Man, your description of the sound that results from something heavy being rolled across an ether snake is pretty accurate. Running eight top boxes and four dual 18” subs indoors was probably pretty close to what a nuke might sound like when it goes off (right before you get turned to dust) and is enough to make your heart stop beating momentarily.
I know most of you will probably tell me that I’m playing with fire and I would normally agree. However with using this setup for a few years without fail, it may be worth a shot and extend the experiment to a few more folks by giving this a try with their own setup. I’ve owned Roland M Series consoles for a while and have and used 100m REAC cable without issues with these consoles for years. Over the past few years I’ve purchased a few X32s to have in my rentals and have been using them on a regular basis. The Older Roland consoles required a Cat5e Crossover cable with ethercon connectors and no shield on either RJ45 connector . By surprise I was testing Cat cables and this REAC cable has worked flawlessly. I know it shouldn’t and not to trust it. But it has been rock solid no dropouts, no weird noises and I’ve had this cable fully extended to the full 100m on a number of occasions. This cable is breaking all the rules….over 80m, no shielding and a crossover cable. What gives? Has anyone tried making a crossover cable?
Many unshielded cat5e cables work fine with AES50 up to 100 meters. As I mention in the video, the issue is that unshielded cable is susceptible to electrostatic discharge. So when you're doing a show on carpet or in a dry environment those little shocks you get can fry the AES50 circuit and destroy the connection permanently. Because of this, Behringer/ Midas has now put "use shielded cat 5 cable only" notices and stickers on the consoles. For most or many applications using on shielded cable is fine until it's not and when it's not it's a complete shutdown from a single spark. And then the big issue comes in that as soon as you switch to shielded cable it no longer works at 100 m. Or at least that's the case for most shielded cat5e cables All good using unshielded especially if you're not in an environment that gets lots of static electricity. And also there are people I believe that want to use a shielded cable and be safe from losing their show to a spark and also need 100 m or more in length And that is what I'm working on with this cable
Thanks for the quick reply Dave. I know I’m living precariously with this setup. Hence I too have been trying some other options. I have a 200ft Cat6a in transit and will test that as well. I still don’t understand with all that is happening that this cable is able to work even with a crossover designation. Has anyone played around with the Ultranet feature and what format of Cat can be used for that port? Cheers and thanks for all of your time a dedication to this subject. It is appreciated on this end.
@@ARTAudioCan For ultranet setup there are allegedly issues for more than 6 items in the signal chain, as I’ve been reading in forums. I didn’t noticed it. I’ve been running six monitors, six subs and two tops in one chain flawlessly. I’ve been using Thomann pro snake cat5e cables and even had to dismantle the neutrik plug to plug them into the Turbosound subs and tops. Silly, but a different topic. Anyway, it worked and it still does.
Dave, you might not frequent the facebook forums on these consoles, but it is a pretty well known fact amongst users that the x32 aes50 “real world” cable length spec is about 150-200’ (depending on cable quality). It also HAS to be cat5e, shielded and bonded ethercon shells. Obviously the bonding between ethercon shells falls apart when adding connections in-between… fwiw, I am using your purple cat 5e cable for my aes50 snake connections…. At 150’ ;) I’m the admin for an x32 group on facebook and a member of the midas m32 groups… I get to read it all…
Fair enough, my perspective it to test and verify real world aspect and look the manufacturers specs. Many people offer many opinions with little or no testing or credibility. I did the cable length tests to try and come up with a plan for dealing with the issue. I have designed and manufacture 2 Cat5e cable designs already and am working on a new CAT cable design. Based on these tests I have decided not to design around AES50 for the upcoming SoundTools CAT7 cable and maybe mid to late 2022 I hope to have a SoundTools Cat6a cable design that carries AES50 a stable 100 meters with at least a 20% length buffer. So it will still be functional up to 120 meters. And after these test, I have
Yeah, it really depends. If you are bundling a bunch of Cat cables into a 100 meter snake and only need cat5e grade for most, switching the whole bundle to Cat6 will make that cable bundle a lot bigger, heavier and less flexible while adding cost as well. Get the right tools for the job, add some buffer or a bit of redundancy and avoid inadequate tools and also avoid blind overkill.
Great video and thank you for the run down. After some varied success over the years with house cables, the touring solution for me is running my own 2x Pro Co 100m Cat5e from FOH at the same time, one to DL32, one to X32c running IEMs. Then a 1ft cable connecting x32c to the DL32. X32c is the master, M32 is getting sync there. My thinking is if there is static build up, it will dissipate throughout the system without loosing sync, Definitely a fragile system.
As a touring engineer that uses the m32 format, the only confidence I have in my rig is that all AES50 signal lives on stage between a couple of m32c and a DL32 stagebox. Max cable run is about a foot haha. I use whatever garbage ethercon is provided for the day as control only over ethernet to an xtouch at FOH.
You can hardwire a laptop and an Ipad to an ethernet switch at FOH along with the X-Touch. I have done this a lot, minus the hardwired Ipad. It's a powerful way of doing things.
Yep I do this currently and have a Waves server on deck controlled by superrack at FOH. I’ve even gone so far as to use 4 pins of the cat5 just for ethernet and the other 4 for two channels of aes. DL32 aes out to a venu360 at FOH for my outputs.
Talking about barrel connectors: Don't use these Neutrik NE8FF for Data. (If you open it you'll understand why ;-) Use Neutrik NE8FFX6-W instead. These are rated Cat6A.
I came to the exact same conclusion as you did after doing 300+ shows from stadiums to clubs and bars with these. I couldn't find a pattern at all with what worked and what didn't. After a couple random drop outs at some festivals, I decided to run my own cable wherever possible. I would use one of your purple supercat 60m cat5e and carried an extra 15m one with a neutrik ethercon coupler when I needed that slight extra bit of length. 95% of the time 60m was plenty, but the times I needed the extra length, I never had an issue with the 60m + 15m. I did try a 75m +15m purple supercat once and I will say that did not work at all.
Thanks much Dave. How about M/X32 AES50 to Midas PRO stage boxes, such as Midas DL153 or DL251 stage boxes; any testing mixing it up? Also any thoughts from the MIDAS Pro series consoles using on AES50?
Hey Dave! Thank you for these amazing videos! As we have started to play bigger shows with my primary band, I meet a lot of more than 70m long cat5s. Is DN9610 solution for us? Or are we just screwed with 100m long cable? Thank you for reply.
Running M32, 2 Midas DL16 stageboxes and dante to amp. Out of the blue getting pops and dropouts. We are running your 150' purple aes50 cables. Re-ran new ethernet to dante amp. No change. Thoughts?
Hmmm, are you using any extensions or barrel adaptors? All the cables need to be straight console to console. 150ft should not pop or have issues. Give a call to soundtools support and we can assist
I’m switching my stage to a DL32 stage box from a worn out (20+ years old) analog snake. I think my run is about 30 meters and I’m using Cat7 with braided shielding running through protected conduit from M32 to Stage. I’m hoping that will be stable. I had thought about some longer runs through the building for mixing overflows, but I think now I’ll do that with Dante. Data is a vastly different animal to analog. The shielding and twisted pairs have to be maintained entirely from one end to the other. I use copper tape to connect the shielding and make sure the pairs are somewhat maintained in the connector when terminating. All these pieces add to the stability of data cable. AES50 doesn’t seem to have the same level of error correction as most other network transport protocols do.
Mark… cat7 is not the spec from music tribe. Best of luck if you have any issues or warranty problems. 🤷🏻♂️ luckily your distance is not close to the max spec so it’ll probably work.
The only warranty issue for music tribe or at least only issue that seems to possibly cause failure regarding the cable type seems to be regarding the cable being shielded and the shield actually being connected on both ends. The seems to be related to static discharge that can damage the consoles with unshielded cables. That said. The consoles actually seem to work better with longer cable runs of unshielded cable except in environments with static electricity. And also, Cat7 cable is shielded and Cat7 to the best of my knowledge meets and exceeds cat5e specs. I don't understand why using a cable that exceeds the specs would be an issue.
@@DaveRat totally agree. RF can be challenging in my location so more shielding is always better. There’s no possible way that less crosstalk and interference can be a bad thing.
Hi Dave 👋 Cat6a is known to not play nice with AES50 at all. It’s also a reason why not Behringer drop down to 80M max with the new stuff like the WING and do not recommend a cable type, just Shielded RJ45. When I experience AES50 dropout, creating a loop seems to help, connecting a second cable in the B port of both device seams to stabilize the sync. I personally run a Cat5e Shielded Stranded that I made myself with metal RJ45 connectors and it survived fine 2 festival sessions so far.
Scanned about half of the comments, didn't see anybody bring up the question of how is the shield draining? I tried to get an answer on the Behringer forum and stop after a few rounds because nobody understood my question correctly. Made up my own mind based on experience with similar products and got 100feet (not meters) of "ethercon" compatible product that drains the shield at one end ONLY. At 100+ meters, the electrical will most likely be on difference branches and if at a commercial venue (3-phase, 208v) probably between two phases. If you connect the shield to chassy ground on both ends, you will probably induce a ground loop -- hence why I opted for a cable that only drains at one end. Doesn't matter which, just that it only has one path to earth ground.
Hmmm, since Aes50 does not need a shield to operate, and because hum induced by a shield ground loops are not really an issue, and it has been shown that static electricity pulses do alcaiae issues for aes50, I would say the preferred connection is to attach the shield on both sides for maximum protection from interference. From what I have found, the best performance cables for aes50 are unshielded but that leaves you exposed to static electricity issues. That said, under 250 feet, most cat5e or better cables worked well. The eissues arise at lengths over 280 feet
@@DaveRat it would be interesting to test a 100+ meter shielded cat5e/6+ that drains the shielding at one end and test. Tying multiple earth ground points might just be a static noise magnet. Not exactly related but know of industrial install (think it was like Florida) where UK equipment 'demanded' additional ground rods near the equipment... lightning would end up going up one ground rod across ground to main panel ground rod instead of traveling through earth. Kept on popping equipment until they removed the 'additional' (not required) rods installed within feet of the industrial equipment. Static is similar in that you want to provide one path to earth ground.
I tested grounding one end, both ends, no ends, various cable types and lengths. Un shielded larger diameter cables worked beats but was more unstable when exposed to electrostatic charges. I am guessing it is the added capacitance the having the shield creates. And not unlike a mic cable with loads of gain, when wiggles or stepped in, there can be noises. Those noises cause dropouts.
@@DaveRat Thanks for testing and reporting back. So if you are in a "clean" environment, long runs of unshielded works best. Guess if you need a galvanically and electrically isolation, going AES50 (aka SuperMac, 100mbps) over fiber is best (but expensive, see Klark Teknik DN9620). I heard, but never used myself, of HyperMac (1000mbps) over fiber intended to be used between FOH and Stage, with various routing options (Midas PRO3 Series). My "related" experiences when draining on one end was wiring WS2811 (12V) LED "pixels" strips. Had issues with noise and capacitance over shielded 3-conductor cable (+12V, GND, DATA) at 15+ feet. Leaving the shield floating caused the most issues (capacitance), grounding the shielding at both ends caused issues. Draining at the source end was the cleanest -- but mind you this is an unbalanced data line and each WS2811 module re-creates data line -- so have to only protect long runs. AES50 uses balanced pairs. To muddy the waters, GLS Audio Ethercon Compatible RJ45 Cat6 (can remove the "cannon" style barrel easily) has as a marketing bullet "Ground lifted at one end to prevent unwanted noise and hum (required by some electronics which don't support a common ground) " -- which got me thinking about proper static draining. Jury is still out it seems, but according to you @DaveRat and when using shielded cable, as long as there is no ground loop potential (current along shield) static draining at both ends seems to work best if I heard you correct?
My take is that for doing a show, a very high confidence that all is stable is important. Aes50 has proven to be unstable over 80 meters and jumping through various hoops to try and hillbilly a fix, is not an acceptable solution. Especially when severe loud pops and drops are the result. I feel Beringer has mis represented the true specs and the 100m published spec is unwarranted and is the cause of all of this confusion and issues. Had they spec'd it at 80m like they should have and where it operates relaibly, all would be good. My take is that the product should operate at 20% over the spec. So spec'd are 80m should be quite stable at 100 and always stable at 80. Spec'd at 100m means it should operate reasonably well at 120m, which it does not and can't even operate relaibly at 100m. I believe the public should hold the manufacturer accountable for falsely specing the product.
If your 'scope has the bandwidth it would be interesting to see the AES50 signals to see how they degrade after coming down a 100M cable compared to a shorter length. I see in several places the recommendation to ground both ends of the cable. Won't that introduce a ground loop?
We don't really care about a ground loop with digital as much as we care about static discharge. So ground both sides is good. As far as seeing the signal, the scope will show it but it looks similar to music on a scope. Wild fast moving waveforms that offer little info our eyes can process.
Do: buy a DN9610 Don't: go over 80m I use dätwyler 5502 cable, with my pro series gear. Tested it from 100m down. It starts working at 85m. Over 85 it will pop. Over 90m its dead. Then one day I bought the cheapest cat5e on amazon and it works on 100m. Just the outer jacket sucks. I prefer to use a Klark Teknik DN 9610 repeater on cables over 80m. For long cable runs there are also aes50 fiber converters (DN9620 and 9680) for converting 2 or 8 aes50 ports to fiber and back. Also few years ago I had a gig with a M32 and 120m Cat6A. I was sure it wont work, but suprisingly it did!
Oh and I also tried it on analog multicore. I used ethercon to 4x XLR adapters (just like your cat boxes). 1m cat + 4ch 50m analog multicore +1m cat. Works fine.
@@DaveRat for the level of shows you do, redundancy is a must. So M/X32 is not an option... Anyways I just had to try the analog multicore option but I never used it for a show.
Hey, Dave! Thanks for publishing. I’m curious if you’re looking to do some similar comparisons with the DiGiCo MADI TP cabling. It’s an interesting progression I’ve seen over the years, and is really impactful on SD9 and 11 users/owners. I’ve seen them offer very different looking/feeling spec cabling over the years. The cable construct and price has also significantly increased in order to offer more stability. I think the larger take away here is that the MADI p2p protocol was never designed or intended to be used with twisted pair cabling. I’m a 9 owner/user, and due to my experience, I’ve switched to only using an SD Rack with MADI POD, and making the TP - BNC MADI conversion at the desk with their LRB devices…seems far more stable than running any variety of long category type cabling, and just using a more cost effective 100m MADI snake….Optocore would be the fully proper way to set and forget it, but that’s a lot of extra cash for an individual who’s main use is simple console to stagebox operation.
Maybe see Soundcraft MADI overTP they have a published pin out they use a pair to pass the clock maybe that's why it can't run too long because pair-pair skew delay is allowed 50ns@100m in TIA-568
Sooo yikes! We just committed to an x32 and 32 channel stagebox set up with a 100 meter ethercon run from stage to front of house. This would be an install, so not much moving or touch the cables after it is run. Will do still get some of those inconsistencies you mention here?
I just don't know. It does seem to work with some cat5e cables in most environments. But many or mist cables that meet cat5e specs don't work and the ones that do work seem to be very close in length to not working.
I would recommend using a solid core core cable for installation as the performance is generally better. The touring (stranded) cables are designed for superior handling and robustness, these are important in touring sound but much less so in installs. But absolutely make certain there are no joins of any kind in your cable, ethercon direct into your desk and stagebox. With a good quality, properly terminated installation cable I think you should be OK at 100m. If there's any spare, chop the excess off and re-terminate it to length, don't leave the excess "just in case".
Dave, I really appreciate your videos. Generally ethernet cable shouldn't go over 100 meters when connecting computer and network devices. I know you said not to use any connectors or couplers, but I was wondering if you have used a network switch or a repeater to boost the signal. I might be over-simplifying the solution, but I wonder if anyone has tried it.
I'm a bit confused why everyone is shocked there is so much trouble at 100m and longer. The standard max length spec for cat5e cable (which Behringer recommends) has always been 328 ft/100m. So if you're running cable to ITS max spec I feel you're just asking for trouble at the physical layer.
@@anthonyanzalone not pushing the boundaries. It's called operating within specs :). Different thing. If people advertise 100m it should work at that spec of course. In structural engineering you usually use a factor of 3. So a bridge that should hold 100 tones is actually capable of holding 300 tones. Safety margin. This product should have as well. Dante works reliably at 100m for instance.
I would have to say that if a product is rated to operate at 100m of cat5e, it should operate and be stable with all cables that meet cat5e spec. I believe that based on what I am seeing, the x32 m32 should be spec'ed at 80 meters cat5e, where it consistantly operates well. Then if people are able to find certain cables that allow 100m, all good. To make a product that barely and inconsistently operates when a user follows the specs, is no ideal. What if it was rated at 120v ac wall voltage but stopped working sometimes at 120v? And only operated reliably at 100 volts? Being able to exceed the spec by 20% is reasonable. If they spec at 100 meters, it should work well at 120 meters, most of the time.
It’s bespoken and proved, that you have to take a cat5e shielded cable. I used a professional 100m cat7 out of my stock, brand new and it produced crackles. I use now a 75m cat 5e cables as required by Midas with an cat5e extension from the drum to the board and it works without any issues. I even used a Thomann pro snake cat5e cable someday and it worked without any problems. Longer than 75m I didn’t got some experience.
Does AES50 work with fibre converter boxes? (I honestly have no idea, I just use Dante.) If so, that might be an interesting test to see if you can run it stably with short copper patch cables into the converters on each end.
I don't know but I am sure someone here does. There are many ways to solve and impriove, basically I am just clarifying the capabilities of the built in aes50.
@@fooschnickens AES50 is listed as being built on "layer 1 Ethernet" so you can't use a switch, but i wonder if generic fiber media converters would work.
@@tristangates2797 Correct, which is why specialized repeaters and, in this case, converters exist. Like CatX-based solutions, I imagine nothing else could occupy the same fiber channel when used with the K-T converter. Whether or not a standard converter would work is left to be seen, but I think it wouldn't based on how AES50/Supermac works.
I would love to see waht it is like with a CAT6A cable. Anything to help the situation and make using my Midas M32 and Midas Stage Box more stable would be great. I cheaped out on a 50m Cat5e from a well known online music equipment provider (It was their own brand) and it cuts out all the time. Bought myself a better one (hopefully) from somewhere else. All I can say is that the cheaper one I bought clearly is not good enough for my needs. Love your videos by the way Dave. I have found them very helpful, you're like a guru of sound engineering.
Just a thought. Adding any length XLR cable, tapping the data line at any point, would cause failure due to the cable not being terminated. What is happening as you may have already discovered is that the data signal travels down the unterminated cable to it's end. Just like a wave in a pond. Once the data signal reaches the end it bounces back down the cable and mixes with the original data signal. The destination equipment will receive the original data signal and a ghost data signal slightly delayed by the length of cable. This can confuse the receiving equipment's processor. I bet the data signal would continue to function normally when open ended data cables are properly terminated. Just like the need to terminate long runs of DMX cables.
And also if it was analog the added cable would have no audible impacts. The issue I in trying to demonstrate is the instability and that 3ven a small unterminated antenna is an issue!
Hey Dave, did you happen to run these tests with more devices on the chain? This video has me wondering if a chain will still get 100m between devices, or if it will perform worse? A scenario I’m thinking of might be 100m between desk and stage box and then another 100m from stage box to another stage box… I think the ports are supposed to regen the signal, but still might be an interesting test.
That's why I have two small SD8 stageboxes with the x32, I've had some (sports) shows with long cable runs and the problems described but when running 50 tot 75 m of cable max to a stagebox and connecting it with the next I can reach much further if I have to.
Since the Midas M32 and the X32 has a different spec on max cable length (100M vs 80M), it would be interesting to see how 2- M32 consoles handled cables of different lengths versus 2 - X32s. With this test being an M32 and X32, the assumption would be the lowest common denominator would be the limiting factor. Of course, how did the X32 and M32 ultimately get 2 different specs? Is it that really the M32 AES50 implementation is actually different than all X32's, or was there a design change that newer X32s have and the M32 benefitted from (coming out much later than X32s) as well?... But maybe Behringer, to alleviate confusion, isn't giving the X32s a different 'official' spec between model runs?? In any case, it would be interesting to see if the 2 models/brands really do have differences between them and max cable length, or stability, on AES50.
I think they just changed the spec on the manual to lower than 100m because people were having problems and they couldn't explain why. I can confirm that Midas's own 100m cat5 does not work for this. Also, I have used x32 w/ s32's/s16's, m32r (first gen) w/ s32's/dl32's, and m32 Live (2nd gen) w/dl32's/s32's, and I didn't see any sort of difference. If I tried a "house cable" sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't, and I couldn't pin it down to the behringer/midas or midas/midas or whatever configuration I currently had.
100m is the max length under ideal conditions. 80m was written as it took height for some headroom. Remember that all ethernet cables are not created equal and may not even be up to spec even if it says so. A deviation from the cable specs will have a big impact on the signal quality and performance.
Actually, the longest cable length recommended by MusicTribe for the X32 & M32 is the same; it is 100m. However, for the much newer Wing, they recommend a maximum cable length of 80m. We can almost suspect that they know 100m is too long, but they don't want to go back and shorten it for the older consoles and stage boxes. The max length spec for the DL431 & 451 is also reduced to 80m. The knowledge entry number for their AES50 recommendations is KA-02591. The title is "How long can the Cat5e connection be?" I'm pretty sure you need to be logged into their community in order to be able to search for this.
13:12 Dust on the modular plugs: I have first hand experience with audio dropping out during a show, and it turned out that a Midas M32 lost the connection via AES50 to the stage box (Midas DL 32). Sound disappeared without a plop, and remained off (so maybe not due to a static discharge or someone treading on the cable). The cable was maybe used 6 times earlier, but perhaps 10 months after purchase, so fairly new. Audio returned after the modular connector was taken out of the console, blown at, and the reinserted. It was still on the edge of working, as the audio would temporarily drop out when the modular plug ("RJ-45") was wiggled a bit (without a Neutrik EtherCon shell to hold it fixed in place). So, using EtherCon shells rather than bare modular connectors seems to a to the stability by reducing the contact surfaces to be rubbing against each other, when the cable gets moved around. Cable length was 50 m, directly between M32 and 'DL 32' without any intermediate connectors/joiner boxes.
Hi Dave, I had a thought about you length problem with AES50. If AES50 is running on ethernet and you're have problem with signal degradation at 100m, have you tried putting a cheap ethernet switch close to the middle. Having that switch regenerate the signal may help you get the 100m.
Putting a cheap Ethernet switch in the middle of an audience between stage and mix position would be precarious. Thousands of humans with mud, beer, stomping on something that could ruin the show would be quite undesirable. The snake systems are often subjected to much abuse and the reliability we get from Dante or fiber or analog is well established with out using a repeater for 100m runs
@@DaveRat Thanks Dave. That's a good point. I believe 100m is right at the limit of the FastE spec. Have you seen this issues with other manufacturers? What I mean is, could this be a cheap NIC in an otherwise nice board.
@@brenthandycts131 Hey Brent, I was reading the specs on AES50. The document said that AES50 was riding on an 100base-t network. I believe the IEEE spec for 100base-t has a limit of 100m. This is has to do with collision detection of ethernet frames on a shared medium. I think Dante is an application layer of the OSI model and would run on any network i.e. ethernet or token ring.
We had massive issues with a pro series Midas console and it came down to our 100m Cat 6A core. Many many tests to work this out, not helped by a lot of the shows running the cable path running away from crowds somewhat protecting it. Same core with Dante, zero issues.
@@DaveRat Don't quote me on this, but I've been told the spec for the Pro Series is unshielded. I don't understand why one would be shielded and another would be unshielded within the same protocol. Nevertheless, I have heard this from quite a few sources, some of whom I trust on these kinds of things.
The initial consoles did not specify shielded or on shielded. Then people were having issues with static electricity. So newer consoles have a little sticker that says to use shielded cable. But the length maximum for shielded cable seems to be less than unshielded. None of this has been documented very well by the manufacturer. So, the consoles will work with shielded and unshielded cable but in dry static environments unshield is an issue, and for longer cables shielding is an issue and to solve all of the issues shielded cables 80 m or less seems to be stable
I believe if a data cable has to be split or redirected, the proper termination for the split data line requires a termination however not similar to a DMX data line. I found a topic on using a 3 resistor configuration to terminate the end of a data line but still doesn't address AES50. As you said the best and probably only way to split a consoles signal is by way of using a plug in Dante card or Dante AES50 to Dante box. Klark Teknik KT-AES50 Network Module.
Midas Pro series has its own world of complexity too. They specifically don't want shielded. Can work fine a lot of the time, but when it doesn't work, it really doesn't work. I found in that situation that ground lifting it on one side isn't even enough, you have to do both. Acts like an antenna or something and drops the sync. I had to buy every ethernet cable at every walmart in chicago one night and all those with a ton of couplers worked better than a shielded tour grade cable.
@@brenthandycts131 I don’t think I can reply with a photo here, but I have a screenshot from a Facebook thread where the official Midas account made a statement on this and said for Pro series “It's Cat5e UTP.”
Hey Dave, Thank you for all the wise lessons you have taught over the course of these video's. As an owner of a x32 compact i consider them very helpful. I have been pondering on buying a dante expansion card for more compatibility whenever i am somewhere else, but i was always wondering about the overhead of TCP/IP on the audio signal, as it makes the package a lot bigger than necessary and it needs to be encapsulated, transported and then decapsulated. I would really like to see a test on any audio board and see the latency delta between a signal on a local bus and that same signal on a dante bus. plus maybe an input on dante to the board and then output on dante again. maybe even compare that to the latency in AES50 in the same setup. Again, thank you for the great content and wise lessons.
For short runs, aes50 is stable and has low latency. If you are running a long run, the need for ultra low latency tends to be loss likely Why do we need a latency of leads that 12" when the source is 300 feet away? Do we really care if there is 2bor 3 feet more latency when the source is 200 feet from us and 20 or 30 feet from the stage? So do long runs, the added latency of dante may not be a concern for many applications with longer runs especially when the added stability and muting rather than popping on errors is desirable
@@DaveRat makes sense when saying it like that. I was concerned with timing of tap delays for instance but come to think about it, as they have the same latency as the original signal it makes no difference at all. Thnx for another lesson.
ive always run power bundled with the aes50 so there is no gnd potential between the devices, but my cable legnths have been too short and my shows too few to say if it even has made any difference at all :/
We can hardly blame the wire makers, who offer - at a price - a variety of very highly specced products that work to perfection in data applications. It is our need for extremely low latency that puts these interfaces at risk. I’m curious, have you tried using repeaters? This is reminiscent of coax, where the interconn itself is a major weak spot. I’ve seen MADI struggle with 100m but only when routing through a patch panel adding virtually no length, like it’s on the hairy edge. When I put an active buffer right at the truck panel’s input connector, all is well.
Adding a repeater to the middle of the snake that runs through the audience area and requires power out there is creating complexities that would make things much worse
@@DaveRat A company named Patton is devoting themselves heavily to solving the complexity issue. Their repeaters use PoE so require no AC cabling. There are enough conductors in the Enet cable to make this possible. As I convert my remote system to Dante, I have considered lithium ion battery powered repeaters. Currently looking for power consumption figures for available repeaters. Dante is worth the extra effort, a solid and reliable platform. Audinate has repeatedly improved the fundamental process as well as the actual hardware SOC, such that the current iteration - Brooklyn - is much more capable than its predecessors.
Ideally one would not need to put a repeater midway down the snake stuffed into a cable trough. Oh the thought of losing the PA mid show and trying trouble shoot a beer drenched repeater with while trying to clear a dozen kids out of the way. Fun! Or, use a cable and digital transport system that reliably sends the signal well over the desired distance.
Any sort of inline connector is a *terrible* idea for network cabling as it causes impedance mismatches which cause signal reflections and everything goes bad really quickly. It's very important that they be single unbroken runs of good quality CAT cable. It's much less about the length of the cable than it is avoiding having any joins; this is why you say stuff like "100ft worked but then I added a 6ft extension and it stopped working" it's not because it was only just working at 100ft, it's because the inline connectors screw up the transmission line properties.
And all of that is easily measured and tested. A great cable with several couplers can outperform a crappy cable with no couplers. The only real way to know is to test it. I am currently designing and testing a cable for AES 50 that is stable and dependable at 100 m with a 30 m extension. In my opinion, you should be able to take any cable and put a 10% to 20% extension on it and have it still work perfectly. If you can do that, then you know that when you remove the extension it will be very stable and dependable for your application
I experienced issues with dirt: cleaned with a brush and isopropyl alcohol and all well again. 50m S/FTP CAT7 Belden PUR cable, with top of the line neutrik's ethercon.
Uc3, cat5e cable is what is spec’d by the manufacturer. Cat7 has tighter twists and increases the actual distance. Aes50 is not regular ethernet traffic and therefore “one or two” grades of cable “better” is not in this case
I am seeing better result and more stability with longer runs when using the Cat7 cable I have been teating, vs similar diameter Cat5E cables. I am getting the best results with Cat6a
@@DaveRat I believe that with Allen & Heath DLive having all the processing in the rack would mean that no audio signals would be traveling through the CAT cable to the mixing surface. Will try to find one and unplug CAT cable from the surface while playing music through the system and see what it does. Looking at the DLive, would be great to know before buying.
Cool, yes, one of the most important aspects of my videos is that I am doing everything in a way that you and others can fairly easily and relatively inexpensively replicate and test other gear
Any time I've had issues with AES50 it always has come down to bad cable certification, especially with crosstalk failure. I would shoot them with a fluke tester and they would fail cat5e certification. As soon as we fixed cable lengths or fixed cable quality we would get stability back. Not everyone has access to a expensive cable certifier though.
Yes and that is what we do for the gear we supply. But when artists bring their own consoles and want to tie into the cat5e cables on our snake is when we have issues
Overall, I think that one must decide whether to take on the challenges adapting and using a semi pro console for larger scale applications or whether to scale up to pro gear.
As mentioned already - Music Group specifically specs Cat5e and NO other cat cable. The impedance of the cable and the twist ratios mentioned are important for aes50 but not so relevant for normal networking use. I would not recommend anything besides high quality cat5e for that reason. The ‘benefits’ of cat6 apply to networking use but do NOT apply for aes50 which is a signal that happens to use cat cable.
Interesting. My testing shows the Cat6a is quite superior for carrying aes50 over longer distances than cat5e. I am developing a Cat6a cable for the SoundTools product line and one of the tests I am doing is making sure that it carries AES50 for longer distances than cat5e. Not sure why music group would fail to recommend a cable that is superior at carrying aes50 over longer distances but many factors go into making recommendation decisions and some factors may be based on other aspects beyond what is optimum for the end user
@@DaveRat Interesting! I know there have been issues with Cat 6 etc which have caused them to recommend the original spec cate. I wonder if the physical properties of Cat6a match closely enough to the needs of the cable but with advantages in addition? Will be interested to see what you find out!
Cat 6a is a different beast from cat6. Cat6a is a large diameter and tightly spec'ed cable that performs exceptionally well and exceeds the Cat7 in performance for the cables I tested. It's all about the"a"
I had a load of Cat6A so decided to invest in the connectors thinking it would be better spec. How wrong I was, It would be amazing if @midas could update firmware to be compatible with higher spec cable. I enjoy on your vids Dave but this one sent me down an incorrect path. Will have to upgrade by console to PRO series so I can use the cable I have made 😂Thanks, Sam.
Hmmm, my take is that Midas Aes50 should not be used with cables over 80 meters. Cat6 won't save ya. The soundtools supercat sound cat5e works well. The cable that works best for distances is unshielded belden cat5e but it also works poorly for static issues. Best is to get a Dante card
@@DaveRat Ok, so managed to get a sync happening via using dl16 stage box as master, whenever I try to set M32 as master, I have issues. So CAT6A does work with high quality Neutrik connectors. Thanks for all you do, Sam.
wow! this technique leaves a lot to be desired, that's for sure. Fortunately I never have to deal with such cable lengths, I mainly have smaller gigs. For me it would mean that I would never dare to work with such lengths; the risk is too great, in my opinion. I don't want the technique to be 100% in order, but 150%! The frustration of technology that lets you down is too great, it inhibits the creative process... Thank you for bringing this to the attention again! On another note; thanks to the inspiration that your videos gave me, I also started testing my own stuff 'extremely' and that's why I encountered two weak links in my system! So thanks for that!
I have over 200 shows at 200' (60m) on an M32 connected directly to the stage box without any couplers, and the system has been rock solid using a ProCo shielded Cat5e cable that is very easy to coil. I see Dave's comment that 80 meters should be the max and ProCo sells a 240' cable, so maybe they know something too!
@@isaiahalexander6021 The M32, DL32 & cable were all purchased from Sweetwater at the same time about 4 years ago. Sweetwater sells a Pro Co shielded Cat5e Ethercon cable in several lengths currently that I assume would be the same or similar to what we were using. I do not have that system anymore, so I cannot tell you the exact part number for the cable.
I run a 300 ft cable (91 m) every weekend for at least 4 years with zero problems. Is the recommended Pro Co shielded cable. I don’t know the specs but It works every single time.
Yes, and also there are many variables beyond function in a specific geographic region and setup. Hot dry and high static environments seem to be less stable. That said, the instability seems to occur at 100 meters, I measured an 80 meter cat5e all good and added 10 meters plus a barrel connector and it went unstable. I think if this discussion was about rigging steel and stuff hanging over people's heads where these 10% differences between function and fail would be much clearer to understand. Though we are talking about catastrophic show sound failure which is not a minor issue
Klark teknic production has been slow for years, The DN9610 was designed during the midas XL8/Pro series days, it's barely a relevant product anymore due to the Pro series/Heritage HD switching across to fibre for lengths above 100m
Careful recommending cable beyond Cat-5e. One issue with AES-50 is the interpair slew, which is allowed to be bigger with the newer cables to allow different twist patterns for better performance. That does not cause a problem with EIA-568 networking, but it can misalign things enough in AES-50 to really become a problem.
Interesting. With the supercat sound cable, when working on the design, I went with the same twist rate on all pairs as the crosstalks was so much lower with individually shielded pairs than with the overall shield.
@@DaveRat It's not just the twist in the pairs that's at play here - it's how the pairs are twisted around each other. Do you have test gear which can measure skew? (Note I said slew above, skew is what I meant; "Propagation Delay Skew" or "Time Delay Skew"). The video guys bump into this sometimes, too, when pushing HDMI over distance. Going by memory - and please don't trust my memory - Cat-6 allows 50ns skew at 100m (and typical measured is 25ns) but Cat-5e typically has no skew at all. 100-base-T doesn't care at all about skew, because pairs aren't used together, but AES-50 is a whole 'nother ball of wax. Note that the cable industry *purposefully* introduces skew because it helps with FeXT. I wish I knew what the allowable skew was for AES-50. Another thing that has me scratching by head is - what happens with consoles/boxes with ground offsets - there will be a higher potential difference with long cables using higher resistance shield material. Not sure why that would matter, but these consoles seem to be really picky about having an identical ground reference. I would love to find a problematic 100m stagebox install and a 100m power cord from the console to the stage box...and see if that fixes it...
Yes, we have a fluke cable tester that measures cat and fiber. As far as the ground issue in my tests, the consoles are right next to each other and grounded to the same power on short cords and there are issues. Perhaps there are more issues possible with remotely located consoles but even plugged into the same ground, the issues exceed what I believe is acceptable for a 100m spec
At that length you fine sound folk become telephone folk. xD Transmission .... transition ... Transition Transmission Oh my t v see one five, oh oh, t v see one five Oh my t v see one five, oh oh, t v see one five Oh my t v see one five, oh oh, t v see one five Oh my t v see one five, oh oh, t v see one five (Merry Christmas Dave!!) p.s. Flea in the new Sparks documentary is 😆
I did an event once where the provider used a 400' run of Ethercon for an M32 to a stage box..... I asked if he was sure about that choice, and was assured he tested it and that it worked. It did for a large portion of the event until it didn't. Once it went awol, it was not usable and would drop out every few minutes. The scramble was done to re-patch with copper and things were business as usual. I own 2 cables of my own, the longest one being 250', both with grounded barrels. I have never once had an issue with either one. Interestingly I use my longest one most often and it is a Cat6 cable.
I tested multiple cables and 250 is generally stable and safe. Fro Rat Sound we use the SoundTools supercat for and supercat sound cables. The supercat sound works at 100 meters but adding a 15 meter extension makes it unstable, adding a 10 meter extension works. For the level of shows we do, that is cutting it close as I like to see it still stable with a 20 meter extension. That said, the coupler does degrade the signal and I have not tested 120 meters continuos supercat sound, which would be the stability goal.
Cat6a that I have tested does perform better and tends to give longer lengths. That said, Cat6a tends to be very thick, rigid and tougher to wind. This is why I am working on designing an Cat6a grade cable that winds well and is optimized for portable live events
I was mixing a high profile regional band at a local college and it was an M32 with a DL251 for the stagebox. We had so many issues with static and signal dropping out. 2 days later the production company owner chewed me out for the stagebox cutting out. After that I lost all faith in Midas products because I had so many bad experiences with them. If you think AES50 on an X32 or M32 is bad, check out a Pro Series. It is far worse. you can only run 24 channel bidirectional at 96k and from what I observed happening, its far more unstable then the 48k of the X32. I just observed all these problems with no way of testing it. Here is another interesting thing. I had a house gig on an M32 at a church. They had Cat6STP running. The M32 was plugged into a wall jack, that wall jack went to the ceiling behind the sound booth where there were several unlabeled Ethercon barrels. The wall jack was plugged into one of the barrels. That new line in the ceiling went into the power amp room where the stage box was. So there were a total of 5 connection points (maybe more) to get the console plugged into the stagebox. That console had so much distortion and horrible sound simply because of all those connection points when it is supposed to be console plugged directly into a stagebox.
I would guess you might get better results with an active repeater (which I understand to be essentially just an op-amp) rather than a simple joiner, but you still need a reasonably strong signal to reach the repeater. But 100m (328 feet) is a pretty long distance, that's nearly a full NFL field, even at stadium concerts the sound board is typically not much more than half way down the field. I would wager that for the vast majority of concert venues you will hit critical distance before you reach 100m from stage deck.
It may be a long distance but it is also the standard snake length for large scale concerts and events. So, maybe be long for something's but for a big rock show it's just a normal length and shorter is a problem.
@@Heywoodj1969 you might be surprised the shows where X/M32s are deployed, I won't mention any names to protect the guilty, but I know of more than one internationally recognised act that carry these consoles (whether or not they SHOULD is a different matter).... Also consider that 100m is not the distance that FoH console is from the stage, but the length of the cable run to get there, it is not always acceptable to run ramp down the centre of the auditorium, sometimes containment must be used that is significantly longer than line-of-sight. Signal almost always comes from Stage-Left but cable runs can leave via Stage-Right, add in deck height of 2m+ and on a big stage you can easily loose 30m before your cable has even left the stage end.
Interesting perspectives. As a person that personally mixed Chili Peppers at Live Earth at Wembley Stadium on a 32 channel Venice, I can say I am a fan of using small or inexpensive tools for big jobs if the situation is right. That said, using gear that is on the verge of being unstable in a show-collapsing way is something I would avoid. The M32 and X32 have proven over a decade of being relatively reliable in in most environments though perhaps not ideal for large format shows. Except when used with long approaching and exceeding 100meters of aes50 where they become unreliable. So many variables but whatever tools are used, make sure they are reliable for the configuration.
theres no error correction so any corruption results in drop outs. dont mention cat6 all the "experts" will start quoting that cat6 is not correct spec lol
with all that said.... i will happily cry myself to sleep buying a Yamaha QL/CL over anything that uses AES50... I have a X32/M32 with stage boxes that i refuse to use over 30 m. that too with redundant AES50 runs
Man, your description of the sound that results from something heavy being rolled across an ether snake is pretty accurate. Running eight top boxes and four dual 18” subs indoors was probably pretty close to what a nuke might sound like when it goes off (right before you get turned to dust) and is enough to make your heart stop beating momentarily.
👍👍👍
I know most of you will probably tell me that I’m playing with fire and I would normally agree. However with using this setup for a few years without fail, it may be worth a shot and extend the experiment to a few more folks by giving this a try with their own setup. I’ve owned Roland M Series consoles for a while and have and used 100m REAC cable without issues with these consoles for years. Over the past few years I’ve purchased a few X32s to have in my rentals and have been using them on a regular basis. The Older Roland consoles required a Cat5e Crossover cable with ethercon connectors and no shield on either RJ45 connector . By surprise I was testing Cat cables and this REAC cable has worked flawlessly. I know it shouldn’t and not to trust it. But it has been rock solid no dropouts, no weird noises and I’ve had this cable fully extended to the full 100m on a number of occasions. This cable is breaking all the rules….over 80m, no shielding and a crossover cable. What gives? Has anyone tried making a crossover cable?
Many unshielded cat5e cables work fine with AES50 up to 100 meters. As I mention in the video, the issue is that unshielded cable is susceptible to electrostatic discharge. So when you're doing a show on carpet or in a dry environment those little shocks you get can fry the AES50 circuit and destroy the connection permanently.
Because of this, Behringer/ Midas has now put "use shielded cat 5 cable only" notices and stickers on the consoles.
For most or many applications using on shielded cable is fine until it's not and when it's not it's a complete shutdown from a single spark.
And then the big issue comes in that as soon as you switch to shielded cable it no longer works at 100 m. Or at least that's the case for most shielded cat5e cables
All good using unshielded especially if you're not in an environment that gets lots of static electricity.
And also there are people I believe that want to use a shielded cable and be safe from losing their show to a spark and also need 100 m or more in length
And that is what I'm working on with this cable
Thanks for the quick reply Dave. I know I’m living precariously with this setup. Hence I too have been trying some other options. I have a 200ft Cat6a in transit and will test that as well. I still don’t understand with all that is happening that this cable is able to work even with a crossover designation. Has anyone played around with the Ultranet feature and what format of Cat can be used for that port? Cheers and thanks for all of your time a dedication to this subject. It is appreciated on this end.
@@ARTAudioCan
For ultranet setup there are allegedly issues for more than 6 items in the signal chain, as I’ve been reading in forums. I didn’t noticed it. I’ve been running six monitors, six subs and two tops in one chain flawlessly. I’ve been using Thomann pro snake cat5e cables and even had to dismantle the neutrik plug to plug them into the Turbosound subs and tops. Silly, but a different topic. Anyway, it worked and it still does.
Dave, you might not frequent the facebook forums on these consoles, but it is a pretty well known fact amongst users that the x32 aes50 “real world” cable length spec is about 150-200’ (depending on cable quality). It also HAS to be cat5e, shielded and bonded ethercon shells. Obviously the bonding between ethercon shells falls apart when adding connections in-between… fwiw, I am using your purple cat 5e cable for my aes50 snake connections…. At 150’ ;)
I’m the admin for an x32 group on facebook and a member of the midas m32 groups… I get to read it all…
Fair enough, my perspective it to test and verify real world aspect and look the manufacturers specs.
Many people offer many opinions with little or no testing or credibility.
I did the cable length tests to try and come up with a plan for dealing with the issue.
I have designed and manufacture 2 Cat5e cable designs already and am working on a new CAT cable design.
Based on these tests I have decided not to design around AES50 for the upcoming SoundTools CAT7 cable and maybe mid to late 2022 I hope to have a SoundTools Cat6a cable design that carries AES50 a stable 100 meters with at least a 20% length buffer.
So it will still be functional up to 120 meters.
And after these test, I have
Cat6 shielded should be your minimum cable used.
Yeah, it really depends. If you are bundling a bunch of Cat cables into a 100 meter snake and only need cat5e grade for most, switching the whole bundle to Cat6 will make that cable bundle a lot bigger, heavier and less flexible while adding cost as well.
Get the right tools for the job, add some buffer or a bit of redundancy and avoid inadequate tools and also avoid blind overkill.
Great video and thank you for the run down. After some varied success over the years with house cables, the touring solution for me is running my own 2x Pro Co 100m Cat5e from FOH at the same time, one to DL32, one to X32c running IEMs. Then a 1ft cable connecting x32c to the DL32. X32c is the master, M32 is getting sync there. My thinking is if there is static build up, it will dissipate throughout the system without loosing sync, Definitely a fragile system.
Interesting and thank you Dave
As a touring engineer that uses the m32 format, the only confidence I have in my rig is that all AES50 signal lives on stage between a couple of m32c and a DL32 stagebox. Max cable run is about a foot haha. I use whatever garbage ethercon is provided for the day as control only over ethernet to an xtouch at FOH.
Aes50 is wonderful and low latency for shorter length runs
You can hardwire a laptop and an Ipad to an ethernet switch at FOH along with the X-Touch.
I have done this a lot, minus the hardwired Ipad. It's a powerful way of doing things.
Yep I do this currently and have a Waves server on deck controlled by superrack at FOH. I’ve even gone so far as to use 4 pins of the cat5 just for ethernet and the other 4 for two channels of aes. DL32 aes out to a venu360 at FOH for my outputs.
I wound up console side stage with x touch/tablet combo at foh exclusively after running in to these issues.
👍
Talking about barrel connectors:
Don't use these Neutrik NE8FF for Data. (If you open it you'll understand why ;-)
Use Neutrik NE8FFX6-W instead. These are rated Cat6A.
Great advice and totally agree
I came to the exact same conclusion as you did after doing 300+ shows from stadiums to clubs and bars with these. I couldn't find a pattern at all with what worked and what didn't. After a couple random drop outs at some festivals, I decided to run my own cable wherever possible. I would use one of your purple supercat 60m cat5e and carried an extra 15m one with a neutrik ethercon coupler when I needed that slight extra bit of length. 95% of the time 60m was plenty, but the times I needed the extra length, I never had an issue with the 60m + 15m. I did try a 75m +15m purple supercat once and I will say that did not work at all.
Perfect!!!
What’s the etherCON coupler your recommend for m32 and x32. Neutrik NE8FF Adapter etherCON CAT5?
The moe expensive one is actually better
Thanks much Dave. How about M/X32 AES50 to Midas PRO stage boxes, such as Midas DL153 or DL251 stage boxes; any testing mixing it up? Also any thoughts from the MIDAS Pro series consoles using on AES50?
I will ponder testing and remiss to make assumptions other than the sound and function of the d to a and a to d converters should follow the stagebox
Hey Dave! Thank you for these amazing videos! As we have started to play bigger shows with my primary band, I meet a lot of more than 70m long cat5s. Is DN9610 solution for us? Or are we just screwed with 100m long cable? Thank you for reply.
80 meters seems the consistent reliable max. I have not tested the DN9610 but going to Dante, AVB and/or fiber will solve the issue
Running M32, 2 Midas DL16 stageboxes and dante to amp. Out of the blue getting pops and dropouts. We are running your 150' purple aes50 cables. Re-ran new ethernet to dante amp. No change. Thoughts?
Hmmm, are you using any extensions or barrel adaptors? All the cables need to be straight console to console. 150ft should not pop or have issues. Give a call to soundtools support and we can assist
I’m switching my stage to a DL32 stage box from a worn out (20+ years old) analog snake. I think my run is about 30 meters and I’m using Cat7 with braided shielding running through protected conduit from M32 to Stage. I’m hoping that will be stable. I had thought about some longer runs through the building for mixing overflows, but I think now I’ll do that with Dante.
Data is a vastly different animal to analog. The shielding and twisted pairs have to be maintained entirely from one end to the other. I use copper tape to connect the shielding and make sure the pairs are somewhat maintained in the connector when terminating. All these pieces add to the stability of data cable. AES50 doesn’t seem to have the same level of error correction as most other network transport protocols do.
I think aes50 has the same error correction protocol as analog, meaning - none
Mark… cat7 is not the spec from music tribe. Best of luck if you have any issues or warranty problems. 🤷🏻♂️ luckily your distance is not close to the max spec so it’ll probably work.
The only warranty issue for music tribe or at least only issue that seems to possibly cause failure regarding the cable type seems to be regarding the cable being shielded and the shield actually being connected on both ends.
The seems to be related to static discharge that can damage the consoles with unshielded cables.
That said. The consoles actually seem to work better with longer cable runs of unshielded cable except in environments with static electricity. And also, Cat7 cable is shielded and Cat7 to the best of my knowledge meets and exceeds cat5e specs.
I don't understand why using a cable that exceeds the specs would be an issue.
@@DaveRat totally agree. RF can be challenging in my location so more shielding is always better. There’s no possible way that less crosstalk and interference can be a bad thing.
And beyond rf, aes50 has static electricity susceptibility issues that the shield helps with
Hi Dave 👋
Cat6a is known to not play nice with AES50 at all. It’s also a reason why not Behringer drop down to 80M max with the new stuff like the WING and do not recommend a cable type, just Shielded RJ45.
When I experience AES50 dropout, creating a loop seems to help, connecting a second cable in the B port of both device seams to stabilize the sync.
I personally run a Cat5e Shielded Stranded that I made myself with metal RJ45 connectors and it survived fine 2 festival sessions so far.
👍👍👍
Scanned about half of the comments, didn't see anybody bring up the question of how is the shield draining? I tried to get an answer on the Behringer forum and stop after a few rounds because nobody understood my question correctly. Made up my own mind based on experience with similar products and got 100feet (not meters) of "ethercon" compatible product that drains the shield at one end ONLY. At 100+ meters, the electrical will most likely be on difference branches and if at a commercial venue (3-phase, 208v) probably between two phases. If you connect the shield to chassy ground on both ends, you will probably induce a ground loop -- hence why I opted for a cable that only drains at one end. Doesn't matter which, just that it only has one path to earth ground.
Hmmm, since Aes50 does not need a shield to operate, and because hum induced by a shield ground loops are not really an issue, and it has been shown that static electricity pulses do alcaiae issues for aes50, I would say the preferred connection is to attach the shield on both sides for maximum protection from interference.
From what I have found, the best performance cables for aes50 are unshielded but that leaves you exposed to static electricity issues.
That said, under 250 feet, most cat5e or better cables worked well. The eissues arise at lengths over 280 feet
@@DaveRat it would be interesting to test a 100+ meter shielded cat5e/6+ that drains the shielding at one end and test. Tying multiple earth ground points might just be a static noise magnet. Not exactly related but know of industrial install (think it was like Florida) where UK equipment 'demanded' additional ground rods near the equipment... lightning would end up going up one ground rod across ground to main panel ground rod instead of traveling through earth. Kept on popping equipment until they removed the 'additional' (not required) rods installed within feet of the industrial equipment. Static is similar in that you want to provide one path to earth ground.
I tested grounding one end, both ends, no ends, various cable types and lengths. Un shielded larger diameter cables worked beats but was more unstable when exposed to electrostatic charges.
I am guessing it is the added capacitance the having the shield creates. And not unlike a mic cable with loads of gain, when wiggles or stepped in, there can be noises. Those noises cause dropouts.
@@DaveRat Thanks for testing and reporting back. So if you are in a "clean" environment, long runs of unshielded works best. Guess if you need a galvanically and electrically isolation, going AES50 (aka SuperMac, 100mbps) over fiber is best (but expensive, see Klark Teknik DN9620). I heard, but never used myself, of HyperMac (1000mbps) over fiber intended to be used between FOH and Stage, with various routing options (Midas PRO3 Series).
My "related" experiences when draining on one end was wiring WS2811 (12V) LED "pixels" strips. Had issues with noise and capacitance over shielded 3-conductor cable (+12V, GND, DATA) at 15+ feet. Leaving the shield floating caused the most issues (capacitance), grounding the shielding at both ends caused issues. Draining at the source end was the cleanest -- but mind you this is an unbalanced data line and each WS2811 module re-creates data line -- so have to only protect long runs. AES50 uses balanced pairs.
To muddy the waters, GLS Audio Ethercon Compatible RJ45 Cat6 (can remove the "cannon" style barrel easily) has as a marketing bullet "Ground lifted at one end to prevent unwanted noise and hum (required by some electronics which don't support a common ground) " -- which got me thinking about proper static draining.
Jury is still out it seems, but according to you @DaveRat and when using shielded cable, as long as there is no ground loop potential (current along shield) static draining at both ends seems to work best if I heard you correct?
My take is that for doing a show, a very high confidence that all is stable is important. Aes50 has proven to be unstable over 80 meters and jumping through various hoops to try and hillbilly a fix, is not an acceptable solution.
Especially when severe loud pops and drops are the result.
I feel Beringer has mis represented the true specs and the 100m published spec is unwarranted and is the cause of all of this confusion and issues.
Had they spec'd it at 80m like they should have and where it operates relaibly, all would be good.
My take is that the product should operate at 20% over the spec. So spec'd are 80m should be quite stable at 100 and always stable at 80. Spec'd at 100m means it should operate reasonably well at 120m, which it does not and can't even operate relaibly at 100m.
I believe the public should hold the manufacturer accountable for falsely specing the product.
If your 'scope has the bandwidth it would be interesting to see the AES50 signals to see how they degrade after coming down a 100M cable compared to a shorter length.
I see in several places the recommendation to ground both ends of the cable. Won't that introduce a ground loop?
We don't really care about a ground loop with digital as much as we care about static discharge. So ground both sides is good.
As far as seeing the signal, the scope will show it but it looks similar to music on a scope. Wild fast moving waveforms that offer little info our eyes can process.
Do: buy a DN9610
Don't: go over 80m
I use dätwyler 5502 cable, with my pro series gear. Tested it from 100m down. It starts working at 85m. Over 85 it will pop. Over 90m its dead. Then one day I bought the cheapest cat5e on amazon and it works on 100m. Just the outer jacket sucks.
I prefer to use a Klark Teknik DN 9610 repeater on cables over 80m.
For long cable runs there are also aes50 fiber converters (DN9620 and 9680) for converting 2 or 8 aes50 ports to fiber and back.
Also few years ago I had a gig with a M32 and 120m Cat6A. I was sure it wont work, but suprisingly it did!
Oh and I also tried it on analog multicore. I used ethercon to 4x XLR adapters (just like your cat boxes). 1m cat + 4ch 50m analog multicore +1m cat. Works fine.
Very cool and interesting. Though also a bit scary and not comforting or inspiring to trust for the show levels we do.
@@DaveRat for the level of shows you do, redundancy is a must. So M/X32 is not an option... Anyways I just had to try the analog multicore option but I never used it for a show.
I love the multi core analog cable convert option. Very cool
Hey, Dave! Thanks for publishing. I’m curious if you’re looking to do some similar comparisons with the DiGiCo MADI TP cabling. It’s an interesting progression I’ve seen over the years, and is really impactful on SD9 and 11 users/owners. I’ve seen them offer very different looking/feeling spec cabling over the years. The cable construct and price has also significantly increased in order to offer more stability. I think the larger take away here is that the MADI p2p protocol was never designed or intended to be used with twisted pair cabling. I’m a 9 owner/user, and due to my experience, I’ve switched to only using an SD Rack with MADI POD, and making the TP - BNC MADI conversion at the desk with their LRB devices…seems far more stable than running any variety of long category type cabling, and just using a more cost effective 100m MADI snake….Optocore would be the fully proper way to set and forget it, but that’s a lot of extra cash for an individual who’s main use is simple console to stagebox operation.
I will ponder that.
Maybe see Soundcraft MADI overTP they have a published pin out they use a pair to pass the clock maybe that's why it can't run too long because pair-pair skew delay is allowed 50ns@100m in TIA-568
Sooo yikes! We just committed to an x32 and 32 channel stagebox set up with a 100 meter ethercon run from stage to front of house. This would be an install, so not much moving or touch the cables after it is run. Will do still get some of those inconsistencies you mention here?
I just don't know. It does seem to work with some cat5e cables in most environments.
But many or mist cables that meet cat5e specs don't work and the ones that do work seem to be very close in length to not working.
I would recommend using a solid core core cable for installation as the performance is generally better. The touring (stranded) cables are designed for superior handling and robustness, these are important in touring sound but much less so in installs. But absolutely make certain there are no joins of any kind in your cable, ethercon direct into your desk and stagebox. With a good quality, properly terminated installation cable I think you should be OK at 100m. If there's any spare, chop the excess off and re-terminate it to length, don't leave the excess "just in case".
Yes, solid and minimal length for installs is wise.
For touring it's not as wise
Dave, I really appreciate your videos. Generally ethernet cable shouldn't go over 100 meters when connecting computer and network devices. I know you said not to use any connectors or couplers, but I was wondering if you have used a network switch or a repeater to boost the signal. I might be over-simplifying the solution, but I wonder if anyone has tried it.
We have used switches to repeat and longer runs, max length really depends on the format and data bandwidth
I'm a bit confused why everyone is shocked there is so much trouble at 100m and longer. The standard max length spec for cat5e cable (which Behringer recommends) has always been 328 ft/100m. So if you're running cable to ITS max spec I feel you're just asking for trouble at the physical layer.
Then let me clear that up for you :). The product should be stable at the max recommended length. Otherwise it's a useless measure.
@@NikolajChristensen If you're pushing the boundary of a physical cable spec and you're expecting 100% uptime good luck.
@@anthonyanzalone not pushing the boundaries. It's called operating within specs :). Different thing. If people advertise 100m it should work at that spec of course. In structural engineering you usually use a factor of 3. So a bridge that should hold 100 tones is actually capable of holding 300 tones. Safety margin. This product should have as well. Dante works reliably at 100m for instance.
I would have to say that if a product is rated to operate at 100m of cat5e, it should operate and be stable with all cables that meet cat5e spec.
I believe that based on what I am seeing, the x32 m32 should be spec'ed at 80 meters cat5e, where it consistantly operates well.
Then if people are able to find certain cables that allow 100m, all good.
To make a product that barely and inconsistently operates when a user follows the specs, is no ideal.
What if it was rated at 120v ac wall voltage but stopped working sometimes at 120v?
And only operated reliably at 100 volts?
Being able to exceed the spec by 20% is reasonable.
If they spec at 100 meters, it should work well at 120 meters, most of the time.
@@DaveRat exactly.
It’s bespoken and proved, that you have to take a cat5e shielded cable. I used a professional 100m cat7 out of my stock, brand new and it produced crackles. I use now a 75m cat 5e cables as required by Midas with an cat5e extension from the drum to the board and it works without any issues. I even used a Thomann pro snake cat5e cable someday and it worked without any problems.
Longer than 75m I didn’t got some experience.
Does AES50 work with fibre converter boxes? (I honestly have no idea, I just use Dante.) If so, that might be an interesting test to see if you can run it stably with short copper patch cables into the converters on each end.
I don't know but I am sure someone here does.
There are many ways to solve and impriove, basically I am just clarifying the capabilities of the built in aes50.
Klark Technic does make a converter set, but it's a bit spendy at about $2k, so probably outside of the budgets of most people utilizing these desks.
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@@fooschnickens AES50 is listed as being built on "layer 1 Ethernet" so you can't use a switch, but i wonder if generic fiber media converters would work.
@@tristangates2797 Correct, which is why specialized repeaters and, in this case, converters exist. Like CatX-based solutions, I imagine nothing else could occupy the same fiber channel when used with the K-T converter. Whether or not a standard converter would work is left to be seen, but I think it wouldn't based on how AES50/Supermac works.
I would love to see waht it is like with a CAT6A cable. Anything to help the situation and make using my Midas M32 and Midas Stage Box more stable would be great. I cheaped out on a 50m Cat5e from a well known online music equipment provider (It was their own brand) and it cuts out all the time. Bought myself a better one (hopefully) from somewhere else. All I can say is that the cheaper one I bought clearly is not good enough for my needs.
Love your videos by the way Dave. I have found them very helpful, you're like a guru of sound engineering.
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Just a thought. Adding any length XLR cable, tapping the data line at any point, would cause failure due to the cable not being terminated. What is happening as you may have already discovered is that the data signal travels down the unterminated cable to it's end. Just like a wave in a pond. Once the data signal reaches the end it bounces back down the cable and mixes with the original data signal. The destination equipment will receive the original data signal and a ghost data signal slightly delayed by the length of cable. This can confuse the receiving equipment's processor. I bet the data signal would continue to function normally when open ended data cables are properly terminated. Just like the need to terminate long runs of DMX cables.
And also if it was analog the added cable would have no audible impacts. The issue I in trying to demonstrate is the instability and that 3ven a small unterminated antenna is an issue!
Kellemes Karácsonyt ... :) Sub speaker gazdag új évet..
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Hey Dave, did you happen to run these tests with more devices on the chain? This video has me wondering if a chain will still get 100m between devices, or if it will perform worse? A scenario I’m thinking of might be 100m between desk and stage box and then another 100m from stage box to another stage box… I think the ports are supposed to regen the signal, but still might be an interesting test.
Yes, each hop we regen the signal and start fresh
That's why I have two small SD8 stageboxes with the x32, I've had some (sports) shows with long cable runs and the problems described but when running 50 tot 75 m of cable max to a stagebox and connecting it with the next I can reach much further if I have to.
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Since the Midas M32 and the X32 has a different spec on max cable length (100M vs 80M), it would be interesting to see how 2- M32 consoles handled cables of different lengths versus 2 - X32s.
With this test being an M32 and X32, the assumption would be the lowest common denominator would be the limiting factor.
Of course, how did the X32 and M32 ultimately get 2 different specs? Is it that really the M32 AES50 implementation is actually different than all X32's, or was there a design change that newer X32s have and the M32 benefitted from (coming out much later than X32s) as well?... But maybe Behringer, to alleviate confusion, isn't giving the X32s a different 'official' spec between model runs??
In any case, it would be interesting to see if the 2 models/brands really do have differences between them and max cable length, or stability, on AES50.
I think they just changed the spec on the manual to lower than 100m because people were having problems and they couldn't explain why. I can confirm that Midas's own 100m cat5 does not work for this. Also, I have used x32 w/ s32's/s16's, m32r (first gen) w/ s32's/dl32's, and m32 Live (2nd gen) w/dl32's/s32's, and I didn't see any sort of difference. If I tried a "house cable" sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't, and I couldn't pin it down to the behringer/midas or midas/midas or whatever configuration I currently had.
100m is the max length under ideal conditions. 80m was written as it took height for some headroom.
Remember that all ethernet cables are not created equal and may not even be up to spec even if it says so. A deviation from the cable specs will have a big impact on the signal quality and performance.
80 meters is a reasonable spec, given the actual function.
@@iamjohnnytrox BTW, there are at least four generations of X32. Not sure about M32, at least two that I know of.
Actually, the longest cable length recommended by MusicTribe for the X32 & M32 is the same; it is 100m. However, for the much newer Wing, they recommend a maximum cable length of 80m. We can almost suspect that they know 100m is too long, but they don't want to go back and shorten it for the older consoles and stage boxes. The max length spec for the DL431 & 451 is also reduced to 80m. The knowledge entry number for their AES50 recommendations is KA-02591. The title is "How long can the Cat5e connection be?" I'm pretty sure you need to be logged into their community in order to be able to search for this.
Good to see this before moving my aes50 to usb streaming computer. Currently it’s on a 50’ line.
AES50 seems to be dependable with these consoles up to 70 or 80 meters, beyond that it can be hit or miss
13:12 Dust on the modular plugs:
I have first hand experience with audio dropping out during a show, and it turned out that a Midas M32 lost the connection via AES50 to the stage box (Midas DL 32). Sound disappeared without a plop, and remained off (so maybe not due to a static discharge or someone treading on the cable). The cable was maybe used 6 times earlier, but perhaps 10 months after purchase, so fairly new.
Audio returned after the modular connector was taken out of the console, blown at, and the reinserted. It was still on the edge of working, as the audio would temporarily drop out when the modular plug ("RJ-45") was wiggled a bit (without a Neutrik EtherCon shell to hold it fixed in place).
So, using EtherCon shells rather than bare modular connectors seems to a to the stability by reducing the contact surfaces to be rubbing against each other, when the cable gets moved around.
Cable length was 50 m, directly between M32 and 'DL 32' without any intermediate connectors/joiner boxes.
Interesting and precarious
Hi Dave,
I had a thought about you length problem with AES50. If AES50 is running on ethernet and you're have problem with signal degradation at 100m, have you tried putting a cheap ethernet switch close to the middle. Having that switch regenerate the signal may help you get the 100m.
Putting a cheap Ethernet switch in the middle of an audience between stage and mix position would be precarious. Thousands of humans with mud, beer, stomping on something that could ruin the show would be quite undesirable.
The snake systems are often subjected to much abuse and the reliability we get from Dante or fiber or analog is well established with out using a repeater for 100m runs
@@DaveRat Thanks Dave. That's a good point. I believe 100m is right at the limit of the FastE spec. Have you seen this issues with other manufacturers? What I mean is, could this be a cheap NIC in an otherwise nice board.
We use multiple formats down cat5e and fiber at 100 meters without issue and do have issues with aes50 down those same cat5e cables
AES50 is not a network standard. This is multichannel AES digital audio. This is not networked audio like Dante, AVB, QLAN, etc, etc. Read the spec.
@@brenthandycts131 Hey Brent, I was reading the specs on AES50. The document said that AES50 was riding on an 100base-t network. I believe the IEEE spec for 100base-t has a limit of 100m. This is has to do with collision detection of ethernet frames on a shared medium. I think Dante is an application layer of the OSI model and would run on any network i.e. ethernet or token ring.
We had massive issues with a pro series Midas console and it came down to our 100m Cat 6A core. Many many tests to work this out, not helped by a lot of the shows running the cable path running away from crowds somewhat protecting it. Same core with Dante, zero issues.
Interesting, I was wondering if people were having similar issues with the pro series. Thank you
@@DaveRat Don't quote me on this, but I've been told the spec for the Pro Series is unshielded. I don't understand why one would be shielded and another would be unshielded within the same protocol. Nevertheless, I have heard this from quite a few sources, some of whom I trust on these kinds of things.
The initial consoles did not specify shielded or on shielded. Then people were having issues with static electricity. So newer consoles have a little sticker that says to use shielded cable. But the length maximum for shielded cable seems to be less than unshielded. None of this has been documented very well by the manufacturer. So, the consoles will work with shielded and unshielded cable but in dry static environments unshield is an issue, and for longer cables shielding is an issue and to solve all of the issues shielded cables 80 m or less seems to be stable
Greetings from Seattle Dave. I’m not a pro sound engineer but I enjoy your videos :)
Thank you!
I believe if a data cable has to be split or redirected, the proper termination for the split data line requires a termination however not similar to a DMX data line. I found a topic on using a 3 resistor configuration to terminate the end of a data line but still doesn't address AES50. As you said the best and probably only way to split a consoles signal is by way of using a plug in Dante card or Dante AES50 to Dante box. Klark Teknik KT-AES50 Network Module.
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Midas Pro series has its own world of complexity too. They specifically don't want shielded. Can work fine a lot of the time, but when it doesn't work, it really doesn't work. I found in that situation that ground lifting it on one side isn't even enough, you have to do both. Acts like an antenna or something and drops the sync. I had to buy every ethernet cable at every walmart in chicago one night and all those with a ton of couplers worked better than a shielded tour grade cable.
Yuvk
Where are you seeing they don't want shielded cable? That's not correct AFAIK. I was there for all of the Midas product rollouts and dealer training.
@@brenthandycts131 I don’t think I can reply with a photo here, but I have a screenshot from a Facebook thread where the official Midas account made a statement on this and said for Pro series “It's Cat5e UTP.”
@@GrahamTobias But the M32 is not the Pro series. It is a completely different machine.
@@brenthandycts131 ah, if you look again my comments are only about the Pro series, not M32.
Hey Dave, Thank you for all the wise lessons you have taught over the course of these video's. As an owner of a x32 compact i consider them very helpful. I have been pondering on buying a dante expansion card for more compatibility whenever i am somewhere else, but i was always wondering about the overhead of TCP/IP on the audio signal, as it makes the package a lot bigger than necessary and it needs to be encapsulated, transported and then decapsulated. I would really like to see a test on any audio board and see the latency delta between a signal on a local bus and that same signal on a dante bus. plus maybe an input on dante to the board and then output on dante again. maybe even compare that to the latency in AES50 in the same setup. Again, thank you for the great content and wise lessons.
For short runs, aes50 is stable and has low latency. If you are running a long run, the need for ultra low latency tends to be loss likely
Why do we need a latency of leads that 12" when the source is 300 feet away? Do we really care if there is 2bor 3 feet more latency when the source is 200 feet from us and 20 or 30 feet from the stage?
So do long runs, the added latency of dante may not be a concern for many applications with longer runs especially when the added stability and muting rather than popping on errors is desirable
@@DaveRat makes sense when saying it like that. I was concerned with timing of tap delays for instance but come to think about it, as they have the same latency as the original signal it makes no difference at all. Thnx for another lesson.
Use headphones for tap delays, as the distance sound travels almost always exceeds the latency by huge amonts
ive always run power bundled with the aes50 so there is no gnd potential between the devices, but my cable legnths have been too short and my shows too few to say if it even has made any difference at all :/
And for the tests I did, both consoles were plugged into the same outlet box, so any issues were not related to grounding
We can hardly blame the wire makers, who offer - at a price - a variety of very highly specced products that work to perfection in data applications. It is our need for extremely low latency that puts these interfaces at risk. I’m curious, have you tried using repeaters? This is reminiscent of coax, where the interconn itself is a major weak spot. I’ve seen MADI struggle with 100m but only when routing through a patch panel adding virtually no length, like it’s on the hairy edge. When I put an active buffer right at the truck panel’s input connector, all is well.
Adding a repeater to the middle of the snake that runs through the audience area and requires power out there is creating complexities that would make things much worse
@@DaveRat A company named Patton is devoting themselves heavily to solving the complexity issue. Their repeaters use PoE so require no AC cabling. There are enough conductors in the Enet cable to make this possible. As I convert my remote system to Dante, I have considered lithium ion battery powered repeaters. Currently looking for power consumption figures for available repeaters. Dante is worth the extra effort, a solid and reliable platform. Audinate has repeatedly improved the fundamental process as well as the actual hardware SOC, such that the current iteration - Brooklyn - is much more capable than its predecessors.
Ideally one would not need to put a repeater midway down the snake stuffed into a cable trough.
Oh the thought of losing the PA mid show and trying trouble shoot a beer drenched repeater with while trying to clear a dozen kids out of the way. Fun!
Or, use a cable and digital transport system that reliably sends the signal well over the desired distance.
@@DaveRat Well, then - optical fiber it is.
Hey are you from Vegas?
Nope, live north of LA
Any sort of inline connector is a *terrible* idea for network cabling as it causes impedance mismatches which cause signal reflections and everything goes bad really quickly. It's very important that they be single unbroken runs of good quality CAT cable. It's much less about the length of the cable than it is avoiding having any joins; this is why you say stuff like "100ft worked but then I added a 6ft extension and it stopped working" it's not because it was only just working at 100ft, it's because the inline connectors screw up the transmission line properties.
And all of that is easily measured and tested. A great cable with several couplers can outperform a crappy cable with no couplers. The only real way to know is to test it.
I am currently designing and testing a cable for AES 50 that is stable and dependable at 100 m with a 30 m extension.
In my opinion, you should be able to take any cable and put a 10% to 20% extension on it and have it still work perfectly. If you can do that, then you know that when you remove the extension it will be very stable and dependable for your application
I experienced issues with dirt: cleaned with a brush and isopropyl alcohol and all well again.
50m S/FTP CAT7 Belden PUR cable, with top of the line neutrik's ethercon.
Ahh yes, dirt is an issue
Uc3, cat5e cable is what is spec’d by the manufacturer. Cat7 has tighter twists and increases the actual distance. Aes50 is not regular ethernet traffic and therefore “one or two” grades of cable “better” is not in this case
I am seeing better result and more stability with longer runs when using the Cat7 cable I have been teating, vs similar diameter Cat5E cables. I am getting the best results with Cat6a
Do you have the same issues with a DLive? Where the board is a controller and all the processing is at the rack.
Never used a d live
@@DaveRat I believe that with Allen & Heath DLive having all the processing in the rack would mean that no audio signals would be traveling through the CAT cable to the mixing surface. Will try to find one and unplug CAT cable from the surface while playing music through the system and see what it does. Looking at the DLive, would be great to know before buying.
Cool, yes, one of the most important aspects of my videos is that I am doing everything in a way that you and others can fairly easily and relatively inexpensively replicate and test other gear
@@DaveRat thank you for all that you do, I learn a lot from your videos
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Any time I've had issues with AES50 it always has come down to bad cable certification, especially with crosstalk failure. I would shoot them with a fluke tester and they would fail cat5e certification. As soon as we fixed cable lengths or fixed cable quality we would get stability back. Not everyone has access to a expensive cable certifier though.
Interesting, and this was at 100 meters or longer?
Another good reason to go Dante for stability or long runs, is that it's incredibly easy to send it over fibre.
Agreed, we (Rat Sound) have lots of problems when bands bring in X32 and M32 and use AES50. I did this vid to help people understand why
@@DaveRat have you much experience of using the Klark Teknik fibre converters for AES50? I'm urious if they're as dependable as Dante over fiber.
Can’t you run fiber for long runs? That would be far more reliable.
Yes and that is what we do for the gear we supply. But when artists bring their own consoles and want to tie into the cat5e cables on our snake is when we have issues
That was my thought. I wouldn't do the conversion if I didn't have to, but when a limit is reached I would do it.
Overall, I think that one must decide whether to take on the challenges adapting and using a semi pro console for larger scale applications or whether to scale up to pro gear.
As mentioned already - Music Group specifically specs Cat5e and NO other cat cable. The impedance of the cable and the twist ratios mentioned are important for aes50 but not so relevant for normal networking use. I would not recommend anything besides high quality cat5e for that reason.
The ‘benefits’ of cat6 apply to networking use but do NOT apply for aes50 which is a signal that happens to use cat cable.
Interesting. My testing shows the Cat6a is quite superior for carrying aes50 over longer distances than cat5e.
I am developing a Cat6a cable for the SoundTools product line and one of the tests I am doing is making sure that it carries AES50 for longer distances than cat5e.
Not sure why music group would fail to recommend a cable that is superior at carrying aes50 over longer distances but many factors go into making recommendation decisions and some factors may be based on other aspects beyond what is optimum for the end user
@@DaveRat Interesting! I know there have been issues with Cat 6 etc which have caused them to recommend the original spec cate. I wonder if the physical properties of Cat6a match closely enough to the needs of the cable but with advantages in addition? Will be interested to see what you find out!
Cat 6a is a different beast from cat6. Cat6a is a large diameter and tightly spec'ed cable that performs exceptionally well and exceeds the Cat7 in performance for the cables I tested.
It's all about the"a"
Makes me wonder if somebody will make an AES-50 to fiber converter for longer, more stable runs?
Hmmm, yes, converting to fiber is the way to go
I had a load of Cat6A so decided to invest in the connectors thinking it would be better spec. How wrong I was, It would be amazing if @midas could update firmware to be compatible with higher spec cable. I enjoy on your vids Dave but this one sent me down an incorrect path. Will have to upgrade by console to PRO series so I can use the cable I have made 😂Thanks, Sam.
Hmmm, my take is that Midas Aes50 should not be used with cables over 80 meters.
Cat6 won't save ya. The soundtools supercat sound cat5e works well. The cable that works best for distances is unshielded belden cat5e but it also works poorly for static issues.
Best is to get a Dante card
@@DaveRat Ok, so managed to get a sync happening via using dl16 stage box as master, whenever I try to set M32 as master, I have issues. So CAT6A does work with high quality Neutrik connectors. Thanks for all you do, Sam.
Awesome!
wow! this technique leaves a lot to be desired, that's for sure. Fortunately I never have to deal with such cable lengths, I mainly have smaller gigs.
For me it would mean that I would never dare to work with such lengths; the risk is too great, in my opinion. I don't want the technique to be 100% in order, but 150%! The frustration of technology that lets you down is too great, it inhibits the creative process...
Thank you for bringing this to the attention again!
On another note; thanks to the inspiration that your videos gave me, I also started testing my own stuff 'extremely' and that's why I encountered two weak links in my system! So thanks for that!
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Magic moment at 8:00 in shows how adding a single xlr cable breaks the connection
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I have always used 50 meter max and never had any issues at that length.
Sounds about right. The consoles, based on how they operate, should be rated at 80 meters where they operate in a stable way
I have over 200 shows at 200' (60m) on an M32 connected directly to the stage box without any couplers, and the system has been rock solid using a ProCo shielded Cat5e cable that is very easy to coil. I see Dave's comment that 80 meters should be the max and ProCo sells a 240' cable, so maybe they know something too!
Balancing reliability and capability keeps things interesting
@@johnschalk1271 do you have the link to the cable you use?
@@isaiahalexander6021 The M32, DL32 & cable were all purchased from Sweetwater at the same time about 4 years ago. Sweetwater sells a Pro Co shielded Cat5e Ethercon cable in several lengths currently that I assume would be the same or similar to what we were using. I do not have that system anymore, so I cannot tell you the exact part number for the cable.
I run a 300 ft cable (91 m) every weekend for at least 4 years with zero problems. Is the recommended Pro Co shielded cable. I don’t know the specs but It works every single time.
Yes, and also there are many variables beyond function in a specific geographic region and setup.
Hot dry and high static environments seem to be less stable. That said, the instability seems to occur at 100 meters, I measured an 80 meter cat5e all good and added 10 meters plus a barrel connector and it went unstable.
I think if this discussion was about rigging steel and stuff hanging over people's heads where these 10% differences between function and fail would be much clearer to understand.
Though we are talking about catastrophic show sound failure which is not a minor issue
I guess this is why the Klark Technic Aes50 repeater product is so sought after
Klark teknic production has been slow for years, The DN9610 was designed during the midas XL8/Pro series days, it's barely a relevant product anymore due to the Pro series/Heritage HD switching across to fibre for lengths above 100m
Interesting
Careful recommending cable beyond Cat-5e. One issue with AES-50 is the interpair slew, which is allowed to be bigger with the newer cables to allow different twist patterns for better performance. That does not cause a problem with EIA-568 networking, but it can misalign things enough in AES-50 to really become a problem.
Interesting. With the supercat sound cable, when working on the design, I went with the same twist rate on all pairs as the crosstalks was so much lower with individually shielded pairs than with the overall shield.
@@DaveRat It's not just the twist in the pairs that's at play here - it's how the pairs are twisted around each other. Do you have test gear which can measure skew? (Note I said slew above, skew is what I meant; "Propagation Delay Skew" or "Time Delay Skew"). The video guys bump into this sometimes, too, when pushing HDMI over distance. Going by memory - and please don't trust my memory - Cat-6 allows 50ns skew at 100m (and typical measured is 25ns) but Cat-5e typically has no skew at all. 100-base-T doesn't care at all about skew, because pairs aren't used together, but AES-50 is a whole 'nother ball of wax. Note that the cable industry *purposefully* introduces skew because it helps with FeXT. I wish I knew what the allowable skew was for AES-50.
Another thing that has me scratching by head is - what happens with consoles/boxes with ground offsets - there will be a higher potential difference with long cables using higher resistance shield material. Not sure why that would matter, but these consoles seem to be really picky about having an identical ground reference. I would love to find a problematic 100m stagebox install and a 100m power cord from the console to the stage box...and see if that fixes it...
Yes, we have a fluke cable tester that measures cat and fiber.
As far as the ground issue in my tests, the consoles are right next to each other and grounded to the same power on short cords and there are issues.
Perhaps there are more issues possible with remotely located consoles but even plugged into the same ground, the issues exceed what I believe is acceptable for a 100m spec
At that length you fine sound folk become telephone folk. xD Transmission .... transition ...
Transition
Transmission
Oh my t v see one five, oh oh, t v see one five
Oh my t v see one five, oh oh, t v see one five
Oh my t v see one five, oh oh, t v see one five
Oh my t v see one five, oh oh, t v see one five (Merry Christmas Dave!!)
p.s. Flea in the new Sparks documentary is 😆
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I did an event once where the provider used a 400' run of Ethercon for an M32 to a stage box..... I asked if he was sure about that choice, and was assured he tested it and that it worked. It did for a large portion of the event until it didn't. Once it went awol, it was not usable and would drop out every few minutes. The scramble was done to re-patch with copper and things were business as usual. I own 2 cables of my own, the longest one being 250', both with grounded barrels. I have never once had an issue with either one. Interestingly I use my longest one most often and it is a Cat6 cable.
250 ft is a safe length
What brands are u using?
I tested multiple cables and 250 is generally stable and safe. Fro Rat Sound we use the SoundTools supercat for and supercat sound cables. The supercat sound works at 100 meters but adding a 15 meter extension makes it unstable, adding a 10 meter extension works.
For the level of shows we do, that is cutting it close as I like to see it still stable with a 20 meter extension.
That said, the coupler does degrade the signal and I have not tested 120 meters continuos supercat sound, which would be the stability goal.
@@DaveRat Would using cat6 work the same?
Cat6a that I have tested does perform better and tends to give longer lengths. That said, Cat6a tends to be very thick, rigid and tougher to wind.
This is why I am working on designing an Cat6a grade cable that winds well and is optimized for portable live events
Jeff Spicoli is alive and well and running a sound system company
Honored they based that Spicoli dude on me!
@@DaveRat Did you order enough pizza for every one?
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I was mixing a high profile regional band at a local college and it was an M32 with a DL251 for the stagebox.
We had so many issues with static and signal dropping out.
2 days later the production company owner chewed me out for the stagebox cutting out.
After that I lost all faith in Midas products because I had so many bad experiences with them.
If you think AES50 on an X32 or M32 is bad, check out a Pro Series. It is far worse. you can only run 24 channel bidirectional at 96k and from what I observed happening, its far more unstable then the 48k of the X32. I just observed all these problems with no way of testing it.
Here is another interesting thing. I had a house gig on an M32 at a church.
They had Cat6STP running.
The M32 was plugged into a wall jack, that wall jack went to the ceiling behind the sound booth where there were several unlabeled Ethercon barrels. The wall jack was plugged into one of the barrels. That new line in the ceiling went into the power amp room where the stage box was.
So there were a total of 5 connection points (maybe more) to get the console plugged into the stagebox. That console had so much distortion and horrible sound simply because of all those connection points when it is supposed to be console plugged directly into a stagebox.
All sounds messy yuck
I was just asking this question in forums and no one could give me any straight answers.
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Obviously haven’t sought out the right forums
I would guess you might get better results with an active repeater (which I understand to be essentially just an op-amp) rather than a simple joiner, but you still need a reasonably strong signal to reach the repeater. But 100m (328 feet) is a pretty long distance, that's nearly a full NFL field, even at stadium concerts the sound board is typically not much more than half way down the field. I would wager that for the vast majority of concert venues you will hit critical distance before you reach 100m from stage deck.
The repeater is not just an opamp. It actually recreates the signal so you can add as many as you like.
It may be a long distance but it is also the standard snake length for large scale concerts and events. So, maybe be long for something's but for a big rock show it's just a normal length and shorter is a problem.
Pretty sure an x32 shouldn’t be deployed at at a show where foh is 300’ away. Not even an m32… at that point jump on to copper.
@@Heywoodj1969 you might be surprised the shows where X/M32s are deployed, I won't mention any names to protect the guilty, but I know of more than one internationally recognised act that carry these consoles (whether or not they SHOULD is a different matter).... Also consider that 100m is not the distance that FoH console is from the stage, but the length of the cable run to get there, it is not always acceptable to run ramp down the centre of the auditorium, sometimes containment must be used that is significantly longer than line-of-sight. Signal almost always comes from Stage-Left but cable runs can leave via Stage-Right, add in deck height of 2m+ and on a big stage you can easily loose 30m before your cable has even left the stage end.
Interesting perspectives. As a person that personally mixed Chili Peppers at Live Earth at Wembley Stadium on a 32 channel Venice, I can say I am a fan of using small or inexpensive tools for big jobs if the situation is right.
That said, using gear that is on the verge of being unstable in a show-collapsing way is something I would avoid. The M32 and X32 have proven over a decade of being relatively reliable in in most environments though perhaps not ideal for large format shows.
Except when used with long approaching and exceeding 100meters of aes50 where they become unreliable.
So many variables but whatever tools are used, make sure they are reliable for the configuration.
A similar test with Dante would be interesting.
I will ponder that.
Single mode FIBER.
✔✔✔
theres no error correction so any corruption results in drop outs.
dont mention cat6 all the "experts" will start quoting that cat6 is not correct spec lol
And corruption also can result in huge pops and booms!
with all that said.... i will happily cry myself to sleep buying a Yamaha QL/CL over anything that uses AES50... I have a X32/M32 with stage boxes that i refuse to use over 30 m. that too with redundant AES50 runs
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