Audio wiring with punchdown.

[eadler]

We use Krone blocks for our studios with Wheatstone D- and Gen- consoles. Each studio has punch blocks behind a flip down piece of the desk with trunks run to punch blocks in the rack room. I don't recall the part #s of the wire used for the original install, but when I've added things (such as for our HDRadio upgrade with new processing and STL), I've used CAT-5e and a bunch of heatshrink (basically making a mini snake fan-out for the equipment) and punched them in series on the router in/outputs. Works great. (Note: I do not run audio 'both directions' on a single cat5e). We also run audio from our radio stations to our TV system in a different part of the building. I needed to mirror these runs for a test system, was easy to build 4x XLR > RJ45 and RJ45 > 4x XLR and run outputs of the DAs existing in the radio racks through one of my spare cat5e runs between the rooms to get to the TV equipment; I later used this same setup to get AES audio to my desk (simply patched the RJ45 from TV master, where the network patch bays all are, to the spare port above my desk, put the XLR cable there).

[davek]

We have kicking around our facility some diecast metal boxes with a RJ45 socket on the side and 4 XLR (2 male 2 female) connectors on top. They would have been made almost 10 years ago now and are absolutely indespensible! If I remember to I'll snap a photo and share...

[MHVoris]

I am very pleased with 66 blocks, especially bridging audio. I have made patches using the bridge clips and that works well

[NECRAT]

The nice thing about using the 66 blocks is the ease in troubleshooting. You can clip onto any of the connections to test for audio.

--Mike

[Shane]

True, however you can do that with Krone blocks, too, if you have one of their patch cords that's terminated with the special banana plugs. Those plugs are also jacks so with two of them you can configure a patch that retains the normal bridge or doesn't on either end or both.

Have to admit I didn't think too much of the Krone blocks at first but now we keep one of those banana plug patch cords with a Radio Shack speaker amp connected to it and whenever you need to check something you just plug in. We also have a little gadget that plugs in and gives you a couple of big ears to clip onto while not breaking the normal. Come to think of it, we keep the amp clipped to that and have it parked in an unconnected spot so it's always handy.

[MHVoris]

True, however you can do that with Krone blocks, too, if you have one of their patch cords that's terminated with the special banana plugs. Those plugs are also jacks so with two of them you can configure a patch that retains the normal bridge or doesn't on either end or both.

Have to admit I didn't think too much of the Krone blocks at first but now we keep one of those banana plug patch cords with a Radio Shack speaker amp connected to it and whenever you need to check something you just plug in. We also have a little gadget that plugs in and gives you a couple of big ears to clip onto while not breaking the normal. Come to think of it, we keep the amp clipped to that and have it parked in an unconnected spot so it's always handy.

I had always heard that you can't bridge wires on the Krone blocks like you can on the 66 blocks, is this true?

[Muadeeb]

They will support a single double punch with 22 guage wire. I've done a triple with Cat-V, but do it at your own risk. I've actually got several double punches on Krone blocks where my router has it's logic terminated (one 5V pin has to support two channels)