DIY Speaker Switcher Plans

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jonmmartin

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Hello all, Does anyone have a link to plans for building a speaker switcher. I need a "box" that will allow me to hook my power amp to so I can switch between my large monitors and my small ones. It needs to be sonically transparent...I don't want to color the sound...just check my mixes.
Thanks
 
jonmmartin said:
Hello all, Does anyone have a link to plans for building a speaker switcher. I need a "box" that will allow me to hook my power amp to so I can switch between my large monitors and my small ones. It needs to be sonically transparent...I don't want to color the sound...just check my mixes.
Thanks
Click to expand...

I built one using three 4pdt relays, two lighted 12V toggle switches, and a wall wart. Its easily expandable too. As long as the relays can handle more current than you need, there isn't any sound colorization to speak of.

Mine switches between monitors A and monitors B, as well as switches a subwoofer in series with either pair, or to a seperate amp for surround mixing.

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Mine was built out of crap I had lying around. I have another one somewhere I built maybe 10 years ago which switches between 16 pairs of monitors for when I had my pro studio. No, we didn't have 16 pairs of monitors, only four, but the unit could handle more no problem. Nice little "push next", "push previous" buttons too and on power-on, it always defaulted to monitors A.

Essentially it was a 74LS193 hex counter (0-9,a-f) driving a 74LS154 which in turn drives 16 2n2222 transistors, which in turn drove 16 4PDT 12V relays.
 
Fredric, Thanks for the reply (the photos were very helpful).
If all I want to do is switch between 2 sets of speakers...why do I need a power supply? My idea is to go from my mixer to the power amp, connect the amp outs to the box and have the ability to check my mix on 2 sets of monitors (kind of an A/B thing..I'll control levels with my faders). I'm a newbie at the DIY thing...that's why I was looking for plans to use as a guide of what to solder to what.
Thanks again for the help.
 
jonmmartin said:
Fredric, Thanks for the reply (the photos were very helpful).
If all I want to do is switch between 2 sets of speakers...why do I need a power supply? My idea is to go from my mixer to the power amp, connect the amp outs to the box and have the ability to check my mix on 2 sets of monitors (kind of an A/B thing..I'll control levels with my faders). I'm a newbie at the DIY thing...that's why I was looking for plans to use as a guide of what to solder to what.
Thanks again for the help.
Click to expand...

I used the power supply to power the lights inside the switches, so I can see their positions when I don't have all the lights in the studio at full brightness, as well as to power the relay coils.

If you want to skip the relays and the wall warts, find yourself a 4PDT switch that can handle the RMS power of your monitors, mount it in a box, and wire it up. That's really all you need at a minimum. I "fancified" mine because I really wanted lighted switches, as well as the speaker wiring at the back of the console rather than running 16 pairs of speaker wire in a big knot to the front edge of the console desk.

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And like I said, if you want to skip the fancy stuff, just replace the 4pdt relay on the right side of the drawing with a 4pdt switch. I cut off the subwoofer relays in the above diagram just to make it easier to copy for you.
 
Yep, definately much easier.

But my unit also does subwoofer bypass, like so:


Mode 1:
amp 1 ----> subwoofer ----> monitors A or B
amp 2 ----> 16 ohm load

Mode 2:

amp 1 ----> monitors A or B
amp 2 ----> subwoofer

This is why mine's more complicated than you guys need. I have the ability to switch the subwoofer (and its crossover) in and out of the L/R stereo mix, as well as drive it seperately on another amp, for when I do true surround mixing.

If I didn't want/need the sub switching features, I'd have bought a $8 4PDT switch and called it a day :)
 
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