CAT5 splitter?

[ayryq]

Hi, I'm hoping the collective wisdom will help me find something I'm looking for: a 1:1 CAT5 "Wye" or splitter or distributer.

I have audio distributed in my house via CAT5 (and sometimes CAT6) using AV "Baluns" at each end. These Baluns are expensive and I need two for each connection. I have a audio splitter in the basement that divides the audio to these baluns, one for each destination.

However it occurred to me today that I really only need one balun at the source, if I can find a way to divide the signal among the CAT5 cables after the balun. So what I need is a CAT5 splitter. However I'm having trouble figuring out if these exist.

To be clear, this is NOT an ethernet connection, it's something else, using 8-conductor twisted-pair wiring.

The little phone-splitter-like plastic thingys seem to mostly divide up the pins, four to each side of the wye. I don't think a switch would work, and I'm not sure about a hub. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!
Eric

[Stoic Joker]

Like so?

http://www.walmart.c...Light-Beige/28883669
or
http://www.newegg.co...30R1HP5233-_-Product

[ayryq]

"parallel" is the key word I was looking for, I guess. I was confused by conflicting reviews of e.g. this product which has the typical problem of amazon combining reviews of many products, or this one which has a pinout explicitly not what I want.

I guess cheap is what I need!

[Shades]

Aren't you gaining a lot of interference this way?

Because any wire that carries an electric signal will act as a antenna. And the internal wires of a cat 5 cable are pretty densely twisted...which is done on purpose, as there are only 4 wires that carry signals while the other 4 act as "dummies", catching as much external interference as possible, so the signal carrying wires have a better chance of getting their signals through.

[ayryq]

Aren't you gaining a lot of interference this way?

-Shades (December 03, 2015, 05:58 PM)

I'm not sure how a couple inches of "untwisted pair" is going to introduce that much interference. I guess I am worried about having that much less "amplitude" by dividing the signal into two runs, which in turn may worsen SNR.

For the price I guess I can try it!

[Ath]

Well, IMHO it works a bit differently on the twisted pair side:
Each wire-pair has the 'standard' signal on one wire (+), and the same signal inverted on the other wire (-), effectively resolving into reverse fields generated, resulting into no (0) transmission by the wire-pair.
Google Images over here, that probably explains it better

Well, that's the (theoretical) story using my slim translation skills

[Stoic Joker]

Because any wire that carries an electric signal will act as a antenna. And the internal wires of a cat 5 cable are pretty densely twisted...which is done on purpose, as there are only 4 wires that carry signals while the other 4 act as "dummies", catching as much external interference as possible, so the signal carrying wires have a better chance of getting their signals through.

-Shades (December 03, 2015, 05:58 PM)

At the risk of sounding pedantic ... For 10/100 yes, but Gigabit uses all 8 conductors. So if someone wanted to use the other type of Cat5 splitter to run 2 lines over one cable - that can be handy in a pinch - they need to know that their Gb hardware will drop to 100Mb because of the no longer extra 2 pairs being used by the other run.

[Shades]

If we are pedantic...

1000Base-T uses indeed all 8 wires in CAT-5, CAT-5e, CAT-6 and CAT-7 types of cable.
1000Base-TX again uses only 4 wires of CAT-6 type cable.

That is according to the defined standards of the IEEE (1000BASE-T) and the Telecommunications Industry Association (1000BASE-TX). Word to the wise, reading the IEEE pdf from the first link will make you know much more than you ever wanted to about UTP cables...

If that isn't already confusing enough...marketing departments deemed it wise to add TX to the names from (some of) their NICs, while those only support the 1000Base-T standard.

[Stoic Joker]

1000Base-T uses indeed all 8 wires in CAT-5, CAT-5e, CAT-6 and CAT-7 types of cable.
1000Base-TX again uses only 4 wires of CAT-6 type cable.

-Shades (December 04, 2015, 07:30 AM)

Interesting, I've apparently either never noticed...or never run into that particular detail before. However I get the impression it never really caught on as they say. So it's probably safer to (perhaps erroneously) assume the 4 pair Base-T requirement, as the chances of 2 of them playing well stuffed into the same cable don't strike me as being real high.