringer/Midas/Music Tribe directly from engineering sources. Currently we seem only able to get it from anonymous sources, and a lot of the time it's wrong. That caused the former guys who moderated the user community forums (as volunteer moderators, serving a community they loved being part of) to leave and start their own forum focused on these products where, in the absence of factory support, we could all keep trying to figure out how these boxes work.

I don't know that they've come up with precise recommendations for "best cable," and am only bringing them up to say that what's on the Behringer/Midas websites, other than firmware updates, needs to be considered with some skepticism since there seems to be no new research into product implementation or support to figure out edge usages. This forum we are in and the one I linked to are the best sources these days to figure out how to use what you've got. I would argue that the wording in the second article is what someone who is careful about what they were saying but have limited resources (and/or support from above) to run new tests would write to be complete but still cover their ass.

FWIW I rely on the "Minimum" in the Standard as meaning that anything higher is better yet, and that it definitely won't be worse than minimum, since it's designed to move higher amounts of data than the minimum in the same basic construction (8 wires in one jacket with RJ45 connectors at each end)*. Brian Wynn in that little series of videos (the one linked ITT was the finale in a short series of him trying things that didn't work) proved that there were fine points around that basic construction that needed to be obeyed for successful usage to overcome conditions that obviously weren't taken into consideration in the original console design.

*Others have argued the opposite in the past about what "minimum" means or implies.

[Brian Jojade]

The assumption that a higher cat cable is better isn't necessarily right.  For Ethernet, generally that holds true.  But AES50 is NOT ethernet.  There was a post a while back that went into detail on different cables, timing, etc.

The fact that they went out of their way to post that Cat5e is the certified standard and cat 6 is NOT certified kind of overrides that 'minimum' statement.  I've personally not run into issue with using cat 6, but most of the time stick with 5e.  That's the officially supported cable.

[Helge A Bentsen]

Insertion loss is often higher on Cat6/7 than on cat5e. That's a major reason Midas originally said Cat5e only.
You can use cat6 if it meets the Midas spec, done that several times. Link (Eurocable) Cat6 STP meets the Midas requirements.
However, I use unshielded Cat5e for my Pro-series consoles and shielded for my M32.

[Rolando Saenz]

However, I use unshielded Cat5e for my Pro-series consoles and shielded for my M32.

so if i house the M32C and DL16 on same rack
can i use unshielded cat5 to link them ?
the cat5 jumper will be around a feet long

[Tim McCulloch]

so if i house the M32C and DL16 on same rack
can i use unshielded cat5 to link them ?
the cat5 jumper will be around a feet long

I used the specified cable and Ethercon connectors to connect 2 DL16. Never a problem after that.

[Brian Jojade]

so if i house the M32C and DL16 on same rack
can i use unshielded cat5 to link them ?
the cat5 jumper will be around a feet long

Can you? yes.  Being inside the rack there's less chance of external interference.  However, a short shielded ethercon cable is only a couple bucks.  Highly recommend that instead.

[Scott Holtzman]

Can you? yes.  Being inside the rack there's less chance of external interference.  However, a short shielded ethercon cable is only a couple bucks.  Highly recommend that instead.

I know it's not Ethernet but the Ethernet specs call for a minimum cable length of 1 meter.  This is for reflections.  I imagine that the Behringer signaling is similar. 

[Russell Ault]

{...} straight CAT6 has some kind of weird distance limitation to meet the CAT6 data spec, {...}

IIRC the only distance restriction on Cat6 is that 10GBASE-T operation is limited to between 37m and 55m (Cat6A is required for full 100m distances at those speeds); for everything slower the maximum distance is 100m.

{...} I haven't heard if CAT6 meets the CAT5e spec, {...}

The two specs are similar enough that a lot of Cat6 would also meet Cat5e spec, but it's definitely possible to design a Cat6 cable that wouldn't pass a Cat5e test (e.g. Helge pointed out that the Cat6 spec allows for significantly higher insertion loss).

I know it's not Ethernet but the Ethernet specs call for a minimum cable length of 1 meter.  This is for reflections.  I imagine that the Behringer signaling is similar.

Scott, do you have a source for this (for Ethernet, I mean)? I've been hearing of this minimum for years, but every time I've ever tried to track down an actual "minimum cable length" in the spec I come up empty-handed.

-Russ

[Scott Holtzman]

IIRC the only distance restriction on Cat6 is that 10GBASE-T operation is limited to between 37m and 55m (Cat6A is required for full 100m distances at those speeds); for everything slower the maximum distance is 100m.

The two specs are similar enough that a lot of Cat6 would also meet Cat5e spec, but it's definitely possible to design a Cat6 cable that wouldn't pass a Cat5e test (e.g. Helge pointed out that the Cat6 spec allows for significantly higher insertion loss).

Scott, do you have a source for this (for Ethernet, I mean)? I've been hearing of this minimum for years, but every time I've ever tried to track down an actual "minimum cable length" in the spec I come up empty-handed.

-Russ

Here is an excerpt from the IEEE specs.  It says 2.5m so now scratching my head.


https://www.firewall.cx/networking/network-cabling/network-cabling-100basetx.html#:~:text=use%20CAT5%20cable.-,100Base%2DTX,between%20nodes%20is%202.5%20meters.

[Russell Ault]

Here is an excerpt from the IEEE specs.  It says 2.5m so now scratching my head.


https://www.firewall.cx/networking/network-cabling/network-cabling-100basetx.html#:~:text=use%20CAT5%20cable.-,100Base%2DTX,between%20nodes%20is%202.5%20meters.

I suspect that part of the "fun" here is that there are three separate standards for Category cable (ANSI/TIA-568, ISO 11801, and EN 50173) and they're all slightly different (even though all three reference IEC 61156-1 to some extent or other). My impression is that ANSI/TIA-568 (at least) doesn't specify a minimum length per se, but that shorter cables might have trouble meeting all of the certification requirements (particularly for the higher-speed standards).

-Russ

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