Monitor / Source Switcher?

T

tmix

Well-known member
I need a good clean (cheap is good) way to switch between 2 different stereo sources for my monitors.
Need dead quiet, no coloration.

I tried a patch bay but it pops a little when plugging in and the amp is on.

I'd even consider building it, but am no genius with a soldering iron, (not too bad though)

Thanks
Tom
 
I use a Presonus Central Station and it's clean sounding. Presonus recently came out with a tabletop version of it that I think is a little less expensive.
 
the centrail station is $$. the behringer one is like $40, and it's pretty good. can't remember the model....
 
yoyo said:
the centrail station is $$. the behringer one is like $40, and it's pretty good. can't remember the model....
Click to expand...

It's the MON800.

The difference between the B unit and others like the Central Station, Coleman and SMPro M-Patch 2 (aside from $$), is that the Central Station, Coleman and MPatch are passive circuit designs and the B is an active circuit unit. Passive circuit designs, since they are not amplifying the signal, are intended not to color the signal, whereas active circuit designs are more likely to color the signal. I've never used or heard a MON800 so I can't tell you what effect it has on the sound. For the price, it seems unlikely that you would be getting a high fidelity audio circuit however. When I upgraded from my prior interface and needed a monitor/headphone controller, I settled on a Central Station as a reasonably cost effective unit using passive design. I would have preferred a Coleman or a Dangerous unit, but ultimately couldn't justify the cost given that I am just working with a home studio.
 
Yes My thought is I don't want a cheap set of active circuitry adding noise.
I have hooked various roland / mackie / yamaha type mixers in line and you can instantly hear the difference.... in some cases VERY drastic.
I wish the Colemans were not so expensive. I'll look into the the others mentioned.
A table top unit would be fine as well as would a simple box with a toggle switch... as long as it did not pop and snap when flipped.
 
I have the Central Station which also feeds into the Coleman LS3 as the final router before the power amp. That pretty much fits your basic switcher, no volume control spec. I get a bit of soft crunchy sound switching.
There's certinally cheaper switches out there, but at the point I went with this setup I wanted to be done messing around.. :)
http://colemanaudio.com/swtchr.htm
Oh, and this one will not prevent you from summing two (or more) sources so you have to watch out for that.
 
OK - remember I'm a complete newbie and am just trying to help here, but if you're willing to use something as simple as a toggle switch - why not try this:

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2049645&cp=&parentPage=search

I use something like this to switch the output from my computer between monitors/headphones/amplifier. It's cheap and seems to work well for me. However, I must be missing something since people are suggesting $400-500 dollar alternatives...
 
pohaku said:
You might still need a headphone amp, depending on how you are set up.
Click to expand...

I've got it covered.
I run all my stand alone pres to my converters, but also to a Sountracs Topaz for running monitor mixes.(16 headphone channels with 3 different mixes)
I have been running my monitors off the Topaz which works great during tracking, but it introduces some noise that is unwanted when I am editing and mixing.

That is why I want to be able to switch between my Topaz feeding the speakers, and the Lucid converters coming directly off the computer via spdif. I wanted to bypass the miles of cables. It sounds so much cleaner and quiet.
Eventually I may go with a balanced unit, but for now (since the run is only 8 feet) I can live with unbalanced.

Thanks again
 
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