Are digital snakes only a single CAT 5e/6/7 cable? Marketing says they are? 

A few points to be made here For a start, I've actually had waaaaaaay worse reliability on analogue snakes, stress on cables over time does cause issues believe it or not. I personally carry a bunch of 30 meter XLR cables as backups for channels, and I've definitely had to use them a good few times. Speaking of connector robustness, standard ethernet cables are robust enough for many datacenters and large businesses, they're most likely also robust enough for your router on-site. The most likely instance for your cable to go bad is during transport. It's not going to magically shatter mid-event if you stare at it wrong, it's protected within the cable box/doghouse at the back of the mixer. For backing up stageboxes, it's pointless for the most part. Stageboxes are a hell of a lot more simple than the mixing boards, which instead of being "little computers" are often actually full-on computers. Take Digico for example, they have a custom software running over full-on Microsoft Windows. Allen and Heath I-Live series were so, so unreliable purely because of the fact that they ran their software over a full version of Ubuntu Linux. A digital console is always much more of a failure point than a stage box. For 32ch desks, manufacturers often offer a choice of digital stagebox sizes. For example, with X32 and M32, you can buy the DL32/S32, which are 32ch digital stageboxes. If you want 16ch boxes, then buy DL16/S16. A UPS is also unnecessary, since if you lose power enough to kill a stagebox or desk, your amps are already long gone. No point in sweating that the stageboxes are still running when the speakers can't make noise. The most you'd need is a basic power conditioner. I don't know if you're aware how the daisy-chaining method works in terms of the science behind it, but I can assure you there's no need to put a switch there. The daisy-chained units aren't being processed by others, they simply relay the signal. The addition of the switch will add more latency than just daisy-chaining them the way the manufacturers designed them to be used. A rack shouldn't be an issue at all. Many "high end" analog stageboxes are in fact rack mounted, the more basic models are just a box on the end of the cable. Either way, if you really can't cough up the cash for a small budget rack, just use spare rack units in an amprack if you have them. If for some reason you really, really need to have your crossover at the FOH instead of setting it up beforehand or just running subs on aux sends, the majority of consoles can repatch channels to individual connectors of their local I/O. No need to run cable all the way back up and down. Crucially, you can send the output of the processor/crossover back into the desk and into dedicated outputs on the stagebox. Patching I/O works both ways around. Regardless, if you're at a show large enough that you absolutely have to be able to re-set the crossover during a show, and for some reason can't use aux sends, there's most likely a dedicated systems technician on hand. I'm also not sure why you "can't set delays at the stage". Most modern desks have the ability to be controlled remotely, so your aux sends for delay units can be set up directly from your phone, tablet or laptop. The same goes for the vast majority of modern DSP processors and crossovers, they're able to interface with a phone or laptop so you can walk around the entire venue and tune as you go. Comms is a whole other can of worms I'm not about to open in this comment. Bottom line: For community festivals and the majority of shows many of your subscribers (and you yourself) would be doing, Coachella levels of redundancy are unnecessary (even though the most important redundancy has been completely ignored: the console!!!!!! weakest link in most digital setups) It's no secret that analog has its benefits, which is why I still stock analog gear and use it for small shows. That said, the end result of a good digital setup is superior in so many ways that it makes no sense to do it any other way for the vast majority of shows now.

I cannot agree to your vid, although I love your content all the time. But this vid seems more like a statement "I do not like digital" than a real objective discussion about analogue / digital. 1. You overcomplicated the digital setup with the xover outboard - all digital consoles I know have the opportunity to do this with matrixes - no need for an xover outboard 2. You do not necessarily need a switch to avoid latencies (as mentioned already from somebody else here in the comments). This is in nowadays no real problem 3. You ignore that you can have a very lean digital setup and manage a huge channel count with it - especially talking about festivals with maybe several bands, 32 inputs are nothing. With a digital setup and the currently available consoles you can handle 48 - 64 input channels without any problem - for this channel count you would need huge analogue consoles at an unbelievable price range - and with huge footprint 4. Talking about 48 input channels and more - you would need an outboard for effects that would need a whole minivan to be transported 5. You do not mention that with an analogue stagebox with 32 channels you need subcores (snakes) on the stage. Additional cabeling etc. With the digital stageboxes you can have stage boxes with 8 or 16 inputs and place them directly there where you need them on the stage - and not all together in a rack. Meaning you have no need for additional subsnakes on the stage. 6. Talking about backup - you have to consider that you also need a backup for your console - talking here about 46 - 60 input channels this is going to be very expensive 7. The solution analogue snake + digital console is going to fade out cause more and more digital consoles do not have enough physical input channels any more So my point is: 1. You do not need the "extra" backup stagebox - you can use this wisely and increase your channel count - and safe additional subsnakes on the stage 2. You do not need the complicated solution concerning xover outboard 3. You might need a switch - depends on your setup, but not with all solutions 4. Latency is absolutely no big issue in nowadays digital networks (like Dante) 5. You definitely need a backup for the tactical cable from the FOH to the stage

Disappointing. Have always enjoyed your videos. This one I actually stopped at 12:57 mark. Couldn’t take the negativity anymore against digital snakes. Most that watch your videos I am sure could use a digital snake to its advantage and are not running sound for a big event. Spare (you forgot to mention “shielded” CAt5e) cable(s) a must. If running sound at this level you would have a digital monitor board along with FOH which will give you options if something failed to run from one board with an iPAD remotely. If a digital snake failed you can use the monitor board as your connection for the analog inputs and outputs. Network switches and crossover out front over kill for your you tube audience. Looking forward to your next video being positive with great information again.

Many good points. Using Powersoft or Labgruppen amps with internal processors has become essential for what we do. Control from a laptop at FOH. Total digital now. I have a beautiful 40 x 8 split analog snake for sale!

I have considerable experience with all strata of digital audio as a provider and your video has many points that are just wrong. There are no processors in digital stage boxes, hopefully just D to A converters and some form of FPGAs, so no need for UPS. Use a UPS on your console. The stage boxes if properly designed do not create enough latency to cause more than .02 ms of delay barely noticeable. Lake controller solves your crossover dilema. Digi

I see where you're coming from. What I do is, I use my digital mixing console with an analog 32/8 snake. So I have the benefit of using less outboard for effects etc. but still the flexibility for drive racks and delays and so on....

Thank you so much. For sharing your knowlege

A great video, and quite frankly it defines why I haven't gone fully digital. I only really do smaller events and have both digital (PreSonus 16.4.2) and analogue (Allen & Heath GL-2400/32) boards. I select the board to use depending on what I'm doing and the amount of space I have; I frequently don't have the space for outboard as some of the venues I'm in are "cosy" to say the least. In that case I use my digital board, which does not have support for digital snakes anyway, but does have most of the features I would use my outboard for. I have looked into going fully digital, but having taken into account things like latency and cost; it's a solution to a problem I currently don't have. I think I'll be using analogue snakes for many years to come. I'm by no means anti-digital; I just don't have the need to go fully digital right now. Comparing how we work, there is one small difference in the way I do things; I place my speaker manager in my amp rack at the stage. As I also offer basic lighting services and projection, I run ArtNET for control, so use the same ethernet link to give remote access to the speaker manager to control it from FOH.

This is ridiculous. ...All that can be done by adding fx to a matrix out or send

Thank you so much for this wonderful information!!!👍🏻👌🏻

Although everything here is theoretically correct, I have to say that I disagree with most of it. I've been watching a lot of your videos for fun. And everytime I have been thinking "Why don't they just get a digital stagebox and a cat cable" It would be so much easier. I do around 100 shows here in Denmark each year, and for the last 15 years I have been running just a digital console (LS9 and now a QL5), 2 x 16/8 boxes and a single ethernet with power strapped to it. Never had a failure. No switch, no UPS, no extra ethernet (although I do carry a spare in my van). All crossover is done in amps. Fills, delays etc are done in the desk via matrix outs. A digital setup does cost more. But ohhh... The advantages. Not lugging around a big analog cable, total recall on everything in the desk, and standing right next to musicians with an ipad on stage and mixing their monitor wedges during soundcheck. Wouldn't trade it for the world. Most desks today stay below 0,5 ms of delay. I run inearmonitors for most of my bands and everybody are as happy as they can be. We regularly jump right into a festival show with only a 2 min linecheck.

Your Scenario is Based on running monitors from FOH, but if you run monitor world then you would patch both consoles together with a single Cat5 Cable, and if you want to run x-over at FOH then you would need to run 2 Cat5 cables, then you would need 2 xls-rj45 converter.

Good explanation for those who didn't know. I had to go through this when I converted my entire system to Dante last year. The conversion made sense for me since I have separate monitor and FOH mixers. The cost of the stageboxes and the networking devices was only slightly more than a splitter snake. I've never used AVB, but from your description, it appears to be a little less flexible compared to Dante. For instance, the AVIOs could ride the same infrastructure as the rest of the equipment instead of needing their own network runs. Also, I could have connected the crossover by looping through a pair of Omni ins and outs on the console. One thing is for sure: I don't miss carrying racks of analog gear.

You have a point there! Nice explanation! But one thing With the presonus eco system, you can use the 32R rackmount mixer as a stage box/monitor mixer. If ur FOH desk die’s mid show no problem, You can run the show from the stage box. If i was gonna go 100% digital i think i would go with the 32r instead of the stage boxes..

Interesting video. I understand where you are coming from on this. I honestly prefer sageboxes and multiple Cat5e lines to the stage. I can run 2 ethernet and 2 fiber lines with my console. If a line fails the audio keeps happening because I still have a 3 other lines plugged in.. It is amazing all the flexibility that can be done now days. I still would rather have 5-12 ethernet lines running from FOH to the stage, but that's me. One other thing is that some consoles only have 8 local inputs and 8 outputs. Keep doing what you are doing.

09:40, i have an addition to make here, certain digital console can offer the way of using an Matrix as an Crossover, Like the Behringer / Midas X32/M32. so in a digital setup, its not neccasarly that you will need an outboard crossover if this is the case

Great video!

Behringer x32 and s32 is all you need. You can crossover and delay internally on the x32 with 8 outputs. Main L&R, monto Corduroy sub setup, front fills and back of house side fill speaker with delay.

Video is a little dated and some things have changed. Consoles now include delays in them for delay towers, so running delay towers from the FOH is simple using the 2nd AES50 output from the console to your towers. The consoles include phase inversion and delay for your carotid subs if desired, or use a speaker management system such as the Meyer Sound Gallieo 616 speaker management system, which is remotely operated over the network, so yes can be fully tuned from FOH, even though the box is in the monitor rack off stage. Adjusting the console and speaker management with a tablet while walking the venue is both possible as well as normal.

Good job buddy

A very Nice Video You can Make how all Your Pa System IS tuned

Im sorry guys but I’m completely agree with this presentation, now let me tell you why, if you have a fixed location where your system is going to be forever placed maybe is a good choice for you, but for us the mobile sound providers that requires to move constantly from one location to another then I can guarantee you analog is best, also the latency is real with the digital stuff, I’ve seen it myself, and the amount of gear that you need is crazy, in the other hand the analog is just plug and play and no latency at all, also if you go digital you really have to make sure you buy good gear and I mean expensive and reliable, now what I’m saying is that I’m not against digital, I think is good and beautiful but it’s just the fact that for me the cleaner the better, at least for me and my long experience since 2005 . My last statement for you guys out there ( Old ways are still best ) ❤

We have a full blown Behringer X-32 console at our church,connected to an X-32 rack mixer at the stage. The two are connected using Cat 6 STP cable. Much cheaper than ethercon cables and just as effective since nothing ever gets disconnected. We have some microphones connected to the main console through a 24 channel snake that was in place with our analog system. Other microphones and all monitor outputs are connected to the. X-32 rack. The monitor outs consist of floor wedges for the choir, a hot spot for the pianist, and in ear for the soloists. Latency has never been an issue. We could have used a digital stage box just as easily, but we had the X-32 rack.

Cool.

Cool

Great video sir,thank you so much for explaining 👍

nice 🙏🏻

Great video thanks. Watched a few times recently. Quick question. Is there a reason why you would convert from XLR to RJ45 and back, between the FOH X-over and the AVB switch at stage? Could you not just run an XLR between the two and save the cost and added failure point steps in running through two conversions? Thanks in advance.

So on normal shows you run two analogue snakes, one as a backup? A ethercon cat 5 cable is just as susceptible as a snake for cable failure. Nothing wrong with analogue. Some points are very valid but in my opinion you are reaching on a lot of “problems” with digital. You won’t have latency by daisy chaining once between two snakes because the third snake is a backup anyway so it wouldn’t be in use. Any of the DBX driverack series all can be controlled over WiFi. How in the world does an UPS help if your speakers aren’t on a UPS??? Is everything on the stage running on a UPS?

what is your experience using cat6 to xlr converters. I have seen some that let you run 4 xlr per cat 6 cable. kind of expensive but may have its applications.

Sounds like someone trying to defend sticking with their analog setup haha... there's pros and cons on both approaches and this video gives a bit of an understanding although it sounds pretty biased.

To be fair to digital, there are lots of solutions to some of the "problems" you've mentioned. As far as the location of your system processor, if you leave it by your amp racks, any good processor will let you remote in with a tablet for control. If you still want it at FOH, most digital consoles will let you use tie lines between local I/o and stage I/o without using up any processing on the console. It's basically just a pass through. so there's a great way to get your outputs out your drive rack to your amp racks. As far as latency is concerned, I don't think there's any digital console on the market right now that are too latent for IEM's. As long as you're under 6ms, most musicians won't be able to detect it. The only issue can come when you start adding plugin servers, where you can end up adding a bunch of latency.

OR, put a router in your Stagebox rack to connect you Driverack to and control it from your computer/iPad at FOH

So how many channels can a single cat 5/6/7 cable carry? Can you send 64 channels over a single cat 7 if you have the right equiptment? Of course you would want redundancy’s but if you had the equipment can it be done or is their a limit so you would have to run 2 or 3 cat 5/6/7 cables to get 60-80 channels? From the stage to the console. Also if you running monitors from your board to the stage how many channels of monitors can you run? Some bands have 16-20 stage monitors plus side fills can you send all that audio over a single cable and separate it when it get to the stage box and then run 16 monitor cables outta the stage box to the speakers?

I think some clarification is necessary. Particularly about the cable. It is perfectly fine to use a traditional Cat5e/6 cable for a digital setup, especially one that is more of a mobile rig that gets setup and moved frequently. Simply because that cable to considerably cheaper than the Ethercon version. I am not bashing Ethercon, but those cables are NOT cheap. A 100 foot Ethercon cable is about $200. A 100' standard Ethernet cable is about $12. for permanent installations, and setups where shielding is necessary, absolutely go with Ethercon, otherwise, for temporary, or very short runs, an ethernet cable will suffice. A digital snake versus an analog snake, is still a cable and stage box.

I thinking to have small pa-system for new/starting band's to rent, is it better have analog system or digital?

It's like wearing 3 condoms..no one gets pregnant but you can't feel anything either. What is the band going to do when the power and lights are out. I have this same board and the nsb 16.8... it reboots in 15 seconds and back to where it was when the power went out. I use the 16.8 and a ethercon cable.. gives me 16 sends and 5 returns with l and r and a sub group group for the bass bins. I have a 12 x 4 analogue snake for full drums and 4 more returns.. its not Woodstock but I have never needed more. You mention latency... the latency on the presonus is almost not perceptible on avb.. Also digital snake means no interference and no crosstalk from induction.I have never had any issue with the avb stage box with noise or rtd delay latency . It is one of the selling features of the presonus digital platform.

YOU CAN SETUP CROSSOVER IN THE BOARD IN A MATRIX MIX WITH DELAY CONTROL .

While this is a good explanation. What about Dante or other ways????

I watched the video to learn how to use digital cat 5e,, now im scared to go digital

yeah, i'd rather pull the snake :)

So basically, if you already have a bunch of analog snakes and don’t want to spend the extra money to change over what you’re used to using and already have, don’t bother with going full digital . If you’re just starting out, the cat 6 is cheaper than paying for all that copper... got it.

You makes this video a years ago. All the most important speaker manufacturers have their own tuning systems, and from about ten years ago. All of this work remotely with other ethernet cable. Also dbx dsp speaker processor can have remote control, wirelss too. Also beh 2496 dsp have remote controll... What your talking about? Are you serius?

I really disagree with this video.. latency has never been an issue for m.. I have only used the XR18 series of mixer's .. don't need crossovers and stuff like that..

When you sing in front of a wedge monitor this is about 2 meter in front of you, this is about 6ms. In large venue there are side system on the stage... 10 meters, 30ms. Behringer x32, from input to output via stage box: 1.2ms (about 35cm) Goodbye...

Of course you are going to need a backup for everything when you buy presonus products...

Ridiculous

I guess every data center in the world is at risk because they're not using ethercon? I have no problem with using ethercon, but it's actually a handicap. If you by chance break the connector, which typically means that you broke off the locking piece, The cable can still be used and further secured with gaffers tape in a pinch. Better yet, ethernet is so inexpensive that you should just carry a spare or two depending on the mission critical nature of your event. Try finding an ethercon cable in your local Walmart. Seems like you really don't understand how AVB networking is used. You can send data from any device to another AVB compatible device. Where's your comparable analog solution with fail over on every node? This video was made by a dinosaur that has no idea about technology.

He jus made a list of 1.5 million $$$ ingear to connect a system that does not to be this complicated, is not like cows and horses will be running by the mixer, I always send my cat5 cable on top of the mixer above all the action, if possible on the roof never had any problems my cables basically land on my mixer, I get it we have excess and we love to exagerate everything, thats why we live this world of self made inflation, people goes crazy hiking up prices for no reason at all, this why gear is so freaking expensive