skippy
New member
Okay, one more review of a piece of off-the-beaten-path rack gear, and then I'll shut up. Not everybody needs this thing, but maybe more of you could use it than you might think. Which makes it worth talking about.
The PS-8 has turned out to be a very useful piece of gear, in much the same way as the signal router I reviewed before. However, it also offers one other huge advantage that hadn't even occurred to me when I bought it (since I was single when I had my original studio). I'll get into that below...
What this device provides is essentially master-switch capabilities for studio and rack gear. It has a 15amp input cord, a 15amp load breaker, MOV-based surge suppression (which was pretty important to me here in lightning central), and the usual power distribution stuff. Most importantly, it features 4 groups of outlets: one that is always energized, and 3 that are energized in sequence with a 10-second time delay between each when the Master Power switch is turned on. Similarly, when it is turned off, the 3 delay groups are deenergized in reverse order.
This is absolutely excellent for studio use. I have the board and a few other pieces of gear that require quite a long time to stabilize on group 1, so that they come on first. The vast majority of the rack gear, the multitrack, and the Masterlink are on group 2, so that they come on after 10 seconds. The monitors are on group 3, so that they come on only last of all, after 20 seconds. That is well after the phantom supply has stabilized, the board thumps are over with, and all the outboard gear is up and quietly waiting for signal.
When powering down, the monitors are killed first, then the rack gear, and last of all the board: which can thump, pop, crunch, oscillate, and do whatever other rude thing it might want to for as long as it wants, since nobody will be listening.
The convenience of having one single power switch for the whole studio can't be overstated. Being able to turn the rig on or off without launching the woofer cones is a big plus. Not having to find 35 separate power switches is also a plus.
But the biggest win, and one that I really hadn't expected, was the fact that it simplifies operation of the rig to the point that my wife can be comfortable with it. I've lived with vast arrays of knobs, buttons, and cables for so long that they don't bother me: they're just a cost of doing business. But my wife is a vocalist, and hasn't spent the past couple of decades doing Elektrik Muzik and getting numbed to the complexity of modern music making. She wants to sing, and she doesn't want to have to learn to be a recording engineer to do it. Shoot, her instrument doesn't even have to be plugged into anything...
What she normally wants is to be able to print a quick 2-track mix of vox and keys to cassette. *That's all*. And what was the number one thing keeping her from being able to enjoy and use the rig when I'm not around to drive it for her? Complexity. The eternal questions: "Just how do you turn it *on* without breaking it, and which of these ninety-leven boxes do I actually need to do this simple thing?"
Well, the perfect answer arrived with this box: That one single switch right there, and don't even worry about the rest.
Sometimes the biggest improvements in usability really only occur to you if you _aren't_ perfectly comfortable with the hardware. It helps if you can somehow look at the rig with eyes that aren't attached to a career gear slut... (;-) Anyway, the PS-8 has proven to be worth every dime I paid for it, and occupies Slot #1 in the rack right under the board.
For really large, elaborate systems, you can cascade multiple units, or use class-2 wiring like mic cables to connect it to remote relay boxes. I'll probably be installing one of these in a live performance venue I work in from time to time, and using remote relay boxes to control the stage-right and stage-left amp racks from the mixer location.
And it has that nice outlet on the front of the rack that's a perfect place to plug in a soldering iron. Life is good...
Once again, does everyone need one of these? Probably not. But if you need it, you need it _badly_.
The PS-8 has turned out to be a very useful piece of gear, in much the same way as the signal router I reviewed before. However, it also offers one other huge advantage that hadn't even occurred to me when I bought it (since I was single when I had my original studio). I'll get into that below...
What this device provides is essentially master-switch capabilities for studio and rack gear. It has a 15amp input cord, a 15amp load breaker, MOV-based surge suppression (which was pretty important to me here in lightning central), and the usual power distribution stuff. Most importantly, it features 4 groups of outlets: one that is always energized, and 3 that are energized in sequence with a 10-second time delay between each when the Master Power switch is turned on. Similarly, when it is turned off, the 3 delay groups are deenergized in reverse order.
This is absolutely excellent for studio use. I have the board and a few other pieces of gear that require quite a long time to stabilize on group 1, so that they come on first. The vast majority of the rack gear, the multitrack, and the Masterlink are on group 2, so that they come on after 10 seconds. The monitors are on group 3, so that they come on only last of all, after 20 seconds. That is well after the phantom supply has stabilized, the board thumps are over with, and all the outboard gear is up and quietly waiting for signal.
When powering down, the monitors are killed first, then the rack gear, and last of all the board: which can thump, pop, crunch, oscillate, and do whatever other rude thing it might want to for as long as it wants, since nobody will be listening.
The convenience of having one single power switch for the whole studio can't be overstated. Being able to turn the rig on or off without launching the woofer cones is a big plus. Not having to find 35 separate power switches is also a plus.
But the biggest win, and one that I really hadn't expected, was the fact that it simplifies operation of the rig to the point that my wife can be comfortable with it. I've lived with vast arrays of knobs, buttons, and cables for so long that they don't bother me: they're just a cost of doing business. But my wife is a vocalist, and hasn't spent the past couple of decades doing Elektrik Muzik and getting numbed to the complexity of modern music making. She wants to sing, and she doesn't want to have to learn to be a recording engineer to do it. Shoot, her instrument doesn't even have to be plugged into anything...
What she normally wants is to be able to print a quick 2-track mix of vox and keys to cassette. *That's all*. And what was the number one thing keeping her from being able to enjoy and use the rig when I'm not around to drive it for her? Complexity. The eternal questions: "Just how do you turn it *on* without breaking it, and which of these ninety-leven boxes do I actually need to do this simple thing?"
Well, the perfect answer arrived with this box: That one single switch right there, and don't even worry about the rest.
Sometimes the biggest improvements in usability really only occur to you if you _aren't_ perfectly comfortable with the hardware. It helps if you can somehow look at the rig with eyes that aren't attached to a career gear slut... (;-) Anyway, the PS-8 has proven to be worth every dime I paid for it, and occupies Slot #1 in the rack right under the board.
For really large, elaborate systems, you can cascade multiple units, or use class-2 wiring like mic cables to connect it to remote relay boxes. I'll probably be installing one of these in a live performance venue I work in from time to time, and using remote relay boxes to control the stage-right and stage-left amp racks from the mixer location.
And it has that nice outlet on the front of the rack that's a perfect place to plug in a soldering iron. Life is good...
Once again, does everyone need one of these? Probably not. But if you need it, you need it _badly_.