Cabling for Audio Networks: How to Save Time, Money and Trouble by Forgetting What You Know

If you’re getting ready to jump into AoIP networking – whether it’s building a whole new physical plant, retrofitting existing studios or constructing a distribution network for otherwise analog facilities – there is one thing you can do to simplify your life immensely: forget what you know about wiring an analog facility.

Many engineers, when they first begin planning a networked installation, still think in Analog mode. What I mean is, they develop the wiring plan for their IP-networked plant while still thinking in terms of discrete audio pairs, home runs, and centralized switching. We’ve actually seen new studios, with IP-Audio routing, wired the old-fashioned way – using punch blocks and shielded-pair cable to feed signals to a central core switch.

This actually negates one of networking’s biggest advantages: the de-centralization of audio routing. In the old days, the “big iron” resided in your TOC. If you wanted to send audio from one studio to another, you had to run cables from the local studio to the rack room, where it was switched back along another set of cables to the place you wanted it to be.

But with AoIP audio, the network is the router. That is, the data routing capabilities built into the network’s Ethernet switches take the place of the centralized routing switcher. Instead of sending audio back to a central core, adapters that convert audio signals to Ethernet data are placed at the edges of the network, close to the devices that supply that audio. The network is then configured in a star-of-stars or ring topology, or uses Spanning Tree Protocol to ensure complete audio data redundancy.

As a result, you can eliminate somewhere around two-thirds of the cost that discrete cabling added to your build, replacing all that multi-pair with CAT-5 and CAT-6 runs. A single 100Base-T link can carry as much audio as a 100-pair cable – accompanied by machine control logic as well.

So, by forgetting some of those analog habits, you save time and money in installation, eliminate the tedium of circuit documentation, and kiss goodbye the rat's nest of barrier strips and punch blocks in your comm room. And those are some memories we can all feel good about losing.

Telos Alliance has led the audio industry’s innovation in Broadcast Audio, Digital Mixing & Mastering, Audio Processors & Compression, Broadcast Mixing Consoles, Audio Interfaces, AoIP & VoIP for over three decades. The Telos Alliance family of products include Telos® Systems, Omnia® Audio, Axia® Audio, Linear Acoustic®, 25-Seven® Systems, Minnetonka™ Audio and Jünger Audio. Covering all ranges of Audio Applications for Radio & Television from Telos Infinity IP Intercom Systems, Jünger Audio AIXpressor Audio Processor, Omnia 11 Radio Processors, Axia Networked Quasar Broadcast Mixing Consoles and Linear Acoustic AMS Audio Quality Loudness Monitoring and 25-Seven TVC-15 Watermark Analyzer & Monitor. Telos Alliance offers audio solutions for any and every Radio, Television, Live Events, Podcast & Live Streaming Studio With Telos Alliance “Broadcast Without Limits.”