Sound degredation with custom-made splitter box

LePhuronn · 13 Apr 2011 at 23:02

Hi all

I'm going to be making myself a 5.1 splitter box so I can switch between my Creative 6.1 system (upmixing from 5.1 as I'll be losing the custom centre-rear channel) and soon-to-be-purchased Roccat Kaves.

Before I go ahead with it, I'd like to check with all you sound gurus if I'll get any appreciable loss in quality, and some advice on the wire to use as it's been a LONG time since I did anything with electronics.

The switch I'll be using is rated for something like 0.5A and 10~20mΩ resistance - doesn't strike me as causing a problem, but I'm rather clueless atm.

Also, what sort of speaker wire should I use to wire my 3.5mm jacks and the switch? Obviously I don't want anything with high resistance, but we're only talking about a bunch of 4cm lengths (if that) between each jack and the switch, so is it going to matter too much? In fact, to make things tidier, could I PCB mount the whole thing and use the copper tracks instead of wires?

Or am I totally barking up the wrong tree here just because I can't find a 5.1 switch box and I don't want to keep switching the leads between speakers and headset?

Ta muchly

AtaRo · 13 Apr 2011 at 23:27

Don't bother with the switch and do yourself a favor and just get 3 of these or if you really want to spend some money look for a 5.1 headphone amp with multiple output like the one made by zalman.
Just turn of the speaker if your using the headphone and vice versa.

3.5mm y cable

LePhuronn · 13 Apr 2011 at 23:42

I've had trouble before using Y cables before - either the sound quality has been awful or very quiet, or a bit distorted. I'll give them another go as a last resort.

To be honest though, I fancy doing something with my hands and making something (and it costs about £5)

Auraomega · 13 Apr 2011 at 23:51

Using a Y splitter messes with impedance.

Unless you have ridiculously high end audio equipment and God's ears you shouldn't hear a difference between audio cables as long as you don't buy the absolute cheapest-bag-of-crap cabling available; I recommend Fisual personally because it's great value and until you start using it for significant lengths you can't notice any degradation. I'm looking at buying 50m of Fisual speaker cable as it happens; at 80p a meter it's a bargain, I also have Fisual headphone extensions and they sound fine.

Marsman · 13 Apr 2011 at 23:53

I noticed my DR150's sounded worse when experimenting connecting them and speakers to a splitter. Sound was fine when the speakers were off, but when both were in use, the sound quality was worse, as expected.

MikeHunt79 · 13 Apr 2011 at 23:57

Auraomega said:
Using a Y splitter messes with impedance.

This.

A switch is the way forward here...

LePhuronn · 14 Apr 2011 at 00:02

MikeHunt79 said:
This.

A switch is the way forward here...

And thus we go full circle - I'll have a crack at making the switch and see what happens.

MikeHunt79 · 14 Apr 2011 at 00:12

LePhuronn said:
And thus we go full circle - I'll have a crack at making the switch and see what happens.

A good quality DPDT switch will do it, if not you can also get rotary switches which is what most Pre-amps use.

LePhuronn · 14 Apr 2011 at 00:16

MikeHunt79 said:
A good quality DPDT switch will do it, if not you can also get rotary switches which is what most Pre-amps use.

Kinda gone/going down that route at the moment.

Basically, this is what started it all:
http://www.instructables.com/id/35mm-51-Surround-Sound-Switch-Splitter-Box/

Now I have no problem doing the 3 DPDT switches to flip the 3 channels individually, but I fancied doing something a bit more elegant.

I've found a few latching 6PDT push button switches which will do the trick, but wasn't sure about the current and resistance specs being OK. I've also been trying to find a 6 pole 2 way rotary without much luck (plenty of 2 pole 6 way rotaries, but that's not the same thing).