Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion HiFi & HT Chat Converting coax digital ouputs to AES/EBU outputs?

This is interesting as Cat3, Cat4, Cat5, Cat5e, Cat6, Cat6A etc. all have a characteristic Z of 100 ohms.

I'd be willing to bet that SpeakerLink cables aren't 110 ohm either, although full fat AES/EBU is very robust; will run down wet string etc.

Steve.

I don't know about the precise impedence of the Speakerlink output but it certainly works.

I haven't tried it into Genelecs but have used simple RJ45 (Speakerlink) to XLR (Balanced digital) converters for Sooloos into DACS and they've worked fine.

Rick

Hi Flea,

unless it was mentioned already, all Genelec DSP monitors of the 82xx series accept 75 Ohm SPDIF connections. As you are running very short cables, all you need is to solder a Neutrik XLR plug to a good 75 Ohm cable and a good RCA plug and you can easily go 5 meters. We had 8 to 10 meters in our 5x Genelec DSP setup with a Meridian 565 and 561. 75 Ohm cables often just do not bend so nice around corners ;-) From the master Genelec to the slave Genelec you can then use 110 Ohm XLR to XLR wires. Internally anything higher than 48Khz is....ney, let us better skip that part.

Thanks for that info. Sylvia.

I'll check with Genelec on that because it would sure be nice.

flea

Give Genelec USA a call. They were very helpful and friendly when I contacted them a few weeks ago.

Dear Flea,

we think the "DSP manuals" (4MB) changed a bit since the introduction of the 8260. In the newer manuals they ask for impedance correction for SPDIF, probably because some folks tried much to long runs (the usual story). That we do not recall from older sheets. As said short runs will work just fine form our experience, due to AES3ID compatibility also using 75 Ohm ;-). Just take a good wire. To give Genelec a call is not a bad idea or visit their Forum. Ilkka gives good advice there :

http://www.community.genelec.com/forum/

These cables are the ones we soldered :



Genelecs are great for the price. You only find better, if you are willing to pay substantially more money.

Sylvia,

Genelec is stating that a maximum length for this method is 1.2 meters.

They still recommend a passive impedance converter as the best solution.

flea

Dear Flea,

did not expect any other answer. Eventually we may have been lucky in our 5x Genelec setup. We just checked our big cable boxes and the three wires my husband soldered were ca. 3m (picture above), ca. 7m and ca. 15 meters (picture below). Three wires for 5 channels (L/C/R/SRl/SRr). To slaves we used full XLR to XLR 110 Ohm Belden wires. Up to you to give it a try, otherwise you can always stick to recommendation ;-). Must be high quality 75 Ohm wires....

Dear Flea,

changed my posts above a bit, just to highlight that "it can be done", instead of offcially possible. Searched yesterday for two hours older folders on our GLM laptop we used back then, but all sheets we found state that impedance conversion should be used, were we were certain that it also said SPDIF can be used, and which practically worked for quite a long distance as the pictures show above. Papers we had were sold away with the 5 Genelecs. Please remember mind that it was a 565 and 561 back then for us, not a G68. There can be a small difference here as well. Unfortunately you are afraid to use a transformer, otherwise you could use short RCA to BNC 75 Ohm cables and use some of these to convert to 110 Ohm :

Sylvia,

These are the passive converters that Genelec recommend. I'm probably going to use this setup and I may have these hardwired into some custom cables.

Thanks very much for your help and insight, as well as everyone in this forum.

flea