Outboard Gear Direct Spitter: Risky or Not

[Fountain Of Euph]

Hi,

I am looking at a audio splitter to be shared among several venues on campus. Price IS an issue, so I have been looking at this one:

http://www.seismicaudiospeakers.com...nks/p/SARMSS-32x1515#product-description-text

Primary use will be:

Live stage Split to X32 at FOH and a Mackie 1604-VLZ or a 2404-VLZ for monitors

Monitor split between the Mackies in a Radio Studio for live over the air bands

Split between Recording Rig and Radio broadcast rig.

I am doing all live music.

Am I shooting myself in the foot by not looking at a Transformed splitter, thought they are really out of my price range?

Any other suggestions for other comparable gear? I Like the rackmount idea.

 

[JohnD]

Over the years Seismic has gotten a lot of less than positive reviews, poor cable and poor connectors come up frequently.
For a comparison Audiopile has this:
http://www.audiopile.net/PSX
The down side is the higher price and not rack mount.
Something else to consider is a rack mount splitter like this one:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MS8000
https://www.music-group.com/Categories/Behringer/Signal-Processors/Splitters/MS8000/p/P0BKC
The advantage, transformer isolation, the down side, you will need a lot more cables. If you run a snake from FOH that takes care of one set of cables but you would need XLR patch cables to your monitor mixer.

 

[FMEng]

Any splitter that is not transformer isolated is a recipe for hums, buzzes and headaches. Effective and good sounding split transformers are not cheap to make. That's why Whirlwind and others reputable manufacturers would charge over $2,000 for the same number of channels. I speak from the experience of doing splits for recording and live radio in a variety of venues. Splitters are one place where you cannot cheap.

 

[firewater88]

How many channels max are you needing to split? Are you using a stage box on the x32?

Have to say from experience, you get what you pay for. For stage live use, I highly recommend Whirlwind snakes or even other top brands. Yes pricey, but they can take a beating and last. I have several iso split snakes that I use quite often.

 

[Chris15]

Any splitter that is not transformer isolated is a recipe for hums, buzzes and headaches. Effective and good sounding split transformers are not cheap to make. That's why Whirlwind and others reputable manufacturers would charge over $2,000 for the same number of channels. I speak from the experience of doing splits for recording and live radio in a variety of venues. Splitters are one place where you cannot cheap.

While I totally concur when analog lines are involved, but now that we are increasingly moving towards digital stage boxes co located at the patch location, do we still need transformer isolation on a cable that goes a few metres to plug into a stage box that's connected to the same power?

 

[FMEng]

If you can ensure that the digital stage box is located within a few feet of the other console (or other stage box), and powered from the same circuit, there is a pretty good chance a simple, parallel split would work. I would consider whether the setups are pretty much always the same or whether I need flexibility.

The cool way to do this is to use two X32 consoles and a shielded Cat 5 cable between them. I have an annual gig where my X32 Compact gets plugged into the house X32. It works great. The only caveat is you have to trust the person controlling the preamps. Given the cost of good splitters and analog snakes, a second X32 could be around the same cost. Another idea is to use an X32 Rack and an iPad for monitors. I also have an X-Dante card for the X32 that I use in a venue with a Yamaha house console on a Dante network.

I like the world of digital consoles, because I'm tired of toting splitters, big, heavy analog snakes, consoles the size of a piano, and racks of gizmos. Sizable remote broadcasts have gone from two pickup loads to a Subaru wagon, at times. When digital is so good and so cheap, it's hard to refuse. On top of all that, I can record multi-track with nothing more than a laptop.

 

[JD]

Hard to justify a lot of cash for an analog splitter when we are right at the crossover point to a digital world.
One exception would be if outside equipment was coming in with the acts, so you never knew what board you would be splitting for. "Y" splits are common for single splits and usually don't cause problems, but you never know. (especially if Phantom power is involved.) However, multiple channels multiplies the chance of a problem and makes the problem harder to diagnose. Some purerists also bring up impedance matching, but that is a non issue (for the most part) as the actual microphone impedance is usually several times lower that the terminator input on the board. (Ex- Mic = 150 ohms, board input 1k ohms.)

 

[Fountain Of Euph]

Thanks for all the responses. In an ideal world we would have buy a X32 for FOH and move our compact to monitor world, but money... I had the Mackies on hand, and was wondering if I could cheaply put them into use

The Behringer splinters are attractive, If we come into some money I may look at those.

 

[AlexDonkle]

The only caveat is you have to trust the person controlling the preamps. Given the cost of good splitters and analog snakes, a second X32 could be around the same cost. Another idea is to use an X32 Rack and an iPad for monitors. I also have an X-Dante card for the X32 that I use in a venue with a Yamaha house console on a Dante network.

That seems to be one of the areas of competition between digital mixers currently, as there's a few approaches to "digital gain sharing" between 2 consoles, or Optocore has an option for 2 preamps on each channel and built-in remote pre-amp control protocols from a few manufacturers.

 

[TimmyP1955]

Audiopile.net is the place to get a cost effective analog splitter. $ up from there, try CBI and Horizon, and from there Whirlwind and Radial.