Patchbays

chestwick91

New member
So, i am getting my first patchbay...always had a lot of gear but never felt i needed one, now i am sick of moving cables everwhere and want one badly. My question to all is, can you recomend one? Obviously good quality, but i don't want to spend to much....I was looking at the cheap dbx ones, (this made me laugh) but i herd some good buzz about the hosa ones...is this true?
thanks guys and gals
 
The DBX patchbay is just fine. The modular cards can be a bit of a pin, but is a handy feature. On the cheap, AP audio also makes a very affordable and still functionla patchbay. My experience has never been good with Hosa, but I have not had any of their patchbays so I can not comment about that specifically. The Behringer seems to be OK as well. I had one a while ago as a temporary quick fix. I measured the noise on it and it seems to add about .5 db of noise, but I doubt that could ever be a real issue. The switches are nice on the Behringer, and it is a sealed design which will help keep the inside free from dust, but will make it hard to clean anything but the jacks themselves, which is what would need cleaning the most often anyhow. The one thing that I did notice is that the jacks on both the Behringers that I had were very loose around the patch cables. Basically, cables will not lock in placew very well and will go in and out VERY easily. For some people this may not be an issue, but it does not take much to accidentally get a cable part way out and shorting it or at the least adding some noise. If you are going to do a lot of patching or getting behind your rack at all I would go with the DBX over the Behringer. If you want to spend a little more, the Neutrik Patchbay seems to be the best of the standard non expensive TRS patchbays I have used.

If you want to do a lot of soldering and want a serious patchbay for a lot less than you will find anywhere else (but still more than the others discussed here) I have one military ADC 104 point patchbay with a fold down front for easy soldering and a normaling board in it. It's heavy as all get out, sturdier than any patchbay you will likely ever see, old, high quality, and time consuming, but I will sell it. It certainly is not for everyone though.
 
why? Hosa and Behringer both make a good affordable patchbay they all equally serve the same purpose. I hardly see how one patch bay can out perform another.

I think that he listed some very well-studied reasons why.

I just grabbed a Behringer patchbay off of zzounds.com. I too noticed when hooking it up that the cables do not "snap in" like you would expect them to. I think that's fine for the front of the bay, but the back is where I don't want anything coming loose. EVER.

I thought about sending it back, but then I didn't feel like packing it up and dealing with it. I expect I'll have to replace it at some point.
 
I think that he listed some very well-studied reasons why.

I just grabbed a Behringer patchbay off of zzounds.com. I too noticed when hooking it up that the cables do not "snap in" like you would expect them to. I think that's fine for the front of the bay, but the back is where I don't want anything coming loose. EVER.

I thought about sending it back, but then I didn't feel like packing it up and dealing with it. I expect I'll have to replace it at some point.

he did:confused: all I saw that he wrote is DBX would have crapped their pants to be listed with Hosa and Behringer:confused:

i have had a behringer patchbay for several years and it is still working just fine.
 
I am fairly positive that if you were to scope the different patchbays that you would find some differences bewteen them. How could you not? However, what those differences are and how they will or will not affect your work I do not know.

What I do know, is that a lot of Behringer equipment is shoddy at best and certainly not of higher quality. I also think that of the Behringer equipment out there, the patchbay is probably one of their better items. As for Hosa, I stated that I had not used a Hosa patchbay and as a result made no comment concerning it. I have however had the displeasure of using Hosa cables far too many times. Some people might say that a cable is just a cable, but at least concerning longevity, there should be no debate there. I have had soooo many Hosa incidents. Cable snakes that were only installed once going bad without any reason, buzzes, breaks, shorts etc.... I guess you do get what you pay for.
 
he did:confused: all I saw that he wrote is DBX would have crapped their pants to be listed with Hosa and Behringer:confused:
And I doubt that that comment on it's own could be disputed. They would... having once pretty much owned a huge share of the professional audio market... What i didn't say (but maybe implied)... is that hosa, and behringer can have dubious quality at best, the price difference between the reliable manufacturers and the behri / hosa brand is not enough to justify going on the cheap... I personally would bypass the dbx and go with a Neutrik... (if I wasn't using bantam bays)
 
why? Hosa and Behringer both make a good affordable patchbay they all equally serve the same purpose. I hardly see how one patch bay can out perform another.

I thought the same thing when I bought the behringer patchbay and you know what? the quality of the jacks are crap and now 60% of the sockets make poor contact and I have to continuously wiggle the patch cables. Spare yourself some frustration and pony up the extra $20 for a Neutrik and avoid this hunk of crap
 
I have a Behr. PX3000. It's handy, sounds transparent and was only $50 new. It might not last for 10 years but it will have given me $50 worth of life when it does get worn out.
 
I have a Behr. PX3000. It's handy, sounds transparent and was only $50 new. It might not last for 10 years but it will have given me $50 worth of life when it does get worn out.

I disagree 100%. I would have HAPPILY paid the extra $20 for a solid part that does not cause me problems after 1 year not to mention the hours reconnecting everything which costs me WAY more than what I paid for the POS patchbay
 
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