FOH Equipment Location, Talkback Mic

In my continuing quest to convert my church to a SAC system, I have a question regarding equipment location. Our stage has built-in floor pockets with XLR jacks terminating at a single location backstage. I'm assuming THAT is the place I should put the SAC rig and interfaces, since that is also the rack where all the amps are located. I could also put a router back there, which would give me wireless networking for the musician monitor computers, and a CAT 5 cable to the FOH location for a hard-wired remote computer. So far so good. How though, can I get a talkback microphone at FOH, along with a headphone feed for the solo buttons? Do I need to figure out a way to mount another interface in that location, and run its cables all the way to the backstage area? I could, I guess, get two wireless systems; is there a simpler approach I'm missing? Thank you for your thoughts.

John Francis
Rolla, MO

It will all depend on what interface options you choose. If you go AVB or Dante, you can route audio over the same ethernet cable you run to front of house. If you don't go digital on the audio stream then you'll have to run another wireless setup or multiple xlr feeds (4-6 inputs/outputs) to your front of house location.

As I have written about in prior posts running AVB/Dante is going to be a much better longterm solution as it will give you way more flexibility down the road.

Note: DO NOT RUN CAT 5!!!

Cat 5 is only rated for 100base-t. When you are building infrastructure always build for the future. Pull Cat7 cable. It supports 10Gig speeds and is shielded. The cost difference is pennies when compared to the installation cost and future-proofing of the building. Also... pull two runs not one so you have a working spare.

Install at least two CAT cables from backstage to FoH.
As mentioned before, you can use digital audio over the CAT, or use XLR - CAT adapters (for example https://www.cat-core.de/en) to route audio signals.
With a system with ADAT I/Os, you can use https://appsys.ch/en/products/extenders/adx-16 to connect your FOH gear via CAT.

Thank you, Tommy and Phillip, for your replies. Good call Phillip, on the Cat 7. I didn't know it existed! And thank you, Tommy for the links to the Toslink and Cat extenders. I also didn't know THOSE existed!