Actually, many theaters actually have direct stage/
foh cat5 lines. Sometimes its not even IP based, many of these systems just use cat5 wires because cat5 is just so inexpensive to use. But yes, I completely agree with you Dave. I would never run any cat5 apps without getting them approved/notified by the IT people. But the non-packet transmission ethernet apps do not show any lag. For example, say you need to adapt RS485 to RS232 but you need a long run at RS485
XLR isn't an option. A crossover cat5 cable crimped with the RS485 pins matched up. Although that was slightly off topic since we're discussing audio over IP Cat5, for most apps I've seen non-ip cat5 apps do not show any significant or prominent lag. I have seen monitoring systems that are not using packet transmission (IP), it was basically the same thing as using XLR or
TRS.