Patch bays are as handy as pockets

[rwortman]

I put one of these in my two channel rack several months ago. Behringer Ultrapatch If you have analog sources that you want to record to digital and have a modern preamp with no record outs. If you want to use an equalizer some of the time but not all of the time. If you sometimes want to temporarily connect a source to your system. Jack functions are selectable via a switch on top. Half normal means the top jack is connected to the bottom jack until you plug something into a front bottom jack and that breaks the connection. I run my phono preamp through two half normal jacks on it's way to the preamp. Plug into the top jacks to tap off for recording while still listening. You can plug an EQ into the circuit using both front jacks. Full normal means plugging into either top or bottom front jacks breaks the top-bottom connection. My preamp goes through two sets of full normal jacks on its way to the amp. I can insert the EQ or connect another device to the amp from these jacks. Through means no connection from top to bottom only front to back that's how the EQ is plugged in so it's ins and outs are available to be patched anywhere. Another set of through jacks is plugged into a spare input on the preamp for "guest" sources. Yeah, you can do all this stuff by using y cables and fumbling around behind your equipment but how handy is that? So far no connection problems, no induced hum, acts like a wire. People that think the cables, connectors and switches are going to degrade the sound won't be interested but that has not been my experience and although I don't use its functions really often , it has been well worth the $80 cost. In a real professional situation where you are plugging and unplugging things constantly you may want a more expensive one for long term reliability.

 

[restorer-john]

It unbelievable that a product such as that can be manufactured, marketed and sold at such a low price.

Looks very handy.

 

[sergeauckland]

All studio installations used to use patch bays, although more recently they have gone out of fashion, mostly due to the cost of wiring them. When I designed and built our local radio station, I insisted on using them, so every source and destination was patchable.

I didn't have the budget for Mosses & Mitchell panels, so tried these Behringers. I too was astounded at the quality for the price. They have now been in use for some 10 years with no failures. They have the advantage of fully normalled, half normalled or unnormalled all switch selectable. They use A gauge jacks, which are also much cheaper than the more usual B gauge as A gauge is the norm for Stereo systems, but work as well as B gauge. Although they take up more room than Bantam jacks, I find Bantams rather fiddly, so don't mind losing some rack space to convenience. Astounding.

S