Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming RJ45 Cables (Ethernet and SpeakerLink Use Cases)

I think there may be confusion between AES and SPDIF formats at different levels. AES defines a number of standards which use different cable construction. So you can have over balanced or unbalanced connections. It also defines max and min voltages and is very tolerant to this. So an AES cable over balanced cable terminated by XLR, often referred to as AES/EBU is going to be pretty tolerant of the long distances and abuse that it is designed to handle.

I don't know what voltage SpeakerLink uses but it too runs over a balanced connection. I would imagine that it is equally robust for the application that it was defined for, which is going to be over much shorter distances.

Which leaves the question of why cable differences have an affect.

I am ex broadcast and events industry, studio and OB, analogue and digital. I've seen the sort of abuse that these cables are put through by engineers and the environment. I'm not saying that no one cares as they do, but quality is not driven by the price tag of the cable, but by sound engineering principles such as proven design and construction.

A few years back I was doing a lot of OB work including connecting up our kit (Chyron, Viz etc.) over HD-SDI. We were running to a big screen over about 1/3 mile of cabling and multiple bits of kit in the scanner/truck. I asked the OB guys what cable it was - bog standard Belden hand terminated on the floor in front of me.