![]() ![]() In fact, the ease of coiling and using the Lite cable make it an affordable, attractive choice in all but the most interference-prone applications. I had no issues with the cabling and with the rise of demand for quality Cat-5/5e/6/7 to move data at venues and portable events, either the Entertainment or Lite grades can fit the bill. The components are a bit pricey, but the build is solid and they deliver exactly what they promise. It offers a variety of peripherals that are versatile enough to meet a lot of production requirements. Pricing for the Entertainment Grade ranges from $123 (50-foot) to $846 (330 foot) the Lite versions range from $62 (25-foot) to $531 (330-foot) all have Neutrik etherCON plugs (unterminated and custom lengths are also available) and longer cables are supplied on cable drums. With its smaller diameter and polyurethane jacket, it feels and coils more like a standard pro mic cable. The “Lite” cable is a 9-wire S/UTP design having four twisted oxygen-free copper pairs surrounded by a braid shield. ![]() Both are SuperCAT products, one is the “SuperCAT Sound” (Entertainment Grade) the other is “SuperCAT Lite.” All use high-quality 26 AWG cable with Neutrik etherCON terminations, but the Entertainment version - is a U/FTP design, comprised of 12-conductor cable with four twisted pairs each having individual shield drain wires - that exceeds Cat-7 specs and is intended more for touring and rigorous portable use. ![]() To accompany the CAT Series, RatSound also debuts a line of high quality Cat-5 cabling. SuperCAT cables are offered in “Entertainment” and “Lite” grades long cable runs are delivered on a cable spool. Rear parallel RJ-45 connections allow daisy-chaining/multing units and the CAT Rack ships with reversible rack ears, so either the XLR or RJ-45 connections can face forward. Custom configurations are also available. The big kahuna in the line is the CAT Rack ($250), a single-rackspace that puts the equivalent of three CAT Box units into a single enclosure with 12 XLR inputs or outputs, fed by three separate Ethercon cables on the rear side. Installation is easy - once the Cat-5 line is in and RJ-45 terminated, the line merely plugs into one of the two jacks (input and parallel, if needed) on the rear of the plate. Fortunately, I had some unused stick-on rubber feet that came with some rack item and those did the trick.ĭesigned for installations, the SoundTools WallCAT ($50) puts four XLR’s (male or female) onto a wall plate that fits a USA standard 4×4 electrical junction box. One thing about the CAT Box that I didn’t like was its lack of feet or a rubber under/side pad to prevent it from sliding around and/or scratching the stage floor. The CAT Box can also be used on its side, so the XLR cables lay flat for a clean look and to reduce tripping hazards. I didn’t encounter any applications where I needed to use it, but it is nice that it’s there. One CAT Box function not often found on most snakes is a small - thankfully recessed - switch for ground lift. It basically looks like a mini-stage box (and certainly could be used as such). In versions with four XLR terminations (male or female), the CAT Tails are $150 each.Īlso available are the SoundTools CAT Box stage boxes ($120/each), which use a rugged aluminum housing with RJ-45 jacks at either end (for in/out and parallel cable connections) and four male or female XLR jacks. The simplest iteration of the CAT Family system would be a single etherCON cable, two CAT Tails (one for each end of the “snake”) that are Cat-5/etherCON breakouts with a female RJ-45 receptacle that fans out to four 24-inch XLR cables. The WallCAT offers a simple installation solution. The wire has to be good quality - Rat Sound uses 26 AWG copper with quality shielding. The “secret” is the system requires a shielded interconnect cable that meets Cat-5e specs (or better). It’s essentially a straight-wire connection. The system is entirely passive - there are no electronics, buffers or amplifiers along the way. There are some limitations here - using the SoundTools CAT Family peripherals, a single Cat-5 cable can only carry four channels of balanced analog audio (including phantom power), or four AES stereo pairs, four com lines for 3-pin XLR-based (Clear-Com style) intercom lines or four (5-pin) DMX data streams. ![]() Although the products are based on Cat-5 cabling, this is not a routing or snaking system for moving/distributing Ethernet data, but rather using high-quality, shielded Cat-5/5e/6/7 lines in lieu of traditional audio snake cables. The latest addition to the SoundTools series is the CAT Family, a variety of snake items for use with shielded Cat-5/5e/6/7 lines, as well as two families of Cat-5e cables with Neutrik etherCON terminations. The CAT Rack puts 12 XLRs in a convenient rack package. ![]()
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