The Cloud technical department is often asked “what is the maximum cable lengths I can use with your products?”, so on a stupidly hot sunny day in June 2017 the R&D department decided it was time to find out for sure.
Unravelling five three hundred metre drums, (yes that is 1.5km of Cat5 cable around the factory), at Cloud HQ in Sheffield, Josh & Dan tested audio signal and function performance of numerous products and accessory combinations with some very interesting results.
Most notably the LM-2 line/mic/remote mixer wall plate accessory functions with full audio and control signals at 1km without losing any audio signal quality or without any loss of control functions.
The new BT1- Bluetooth wall plate was found to work soundly with full functionality at distances up to 935 metres. This means a remote BT-1 Bluetooth Wall Plate can be hardwired and located almost 1km from the host unit it is hardwired to, which makes for some real flexibility in terms of system design.
The technical team also discovered the Cloud PM-8 Paging microphone console functions completely normally at up to 600m from the host unit without the use of an additional power supply, drawing power from the host unit.
All of the test figures and cable length recommendations have been updated in a new technical note which can be found here.