Hi Terry,
Terry Smith wrote in a message to T Owen:
 TO> I prefer the BSS active splitters, myself. Of course 24 channels of that
 TO> sort of thing doesn't come cheap. The transformers aren't ideal, but
TS> That's enough in my book to wonder why not go one step further and
 TS> switch to preamps on stage and fiber optic snakes.
Another piece of gear on stage to troubleshoot, at the moment. I worked for a 
guy who did sound at fairly large shows,
and he ran his snake to some kind of nonstandard multipin connector, which 
then plugged into the harness on the back of his console. When the thing went 
down, we just couldn't go out and grab a replacement as this thing was 
reeeealy nonstandard.
 TO>  Now that would be expensive! It is also an unnecessary A to D 
onversion
 TO>  and back again. This is not ideal, unless you are running a digital
 TO>  console, or very long signal runs, where you are less likely to notice
This is true, also.
TS> You could easily MUX 5,000 channels of 32 bit conversion at
TS> 100,000 bps sampling onto a single fiber, and run the signal
TS> 50 feet or 5,000 miles with infinite splits, adds, and
TS> drops, with no ground loops or degradation.  (Thinking of
TS> telco SONET OC-48 standards as to fiber utilization).  The
TS> fiber would be just a little less work to handle than all
TS> buy the skinniest snakes.   
 Would be nice.  Right now, though, I  don't think enough of us understand it 
well enough to troubleshoot it.
TS> Given the costs of digital gear as they're dropping, a basic
TS> fiber snake should soon be cheaper than a quality analog one
TS> with splitters.  Looking at some of the digital mixers
TS> starting to drop in price, manipulating signals as digital
TS> from transducer to power amp should soon be practical.  For
TS> now, that level of digitization would have less artifacts
TS> than a couple hundred feet of twisted pair at mic level.  
Yes, but the cost isn't down there yet.
Tis nice to dream, ain't it, eh?
See yuh.
Richard Webb, KB0RUU
--- timEd-B9
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