Patchbay...

  • Thread starter Thread starter roblluke
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Yes you can but you won't benifit from balanced outs/ins if you're using unbalanced cables


The PX1000-48 is better, it's got balanced (TRS) connectors while the PX2000 is unbalanced (TS), and it doesnt look too much like a Behringer product, so thats nice.



-jeffrey
 
The PX1000 also has an extra mode "it improves flexableness" (Quoted from the Behringer website)

Sorry, joke :D

Your better with the PX1000 (Patchbays - the only behringer products that wont smoke as they are passive)
 
orson198305 said:
"flexableness"

is that a real word? maybe something got lost in translation from the deuche's woops i mean deustch (i know i misspelled that)
--just a little Behringer humor (even though i have some behringer stuff)

it's only a matter of $20 or so. patchbays are typically not an expensive item, there are other companies too ,for about $50-100 at most...
 
roblluke said:
Can I use unbalanced patch leads on a balanced patchbay?
Yes. If you plug in unbalanced (TS) cables into two balanced (TRS) jacks that are connected to each other in the patchbay, nothing bad will happen.

The tips of your plugs will connect to each other.
The sleeves of your plugs will also connect to each other, by two routes (through the ring-to-ring connection, and through the sleeve-to-sleeve connection).

The main advantage of the balanced (TRS) patchbay is that it allows you to connect balanced lines. Although it's not usually mentioned for some reason, it also has another advantage, even if you don't have balanced inputs and outputs: you can use a single patchpoint to route a stereo signal.

Also Which is better, the Behringer PX1000 48 Patch bay or The Behringer PX2000 and why?
The PX1000 has balanced (TRS) connections, which is an advantage as mentioned above. On the other hand, the PX2000 is actually kind of more flexible, in that you can set each group of jacks to more different modes.

With the PX2000, you change modes with a switch on top of the bay. This is sort of convenient, in that you don't need to take the face off, or even unplug whatever's connected to it. On the other hand, if your patchbay is in a rack with something on top of it, you can't get at the switches.

With the PX1000, you change the mode for a group of jacks by taking off the faceplate and yanking out the little card that connect the group of 4 jacks and putting it back in a different alignment.

I have used the PX2000, as well as some other patchbays that have the same basic design as the PX1000 (Neutrik, e.g.) Generally, I found the PX2000 to be a more solid design than the flippable-card TRS bays. Whether the same holds true for the PX1000, I couldn't say. I'd guess it does, since they probably all come from the same manufacturer in China anyway.

The way the flippable cards works is this: there are four jacks on each card (2 go in back, 2 in front, one above the other). They are all interconnected, so long as nothing's plugged in. One of the four jacks is set up so that when a plug is inserted, it disconnects the top pair of jacks from the bottom pair. If you put the special jack on the bottom in front, you get your "half-normal" setup, which allows you to mult an output (connect one output to two inputs), but avoids trying to connect two inputs to a single output. If you put it in back, and plug things into both back jacks, you've got two straight-through, un-normalled, back-to-front patchpoints. Those are the two modes you'd be most likely to use, though you can figure out the other possibilities for yourself.

The switches on the PX2000 let you choose some other possibly-useful modes.
 
you lose 6 db of signal going from balanced to unbalanced.
 
Switches in a patch bay just add one more possible point of failure... how often do you change the configuration anyway... Flip the cards...
 
sweetnubs said:
you lose 6 db of signal going from balanced to unbalanced.
True.

If (for example), you take plug (1/4" TRS, say) coming from "Box A" and carrying a balanced signal and stick it into an unbalanced (1/4" TS, in this case) jack in a patchbay, you'll short one leg of the signal (the ring) to ground (the sleeve).* So then, if coming out of the patchbay, you connect to "Box B," which ordinarily takes a balanced input, you'll have half the voltage difference (6 dB) you would've if you'd connected Box A to Box B with a cable, or series of connections, which are TRS all the way. Box B will see, for example, 1 volt of signal (1 vs. ground=0) when it otherwise would have seen 2 volts (1 vs -1).

On the other hand, if either (or both): (i) Box A's output sends an unbalanced signal or (ii) Box B's input is intended for an unbalance signal, it won't make any difference.

On yet another (a third?) hand, doing the opposite (putting a TS plug carrying an unbalanced signal into a patchbay's TRS jack) doesn't really do much of anything.

MOFO Pro said:
Switches in a patch bay just add one more possible point of failure... how often do you change the configuration anyway... Flip the cards...
Yeah, I'd generally agree, at least in princple. But the "flippability" of the cards carries a cost too. You've got a goodly handful of contacts between the card and the part of the patchbay that holds it to go bad, plus just the mechanical issue of holding the card in place while plugs are jammed into and yanked out of it.

From my experience with the Neutrik (and some other brand I can't remember) version of the flippable card design, I wasn't too happy. Patchpoints (one or both of the tip and ring connection) seem to go intermittent with alarming frequency, or plugs need to jiggled, pulled gently and otherwise finessed to make the connection work. It's possible the Behringer version is more sturdily constructed. Given the relatively low price of the thing, I don't think that's enormously likely, though it's also not that big a bet.

________
* This (shorting a signal line to ground) doesn't usually cause any problems with Box A, though there are some pieces of equipment where it might. In such a case, if you want to convert a balanced line to unbalanced, you'd want to use a transformer.
 
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