M*nley Backb*one

OK, so here's what's happened.  The price of these jumped from $3200 to $5188 USD, $2k increase.  I understand why, everyone's in rough shape right now.  I wanted one of these mastering insert switchers for my mastering room, but that's just out of the question now at that price, regardless of how good it is (and it is good...).

So, how do I build one of these?  The M*nley has a lot of extra features I don't need, like swapping etc.  But to be able to patch in 10 pcs of gear, gains in and out, and the backbuss feature would be me key pcs I'd need.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Sig

It sais here the retails is $4300.00 USD
http://www.manleylabs.com/containerpages/backbone.html

And with street price, you might get a few dollars off.

To be honest, I was a little put off when I had seen their internal workmanship on one of their units.

I think Igor has some sort of control room gadget that he has built in the past, maybe ask him.

Looking at it it's mostly just a big box of switches, relays and switches.

You should be able to recreate something like that fairly easy if you have been paying attention in DIY class as long as you've been here.

BTW there manual shows allot of juicy info to help you along, its got me interested.

You must be reading an old Manley page - they announced a major price increase on Dec 15th 2010.

Sweetwater sells now for $5400...

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/BackBone

Well, I do realize that there's not a whole lot inside the box, but I'm not entirely sure I could pull something like that off just handwiring it...at least not with ALL those features...

If you take out a couple features a majority of the switching functions is just relays.

So you have a 3 position switch for input selection, Elma or Greyhill could offer that and you ditch the relays.

You have a button for Phase reversal, so you use a few relays to switch the polarity after the input selection switch or another nice switch.
You have a button to switch your left and right channels around, again more relays switching between the two or another nice switch.
There also looks like a switch that just shows the active components are engaged IE on/Off.

Next you have 8 switches that change the a bank or relays to switch in and out the stuff in your rack.

Sum Diff circuit would require a little bit of thought, but generally speaking from the description it's just doing analog math IE the Sum or Difference of the channels. If we brush of the old electronics design books something in the textbooks should get us there.  

As far as the MS Matrix on 2&3, you can look arround or just cheat and use the MS matrix Wayne and Roger had dreamed up found at http://www.ka-electronics.com/KAelectronics/MS_Matrix/MS_Matrix.htm

The 4/5 Swap is again more relays or a switch.

There is a little more here/left but you get the general idea, it's a big elephant but it's tasty in small bites.

Have you looked into Igor's Universal Switcher?

Matt

matta said:

Have you looked into Igor's Universal Switcher?

Matt

Click to expand...

That's a killer option! Toss that with the MS stuff your bout 85% there!

Kevin