1/4” Long-Frame MAXI Patchbay

Fatcatpro

Member
I've done tons of research and have finally found what I think I'm looking for, our building was installed in '87 and I am upgrading the audio system and need to add more patch ports. patchbays.com offers "1/4” Long-Frame MAXI" patchbays and I believe this is what I need. But all of the photos I can find aren't high enough quality to be positive. So before I spend $300 I would just like some one to confirm that the picture of our patch cables below are in fact 1/4” Long-Frame MAXI. photo1.jpg
 
Looks like standard long-frame to me. The other option is Bantam, which looks virtually the same except it's significantly smaller.

"MAXI" and "Mini" aren't standard terms; they seem to be coined by the patchbays.com people (who, by the way, seem to be a distributor for other manufacturers like ADC, just so you know).

I'd look at enclosed patch bays with connectors on the rear panel (I like the 3-pin Edacons), such as this one: Audio Accessories . You might also look at ADC and Bittree directly to see what options are available. There are tons of them (most of which cost a good bit more than $300, just so you know).
 
With the rounded tip and smaller diameter ring connection that looks like a B-gauge 1/4" longframe patch cable, which is pretty standard for patchbays but different from the A-gauge 1/4" audio connectors used for 1/4" TRS connections on equipment. The metal part in the insulator between the tip and ring sections is probably related to it being self burnishing, it helps clean the contacts every time it is inserted or removed.

Audio Accessories, ADC, Bittree, AVP, Neutrik and others all offer compatible 1/4" longframe patchbays. The next step is deciding how the bay should be terminated, how the pairs should interact and how the ground/shield is addressed, there may be multiple options on each of these. My default is punchdown terminations with the tip, ring and shield normals brought out, this can require more work but allows configuring the bay just about any way you want depending on how you wire it. And if the bays may be reconfigured often I will often use 'broadcast' jack fields where the actual wiring panel is on an umbilical so that it can be mounted to the rear rack rail and thus more easily accessed. However, if you have known configurations as far as normalling, shields bused or not and so on then it can reduce the work required to order a bay configured for that. The same with terminations, if you're going to have a lot of wiring from a particular point or it is a portable application then it may be beneficial to get the bays with everything wired internally to multipin connectors on the rear panel.
 
As nice as the bantam tt patch bays are it is cheaper to buy one new patchbay than it is to buy 2 of them and all new cables.
As far as a pre wired panel goes I would love it, unfortunately since I'm adding to a previous system I want to be able to rearrange the connections so that all of them are categorized nicely and it would require unsoldering current mic lines and all that. And they're like 3 times the cost. :(
 

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