SoundTools CatBOX 8 and SuperCAT 7 First Look & Teardown
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- čas přidán 17. 01. 2024
- The new CatBOX 8 audio over cat cable boxes are here, along with the new SoundTools SuperCAT 7 network cable. We're taking a look, and taking them apart, and talking about how they are different from the other pro-audio cat snake solutions out there today.
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My first foray into audio over Cat cabling has been with Soundtools stuff. I use it live for connecting a custom pedal board, which I use for vocal effects, to my FOH console. In the studio, I use a few Soundtools boxes and cables to manage the signal distribution to my Atmos system. A+ stuff! Plus, Dave is a top chap!
I literally just had a conversation with the other engineer from my church about these. They are definitely on my wish list. He actually proposed we use the wall cats for some drops for our musicians. Definitely some versatile gear. So glad Dave Is making these products.
Hey Jonathon, you've got the top comment on this video, so you've won the bag giveaway. I've emailed you at the address on your channel too, so send me your address there & I'll get them out to you next week. Thanks!
@@DcSoundOp dope, thanks!!!
Thanks for the look and giving us the details!
You bet!
Thanks for the rundown man, I’ve been super curious about those.
Thanks Erik, hope you're doing great!
Excellent video! Looks like a great addition to the SoundTools product line.
Thanks for the message!
It is nice to see smaller groups getting covered
Thanks for going through these. I'm glad to see the link cable on the 8ch box is removable so that it can be both I and O instead of just linked XLRs.
Glad to hear it was helpful, thanks for the message!
Great Video! Now considering grabbing the supercat cable for stagebox to mixer connections.
This looks useful for our situation. We place a few of these at the house snake box and use the CAT5 cable to feed our in ears rack. Right now we place the rack near the snake and use a short analog snake.
Great info. I need to grab some of these for my venue. Love your videos.
Thanks, I appreciate it!
I love the cat box stuff. It is so well made and eliminates so many cables. Using it has really cleaned my workflow up.
That's great to hear Brian, what kind of work are you using them for? Thanks for watching!
@@DcSoundOp I record a lot of traditional music stuff, so I use the cat boxes and cat tails to run stereo pairs and instrument microphones. I have a MixPre 10 ii that I use to do recordings in the field of concert bands, orchestras, marching bands, etc. The sound tools gear has saved me so much time an money!
Great video! I’ve been using the cat boxes for years on tours big and small. Gotta get some of these 8s and some more cables.
You'll enjoy them for sure, if you're already using the orignal version. Thanks for checking out the video.
Some neat boxes for not running a full on 12 channel box when you only use 3-4 at the musicians side :)
Thanks for the informative video. These are super useful!
Thanks!
I love the supercat cable, I haven't found a use for the cat boxes yet since I prefer to run W1 cables to be more efficient. I never thought of using them for AES though, so I might give that a try at some upcoming events.
Also, those bags are awesome. I always need more!
I’ve had great luck with the Super Cat cables too. Going to have to give Cat 7 a try now.
Let us know how you like them! Thanks for the message.
Awesome video, great products.
Thanks so much!
These are neat boxes. I've never used any but I can see some applications where they'd be very handy. And ST no doubt makes quality stuff.
Thanks for the video
Very neat with the new CatBOX 8, Have a few smaller gigs around where it could be useful.
(1 key with vocal and a single wedge, then a second in front for 2 vocals and 2 wedges on seperate mixes.)
These are awesome! Glad to see you’re still working with them, I use the original cat box system regularly. I think if they offered a switchable (parallel/isolated) version for a bit more as an option, some people would bite
I think you're absoltuley right, I just don't know how many they'd have to expect to sell to make it profitable. Not sure if they prototyped it with a switch at all, or looked at the cost involved, but I'd imagine they considered it at least. I'll see what I can find out.
Pretty cool product, I'm live sound engineer and am often doing gigs in clubs with small stages with an M32 and S32, and a few of these would be great for reducing the amount of long cables runs over the stage, as opposed to running everything back to one box I would love to use the to clean the stage up a bit more. Like chuck one in each corner and run em back to the S32. Maybe I can convince the company I work for to purchase 3 of them ;)
I really like the catboxes for exaclty this use, they're great for drop snakes around a stage.
Those bags are so sweet, I didn’t know they made them in that size. My IEM accessories are going straight in there
They also have a Rat Sound version that are pretty sweet too - sales.ratsound.com/collections/all/products/rat-canvas-tool-bag
I love using these boxes! One thing that would be helpful would be a custom 2 in / 2 out box. That would be helpful for a stage drop needing to send audio into the PA and return a monitor or wired IEM mix back.
There is a locked (member's only) post in the community tab here & on my Patreon you may find interesting 😉www.youtube.com/@DcSoundOp/membership or www.patreon.com/DcSoundOp
great video I was wondering when someone would come out with the 8 xlrs
Oh goody it's another Sound tools video. And every time I say that I go die inside thinking I need to make a video.
I've been using Cat boxes for years. I think the Cat8 will make an amazing tool in my arsenal especially considering that disconnect inside.
Thanks for checking out the video Bob!
Planning to add some catbox type to my live recording rig to accommodate wireless. I use a Mackie DL 32S for SR and recording and need to space wireless TX/RX from the stage box to reduce interference from the WIFI control signal.
I would like to see a catbox with combo input jacks ie XLR/Phone, with some TX/RX that have phone plugs it would make more sense.
Love it!
Thanks!!
I recently did a talent show (Saturday). the last 3 acts used their own microphones, so I set them up with their own booms and I hooked them up to a cat box; mixed it during sound check and saved a snapshot. Then I swapped back to a splitter (seperator) assembly to my normal set up that consists of 2 sets of microphones stands with vocal mics and a side mounted instrument mic (I found this to be great for a bunch of reasons you get one vocal and one instrument if they play guitar that can be plugged in and if their pick up doesn't work the instrument mic is already right there) and because this is one mic stand I have that feeding into a StudioHub adapter which gets me 2 XLR's to cat5. then two of those comes into a separator which splits out the green and orange pair to one Jack and the brown and blue pair to the other Jack so now I'm sending four channels down one cable to my XR18 mixer stage side. I found the studio hub connections to be pin compatible with the sound tools stuff but the numbering and the cable pairs are different so I have all mine wired up so it goes back to a cat rack and comes out in four different colored XLR cables as per the ethernet color pairs Green, Orange, Blue, Brown.
This allows me to mute channels and disconnect one ethernet cable at the mic stand and yank it off stage. Going back to the cat box's I had to make up a funky ethernet cable adapter to rearrange the pairing so the numbers made sense. I tried it a few times it works but it broke my brain so I made the adapter because Jack #1 ended up like in the middle it was weird.
I had one cat box stage left for instruments like guitar amp, base, acoustic guitar DI.
And I have another one back of stage for drums overhead, snare, kick and drum vocal which we ended up not using.
Small stage. A very small stage but then again it's a 1920s movie theater so the fact that there is a stage.
The sound tools system gives me a really light weight 12 channel snake.
Another thing I do is live video streaming and this event is at one of the local hotels, another one of those almost ancient buildings in a small town. did I mention it's a historical town just outside of Maryland, DC and Virginia.
Since I also do networking I fully understand how the cabling system works or is supposed to. I try and put as much as I can on ethernet cables they're easy to find they're easy to replace and you can hide them fairly well. In this instance I have an ethernet cable running up to a table top projector and laptop for presentations to grab a video feed for the stream. I have two cables running to the soundboard mounted near the kitchen, one grabs the four channel wireless mic system and returns it to my Mixer more conveniently located in the room, and the other one Cable pair returns a mono signal to the mixer to use the House system speakers and the alternate pair grabs the channel direct out from there background music CD changer so I have control of it. and the other two pairs I am using passive POE to power the wireless microphone receiver so I don't have to move it and so if the power goes out the wireless microphones are still returning to my mixer getting mixed and streamed out assuming the Internet doesn't go down or at least into the back up Recording. And at the end of that I pack up the cameras, my table, there's a handful adapters that get unplugged, the mic receiver gets the cat tales unplugged and re-patched, mixer settings get reset and there's a dozen ethernet cables to wrap up and my box gets the lids and rolls out.
Any reason I should consider Cat7 for a small 20’x12’ home recording studio? Longest run would be 30-50’. I def need at least a shared ground/shield for phantom power. On one hand, I don’t have long enough ones to justify buying top line, but on the other hand, I don’t need 3000 feet so I don’t mind spending a little bit more for my small DIY studio. Appreciate some feedback! So far all I know is that I need to look for solid copper, not CCA, and I need at least one shared shield
@@GregoryGuay not really as long as you get the shielded you should be good although the cat 7 supposedly has individually shielded pairs which might help with crosstalk so it might be worth going the little bit more for some future-proofing if it's going to be in the wall.
@@imark7777777 I hear that for an amateur/inexperienced person that Cat 5E is much easier to work with than 6A. Do you know how 7 compares?
Most likely, I will go with solid copper for the “permanent” install. I’m actually leaning towards 5E, since someone told me it’s a much easier to work with.
I wish all cat6 manufacturers could come up with a standard wiring. Love these units but running into issues when using it with a DB25 to cat converter. One is T568A the other is T568BB.
I love those bags! I don’t own any rat sound bags. I have been using the cat tails and boxes for a few years now. They are amazing from drop snakes to tossing them on truss for lighting and sound to use. Also used for a foh snake a few times for dmx. I would love to try out the cat box8. I already have some ideas where I can put it to work. I also need to get one of those cat 7 cables. Nothing beats rats cables. They coil so nice compared to others. Fingers crossed for the bags 🤞 Love what you do thank you for everything all the information you have shared has taught me so much.
Thanks for the message Alex, hope you're doing well!
I'd love a version with an iso transformer for splitting between FOH/Monitors & Recording rigs. Especially Comedy shows where where the channel count is almost always less than 4ch in total.
For sure, I was plesantly surprised to see radial has a transformer version. They are almost $400, but I'm sure it's worth it coming from Radial.
@@DcSoundOp I'm assuming the ETS, SoundTools, and Radial Engineering systems all have different wiring schemes to the CAT cable. But i foresee adapters being needed until a universal pinning standard is agreed upon.
Ooo stickers!
These would be super helpful with corporate applications as well!
They are!
Thanks
No problem
I should buy some for pa drive lines and for subs with odd configs
They are great for that. Thanks for the message.
There are a lot of DI boxes with a ground left switch, I have honestly I am not sure if I have ever used them other than making sure they were not enabled.
If everything is working properly there shouldn't be a ground issue and if you have a ground loop there's probably an electrical issue.
Not necessary to connect both ends to ground.
Ground loops occur when the signal has more than one path to earth. Rule of thumb is lift at source, ground at destination.
Mind you we are talking pin 1 signal ground here.
NEVER lift electric power ground. If there is a failure YOUR BODY could be the path to earth!
@@edjefferson9175 no not necessary to connect ground at both ends but that's exactly where some non-standard cables come from because they're not following the specifications and you end up with a USB, Ethernet or other cable that's not correctly wired to the specifications.
Generally I have never had a ground loop issue when things are properly connected using balance lines avoiding unbalanced cables etc. star ground. Following the Benchmark white paper on a clean audio installation.
There was one band that I did Sound for that insisted on having a ground lift cheater adapter on their electrical cable to their Audio amps.
Because well you change half a dozen things and the buzz goes away it's gotta be that one thing we did there. So never change anything ever again. Then again they were running an entirely analog system of almost ancient equipment.
Had a ton of a hard time with that band the last time I worked for them I think their amp was dying anyway.
In all my years I've only once had a ground issue with a keyboard and I don't know why. I tried lifting the ground at the DI and that didn't work. And unfortunately the church didn't have the money to drop on one of those fancy electrical hum eliminators that goes on the AC side, that church is a whole Nother story mentioned elsewhere online. The only way to get rid of it was using a non-standard standard unapproved technique. Which I won't disclose.
However a few years later no more buzz without unauthorized modification. Object removed from chain. (I'm hoping this one isn't too vague? In case it is I remove the two prong three prong adapter that was on the power cord to the keyboard). This one was properly labeled and tested multiple times throughout the year which is how I found out it wasn't needed all of a sudden and I'm not sure what changed.
Then again that was an interesting church, I was in charge of tech and yet was not told that the entire stage had to be rewired for surface mount outlets. I came in a few days after to find this out and find every amp guitar x3 and otherwise x3 ( Main + Mon x4) daisychained through power strips and plugged into the same circuit when we had two circuits on stage. Yeah we don't have to follow code that's why we now have to put up an exit sign, remove some illegal building modifications, add a handicap ramp to the stage that 6 inches off the floor. But it's not a problem family member of the Pastor is a contractor.... Run!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I've seen this third prong nonsense all over the place generally it's bad lighting dimmers improperly wired electrical, sharing circuits etc. I have the wonderful benefit of cross discipline between A/V electric and networking. If you have a good electrical to start with, keep everything on the same circuit use balance cabling and good quality equipment that's maintained. There shouldn't be any issues and sticking with that mentality I have not once had to use the ground lift switch on any DI with all equipment properly grounded.
There was this one church that just about everything that was three prong had the third prong broken off why… Because all the electrical in this church was two prong and this individual this pastor believed it was easier than getting an adapter to break the prong off on everything. which is why to this day I rather have an ungrounded slightly miss wired in a particular manner electrical outlet then have the opportunity for somebody to break the third prong safety ground pin off because they're too lazy to get an adapter making it permanently unsafe. Unfortunately this method really does require a qualified well educated electrician to properly test everything from outlet to panel and not just one of those three like testers. The sad part most of those outlets in that church would've qualified for being upgraded properly with existing wiring because it was well done to begin with but just with two prongs.
You don't need to disconnect both ends of the jumper cable! So you can't loose it. ;-)
You might be on to something there 😂
Great video. I like the concept but still not convinced it's very cost effective for a typical bar band.
Thanks for checking it out!
Would i be able to connect and use the Catbox 8 to the Ultranet port on a X air 18 to get in and out audio?
Only using the same analog connections you use now, these are completely passive and don't interface with other gear over any networks. Thanks for the question!
Bad ass!
indeed!
I'd like to be able to have one Catbox 8s on one side of the stage to send a signal to a FOH speaker and two monitors AND to receive a signal from 2 mics and two guitars. So that would mean I'd want to use 3 outputs and 4 inputs from a single Catbox 8....in that case I'd have two Cat cables. One to send and one to receive. Correct ?
Thanks for the question Frank. You're absolutely correct, to use it in that configuraion, you would need to pull the internal jumper and run two cables. Sorry for the slow response, it's been a heck of a week. Thanks again!
Why is the RJ45 of the violet super cat cable sticking out the etherCON (9:24)? I bet it won’t lock.
I like and use the audio over Cat solution as stage snakes. The boxes are small for a tidy stage and I only use Cat5e STP for them so that I only have 1 type of cable useable for Dante, AES50, and audio over Cat. If a outlet doesn’t have EtherCON, I just remove the barrel. For this reason I won’t add the supercat 7. It might be a wonderful cable but it defeats the ‘one cable fits all’ thought I have as it won’t be compatible with AES50
It’s not like that permanently or from the factory, just me not getting it back together properly while paying attention to filming & other things.
A much neater solution to constantly disassembling the shells of Ethercon connectors to mate with panel-mount RJ-45 sockets is to invest in some of Neutrik’s N8FF couplers. They have locking Ethercon ports on either end, meaning you can keep them attached to pre-existing Ethercon cables and simply use a short RJ-45 cable connected to the other side of the barrel whenever you need to connect to gear or plates with only RJ-45 ports. Choosing this option means you never have to disassemble-and very easily lose- Ethercon shells.
You’re completely right! As a matter of fact, I do have them with me in my pelicase🤷🏼♂️
It looks like the SuperCat fanout has a male Ethercon connector, this makes it less than ideal for connecting directly to an ethercon cable. I guess you need a Ethercon female turnaround?
Yes, the NE8FF is what you'll want to have on hand. They're also generally useful for adapting ethercon cables to non-ethercon gear with a standard patch cable - amzn.to/495GWYa (ad link) Thanks for the great question.
I have been using WallCAT 8 by SoundTools. The only difference I can see between CatBOX 8 and Wall CAT is the jumper. Is that true?
I believe you are correct, but maybe someone from @SoundTools can confirm if they see this question. Thanks for checking out the video!
Curious to see how these would work in a marching band setting
That would be a great test to see how they hold up through a full marching season. Thanks for the message!
Would this work with Dante?
No, these are passive units, not networked boxes. They are great to use as drop snakes to connect to a Dante stage-box though!
As a 4 pair stage box I don't see an advantage over the traditional sub snake. Even with the XLR housing the actual contacts are quite small, delicate and not tight fitting. A standard XLR connector with it's pin and sleve contact is a much MUCH better conductor.
Where I do see an advantage is in a large scale installation. Lower cost of cabling over long distance and greater flexability in terms of what devices can be used on the cable run. One day it could be lighting, the next dante data and anolog/digital audio on another day. This could be handy on a broadcast truck or sports stadium.
Either way, the little tiny contacts are the weak link in your signal chain. Over time they will begin to fail. Good Luck.
If you don't need the disconnects and are not already carrying Cat cable for another use, traditional methods probably make more sense. Thanks for checking out the video Ed. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts too. All the best!
0:48 Thats Dave Rat?
Yup, that’s him 👍🏼
I asked a question on instagram about the cat7 cable but it wasn’t answered in this video
Sorry, you asked about using it in conduit right? The cable SoundTools sells currently isn’t intended for permanent installation use, it’s specifically for stage use.
@@DcSoundOp what cable do you use with the WallCAT 8??? that’s intended for permanent installation
Any UK dealers?
Yes! It looks like HD Pro Audio are the people to talk to there.
+44 (0) 1784 433687
www.hdproaudio.co.uk
Why choose this over a solution with Dante or NDI?
Hey, thanks for the question. I wouldn't usually think of these as an alternative to a networked solution like Dante or NDI, but have often used them as drop snakes feeding a bigger dante stage-box and love them for that. If you're already carrying a trunk full of good network cable for your Dante system, I figure you might as well have some passive boxes like this to make the most of it. Let me know if I'm missing the question though.
@@DcSoundOp not missing the question at all, thnx for answering. I tend to just add another dante interface to the network 😁 those two port interfaces work really well and for more ports I use Yamaha. NDI is getting there for sound though.
Whatever does the job the best, right? 😁 And we keep having reasons to upgrade and go gaga for gear 😝
BEWARE!!!⚠⚠⚠⚠⚠⚠
There are two things to keep in mind that can cause massive problems:
1: common ground - these snakes all share common ground on EVERY CHANNEL. if you have any ground issue or noise issue on ONE single channel it will transfer on every other channel.
2: splitting: the split is without any TRANSFORMER. So basically a Y- Split. For LINE LEVEL this is fine. For MIC level this is an absolute NO-GO! You always wanna split Mic level signals with at least a passive transformer.
The combination of both points above can cause MASSIVE problems live and drive your FOH-Tech insane. Just because it works for some people, it doesn't mean that in the next venue you play you're f*cked. to be safe then, keep at least a normal 4x4 snake for every CAT-snake in the backup case and wire up your rack or console without zip-ties.
You know that normal audio snakes, and every mixing board on the market share a common ground across all channels? Why does this freak you out so much with this snake?
Also, splitting mic signals without a transformer is totally normal & done on major tours and productions every day. Transformers are absolutely NOT required. Dave Rat even has a video on his channel about how the RAT Sound snakes on major tours NEVER have transformers in the splits, it’s totally normal.
Please be careful before writing BIG alarming ⚠️⚠️⚠️ walls of text on people’s videos, that you’ve got your info right first. Thanks!
Other than some signal level loss a system will function just fine with a hard wire split. We never had the luxury of iso snakes. Some passive snake boxes have pin 1 lift switches on each channel. Much cheaper than transformers. I would prefer a hard split over cheap transformers.
There is only one earth, so a common ground is not a bad thing. Balanced audio is caried on a twisted pair. The ground wire is not part of the audio signal. It is a shield/drain conductor and can also be used for power delivery to circuits such as phantom power and intercom belt packs.