AV SuperFriends: Off the Rails 139 - A little confidence is a lot of ignorance

Recorded June 5, 2026 This week on Off the Rails, we descend into the glamorous, finger-burning, cable-stretching world of Layer 1: the place where every brilliant AV system either starts working… or quietly dies behind a rack because someone trusted a discount connector. The regular panel is joined by Stacy Kaskon and Brant Mathiason from Neutrik to talk about why physical connectivity still matters, why proper termination is becoming a lost art, and how Neutrik's new FAST training initiative aims to teach students, techs, integrators, and higher ed AV teams how to build, test, and trust the cables and connections literally holding their systems together. Soldering, RJ45s, fiber, connector standards, classroom durability, InfoComm training, and the eternal truth that no amount of programming will fix a bad cable all make the cut. Then, because this is Off the Rails, the group swaps horror stories about cursed terminations, fiber polished in bucket trucks, cables pulled with pickup trucks, adapters stacked like archaeological layers, and all the other "temporary" fixes that somehow became load-bearing infrastructure.   Neutrik FAST Training contact: [email protected]   Connect with our guests: Stacy Kaskon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacy-kaskon-4435ba2b/ Brant Mathiason: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brant-mathiason-a19535b/   News story discussed: https://www.avinteractive.com/news/collaboration/microsoft-sunsets-its-covid-era-teams-together-mode-02-06-2026/   Alternate show titles: Singularity of bad ideas Glob and blob-level soldering You're not going to solve a Layer 1 problem with programming That happens until it can't any more One person wears a tutu   We stream live every Friday at about 315p Eastern/1215p Pacific and you can listen to everything we record over at AVSuperFriends.com    ▀▄▀▄▀ CONTACT LINKS ▀▄▀▄▀ ► Website: https://www.avsuperfriends.com ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/avsuperfriends ► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/avsuperfriends ► YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@avsuperfriends ► Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/avsuperfriends.bsky.social ► Email: [email protected] ► RSS: https://avsuperfriends.libsyn.com/rss   Donate to AVSF: https://www.avsuperfriends.com/support