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.