Stephan Sloot – Sales Director at PureLink
Stephan is an accomplished Sales Director with over 16 years of experience at PureLink GmbH, where he has been instrumental in driving international sales and business development in the Pro AV industry. Since stepping into the Sales Director role in 2018, he has played a key role in expanding global markets, optimizing sales strategies, and leading high-performing teams.
Robin Cullen – Technical Director at PureLink (from left)
Today, we have the pleasure of speaking with Robin Cullen, an experienced Technical Director with over a decade at PureLink GmbH. With a background in Electronic Engineering, Robin has built a strong career in quality engineering, test management, and embedded systems. We look forward to gaining his insights into his role at PureLink and his contributions to product development.
Can you both share a bit about your roles at PureLink? What are your primary responsibilities?
Stephan: Both Robin and I are veterans of the AV world and of PureLink in particular. I have been here almost from the very beginning and Robin celebrated 10 years at the company last August. We are both Directors of our departments – Robin the Tech and Product development side and me from Sales and we like to keep in close contact.
How do your roles complement each other in bringing new and existing products to market?
Robin: As Stephan says we keep in close contact for good reasons. Stephan is the face of PureLink. He is our interface with the AV community and the primary contact for all new and existing business relationships. For me, Stephan and his team provide vital industry feedback, that we would otherwise not have. This is an immensely valuable resource and is a cornerstone of the way we want to work. We know that without working closely with clients, we simply won’t be able to produce the products that are needed. It also helps us to effectively pre-empt AV trends and quickly produce relevant product to support the new or expanding markets.
Can you share a brief history of PureLink company and how its product ranges have evolved over time?
Stephan: Put simply, Purelink develops and produces professional AV products in Germany for the whole world.
We were founded in 2006 as a specialist for digital cable solutions. Over the last 19 years we have expanded our product range to include the whole gamut of ProAV equipment to become a truly full-service AV provider for B2B clients. Step by step we have added complementary product categories further strengthening our brand and our usefulness to clients. In keeping with Westphalian pragmatism, PureLink promises not to adopt innovations until they actually work!
The principle is: as soon as it has PureLink written on it, it works.
This above is a great example of our continuous improvement mindset.
We´ve met at ISE 2025 where you have showcased different product ranges, among them FlexInstall patch cables. What makes this range different from standard patch cables?
Robin: That’s a great question and it has a lot of answers! From years of working in the industry, we know clients often want to code data cables by colour. Colouring the entire cable means huge expenditure on different SKU’s. Very expensive and very hard to adjust after its installed. We saw a gap in the market for colour coded strain relief and developed our inexpensive multicoloured clip accordingly – all cables come in black and the client can simply pick a colour coded clip if needed. However the clip is merely the icing on the cake; these patch cables are ultra-light, ultra flexible, have tiny connectors, a truly excellent bend radius and a tiny cross section, thanks to some very cool new materials. Instead of the traditional braid and foil outer shield, we use an ultra-thin and flexible nano tech replacement. We have impregnated the outer substrate with fragmented graphene. This futuristic substance is a single atom thick and is dispersed in multiple layers within the substrate, aligned in varying orientations. These alignments, combined with graphene’s exceptional electrical conductivity and shielding properties, enable electromagnetic and radio frequency interference to be either reflected or completely absorbed.
What kind of environments and applications benefit the most from FlexInstall cables? Are the cables suitable for all third party manufacturers?
Stephan: The whole industry has been alight with interest on this range but specifically I would say rack management, office space installation are our focus markets here. However the benefits actually extend far beyond the cabels, we have tried to look at the bigger picture, again listening to feedback from clients and how they use products. For every end user with a conscience for the environment but also a dislike of disposing of a huge pile of single use plastic at the end of the day, FlexInstall is for you! We sell them individually in paper bags of course, but we also sell them in bulk installer packs. A single box with multiple cables but no individual packing. That’s not all, the boxes themselves are designed to act as reuseable storage container that has an innovative access flap and clever pop-out tabs that mean boxes can be joined together to form a storage rack. Installers and integrators love our FlexInstall concept and not just because the cables are great!
Another product we´ve seen at ISE was the PureInstall series of USB-C cables. USB-C is becoming a connectivity standard in the industry. How does PureLink ensure compatibility and future-proofing with its cables?
Robin: Yes that’s right, USB-C has seen an explosion in usage over the last few years. Clients love it, as it means one cable “potentially” does everything. I think we as an industry are less in love with it, ironically for similar reasons. The market is full of unmarked USB-C cables which could theoretically be anything from a USB2.0 60W charging cable to a 240W Thunderbolt 3 cable, or anything in between. From an installation perspective, that is a real danger for our clients and we have developed a number of strategies to help. Primarily our cables are all very clearly marked with what they can do, which we call FCC or Function Coded Cables.
We ensure our cables pass very stringent testing at multiple levels before they are qualified and packaged. These are designed to be hard to tests to pass and not everything gets through, but we make this effort as cabling is the back bone of our clients install and must be bullet proof.
Compatibility is a very big issue in the industry especially with active equipment and active cables. Our new MicroX4 family attempts to address that problem by using only passive cabling but at lengths that were previously impossible.
One of the standout features of PureInstall is the Unique Removable Screw Lock and the patented SLS (Secure-Lock-System™) system. Can you explain how these features enhance functionality and reliability?
Stephan: We believe that one of the defining features of PureLink is our innovative use of locking technology to prevent accidental disconnections and unnecessary on-site callouts. The new USB-C cables from the MicroX4 family are no exception, offering both TLS and SLS locking options. TLS has a uniquely designed connector housing which accommodates the first removable locking screw mechanism for USB-C. The removable “Tru Lock System” clips are available in multiple colours and just like with the FlexInstall range we mentioned above, allow for quick identification of specific connections on-site as well as locking the cable in place. SLS – Building on the success of our HDMI cables’ semi-permanent locking feature, we have developed a Secure Lock System for USB-C with a much greater extraction force than a standard cable. This locking mechanism is integrated directly into the connector, is compatible with all standard sockets, and requires no additional parts.
Both the PureInstall and FlexInstall series primarily feature short-length cables, with some exceptions. Can you provide solutions for long-distance applications in large venues while maintaining the same technology and quality?
Robin: Before USB-C became so powerful, HDMI was king and it was not unheard of for HDMI cables to reach up to 30m and still work, albeit at a lower resolution. Customers were expecting the same from USB-C and to say they were bitterly disappointed, would be an understatement. 2m is a stretch for USB-C! Most 2m USB-C cables don’t meet the spec. I’ve tested them, I’ve seen the eye pattern on the scope – they don’t work as expected! The problem is that we are talking about huge amounts of bidirectional data and frankly twisted pair cables have reached their limit. Micro-coax technology is the key to breaking through this digital glass ceiling to passive lengths up to 5m and that’s what we are using in our MicroX4 family. Compared to twisted pair cables they offer much better signal attenuation, signal transmission with minimal reflection, loss and crosstalk. The physical characteristics of coaxial cabling are also great, making the final product far more supple to the touch while also being highly resistant to bending and therefore enhancing durability. Micro-coax cables are huge leap forward for the industry and we like to think PureLink is in the vanguard of this change.
For anything beyond 5m we have multiple active solutions such as AOC cables, or our new range U3x cat extension system that can achieve Full feature USB extension up to 100m, to name but a few. However active solutions introduce additional USB tier layers, which is a problem in our industry I think few people were familiar pre-Covid 19. Simply put, every AV device that has a USB port, will contain a USB hub chipset somewhere inside it. Many devices have more than one hub chip and the more hubs in the chain, the less likely your system will work. These hidden hub chips, especially the ones in active cables have caused a huge rise in connection problems – the individual product is essentially perfect, but it has not been connected with this hidden problem in mind. We of course are able to advise optimal installation tactics but it’s a learning curve for the end user.
What’s next for PureLink? Are there any upcoming product innovations or developments we should be excited about?
Robin: Yes our mediahub2 is something we have been working on for some time now, and it is finally ready! mediahub2 is a desk connection panel designed for high end ProAV.
Its design allows for easy and scalable multimedia integration, making it ideal for workspaces, meeting rooms, and classrooms. The system includes both passive and active modules, with our unique “Individual Connection System” (ICS) ensuring a secure and tool-less cable-to-cover mating technique without visible screws. We have taken our years of industry knowledge in cabling and produced a formidable product line that follows the guiding PureLink principle of “Install. Connect. Perform.”
Find out more at this address:
https://www.purelink.de/en/topic-mediahub2-dock
