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Tau: The Tau cable and connector

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written by: bhinton

Fantastic, that's a big relief. Thanks so much for the fast response, John (and Geert for the link).

written by: bhinton

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 05:01:41 +0100 BST

bhphoto just sent a notice that my order for a backup Tau cable has been cancelled as they will no longer be carrying them.

One of the reasons I hesitated to jump into the expensive eigenwaters was the idea that I might be caught on tour or before a show with a broken cable or other part that is proprietary. Now jump I did, happily so, but already I'm nervous about an upcoming show. Yes, I'm going to order the cable direct from Eigenlabs, but it may not get here on time - and what about the future? What if Eigenlabs, God forbid, goes away?

So my questions:
1. Is the connector on the Tau cable proprietary, or is there a name for it, allowing one to construct a cable should Eigenlabs go away, or in an emergency before a performance?
2. If it is proprietary, would Eigenlabs be so kind as to release a document detailing the functions of the pins so that a Tau (or Alpha for that matter!) player of the distant future could still create music in the (hopefully impossible!) event Eigenlabs goes away?

Thanks!


written by: john

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 11:06:46 +0100 BST

We haven't sold accessories through dealers for quite some time now and it was just an error on B&H's part that they still had them listed. None of our dealers carried any stock of them anyway, so they were all fulfilled direct from us. There really wasn't any value added to you, it just added on a couple of days in turnaround so in fact it made it less speedy rather than more if you were in a hurry.

The Tau cable is the same as the Alpha cable and uses a standard Neutrik connector and four core microphone cable. Neutrik in fact make these cables up for us, but you can make your own providing you use the right kind of wire (you need two twisted pairs, it's usually called 'starquad' microphone cable). Both of the connectors and cable are generally available. I'll try an remember to put the pin assignments and part numbers for the connectors up on the Wiki at some point, although twenty seconds with a multimeter will enable you to deduce these yourself, should you be in a rush. The system is reliable with cable lengths up to 24M, and we have run it out to 40M but you do see a higher error count going over 24M, so this is not advised.

John


written by: geert

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 12:58:16 +0100 BST

This is interesting information, I didn't know about it :-)

I had a quick look, here's the connector of the Eigenharp cable:
http://www.neutrik.com/en/industrial/circular-connectors/minicon-connectors/mscm12


written by: bhinton

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 16:58:28 +0100 BST

Fantastic, that's a big relief. Thanks so much for the fast response, John (and Geert for the link).



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