I work in a venue that has a C2500 and a CDM32 with Dante card. The CDM32 is installed in a fixed rack in the booth.
The venue has a Dante network and I was wondering what the best way to add second stagebox via Dante would be? There are, on occasion, events that require more inputs than there are currently run (via analog) to the stage area. I figure having a second stagebox that can be moved around is the best solution.
The trouble is I can’t seem to find any documentation about using two CDM racks with one surface on the same network. Is this possible? Is there anything I need to do special to make this work?
It also seems like a pricey option. I’m wondering if there isn’t a cheaper solution to my problem?
I’ll throw out there that due to the facility and the distance required, having a direct connection from where the surface/stagebox are installed to the stage area is not feasible (>100m) though there is fiber installed in the facility that I could look into.
Having the CDM in the booth is not very smart. It should be on stage where the inputs are. Running copper snakes to the booth makes no sense.
But, I imagine you aren’t able to change that (but you should).
What is the cable run for CAT5/6 from the booth to stage? Is it a LOT more than 100m? If not, you might be ok with an A&H stage box connected via Cat5 to the CDM. I would suggest installing some DX164-w boxes, but they aren’t available yet. You could use the DX168 in the meantime.
It’d be cheaper than Dante Preamp boxes. Dante is even more sensitive to cable lengths than GigaAce, btw.
The venue is a basketball arena where the booth is on a different level and and on the complete opposite side from the stage. Even if I could run a cable myself, the path I would need to take is well over 100m. I could rant for days about how silly the install is, but that’s not why I’m here.
This is an enterprise network so the cat6 run from booth to stage is complicated, but it is through conduit and lands in a network closet adjacent to the booth.
My issue is that I need ~20 lines (currently) to stage where I currently only have 12 lines of copper.
I couldn’t tell you have the Dante is run. Like I said, it’s an enterprise level network and goes way above my head but I know it works.
The fiber I mentioned in my original post is just a simple Multimode fiber patch. I’ll look into a DX stagebox over fiber, I didn’t know that was a thing that may be done.
And I’m aware of other dante options. I was just curious what solutions existed in the A&H environment since it is all very new to me. I’m coming form Midas and AES50.
DX over fiber (sorry, not GigaAce - that’s for a surface connection) would be a pair of Layer 2 switches with Fiber between them. The connection at the CDM and DX box would be Cat5/6.
if you are sure that you could make a fiber connection from the booth to the stage, you could also buy a pair of gigabit mediaconverters (tp-link’s works great and aren’t that expensive) and use them to put your CDM32 at the stage. works like a charm.
i have tried using dedicated Vlans for the GigaACE but no luck there, theoretically it should be possible. but it’s not recommended because it seems to rely mostly on luck… however, the mediaconverters are plug and play. at least the were for me.
and off course you could also run a DX box over those media converters if you’d like.
I would go for the fibre via a pair of media converters it works great.
I use two pairs of the exact TP-Link converters to handle my GigAce link between rack and stage. Off the top of my head they were about £50 each converter, 4 Neutrik opticalcons and some patch leads. Job done.