Where to find affordable B-guage jacks?

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canidoit

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I have not been able to find A-guage patchbays built like the B-guage types so Im thinking of moving to a B-guage patch system.

It will be a big step, with alot of soldering new leads and making new leads like B-guage to XLR, B-guage to TRS and so on.

Where can I find affordable B-Guage jacks?

 
canidoit said:
Where can I find affordable B-Gauge jacks?

There's no such thing.

Let's say you make a small scale system with an I/O of about 100. That's two 1U panels, or 4X26 for example. You will need 104 Neutrik NP3TB, which is the "de facto" b-gauge jack. In Europe that's something like 300-400e + VAT. Very expensive.

Then you need the cable, let's say 50-100m of high quality star quad, add another 100e.

Add the operation of making them, 4 days.

Of course the actual patchbays themselves - sometimes called jackfields - are not cheap either. 200-300e for one. It's steep difference to the standard 40 euro a-gauge standard bays. But those are usually plastic crap, even by Neutrik.

If you try to cut corners like I originally did, you will only end up buying the cables and jacks twice: first the crappy ones that fail at the most inopportune times, then the trustworthy set outlined above.

B-gauge is not the affordable patching solution no matter how you look at it. But it's most failure proof.
 
I disagree with you. It is far cheaper than the same thing in Bantam/TT & depending on how you do it cheaper than using  TRS bays.

If you were using TRS bays you would be buying the same amount of cable & the same amount of plugs.  If the TRS plugs you bought were Neutrik, which would make them the same quality, then the plugs would cost you not much less than th B Gauge. & would take exactly the same amount of time to solder.  When I worked for an audio cable manufacturer I made 100 guitar cables before lunch one day.
WIth that in mind  I reckon it's 1 day to do 100 plugs.

All the B gauge patchbays I have I bought 2nd hand & none were more than £10 Uk per row of sockets , & most are moss & mitchell.  B gauge bays are expensive new, because they are good quality, & I've never bought a used one that didn't work fine

If you compare this system to using TRS bays with TRS sockets on the back then you need twice the number of plugs, so if you're buying decent TRS plugs then the cost is more than with B Gauge.
 
I think the only reason why I would like to leave the A-Guage patchbay system and go B-guage is because the A-guage patchbay quality is nowhere near as durable as the B-guage(new or old version) patchbays.

I dont know why they do not build an A-Guage patchbay the same way as the B-guage patchbay with those funny looking long style sockets made of military alloy instead of the flimsy TRS style ones?
 
That is precisely why I was using them.  They're much better than any TRS bays, more reliable, longer lasting, more versatile.  Any minor extra expense (argueable anyway) is easily outweighed by the positives.
 
Rob Flinn, I see what you're saying but you have to take into account that you have obviously been incredibly lucky with those patchbay prices, and that you are very experienced with making the cables. I'd really like to know what kind of technique would allow to work fast with broadcast style Canare L-4E6S star quads for example. I mean they just aren't meant to be opened!
 
Hold on, if I buy a B-guage jack, I can use my 2 core microphone cable or 2 core cables? Is that right?

What I plan to do, is cut off the end of my current TRS cables and solder in my B-guage jacks. I don't have to buy new cables do I?
 
No you don't have to. Standard balanced "mic cable" works fine. I just use star quad because I'm used to it and once bought a huge reel.
 
Kingston said:
Rob Flinn, I see what you're saying but you have to take into account that you have obviously been incredibly lucky with those patchbay prices, and that you are very experienced with making the cables. I'd really like to know what kind of technique would allow to work fast with broadcast style Canare L-4E6S star quads for example. I mean they just aren't meant to be opened!
[/quote

I don't think I have been incredibly lucky, £10 a row seems to be the standard price.  I probably have 15 B Gauge bays, 2 row, 3 row, 6 row, & they all cost around £10 a row. 

I don't know what canare star quad is like, I used Van Damme balanced patch cable for mine, but if it has a tight braided shield use a small jewellers screwdriver to unpick it.  Only strip it back as much as you need, then you won't waste time unpicking screen that you're only going to cut off.

Mount your soldering iron so that it is solid, & hangs down with it's tip about 10" from your bench. I use a hand drill bench press mount & some cable ties, but where I worked we had some stands made out of wood, with a nail on top for the reel of solder & computer fan to drag the fumes away. Put the soldering reel on top so the solder hangs down near the tip of the iron.  It's much easier working round the iron like this, takes a bit of practice, but you have a big advantage in that you can move both the plug & cable, which makes it much easier to get the wire to sit in the the solder tag/bucket of the plug properly.  I even do Dsubs like this it's much more acurate & quicker, no blobs of solder shorting 3 pins together. 


I know people who make up special jigs with different sockets to hold the plugs, but you just don't get as good a connection & it takes a lot longer.  It also wastes the sockets on their jigs, which could be put to better use in some DIY gear ;)
 
still, 10quid a row sounds too good to be true. Are we talking about the same thing here?

Here's what I use: http://www.canford.co.uk/Products/45-3216_CANFORD-B-GAUGE-JACKFIELD-HIGH-DENSITY-1U-2x26-nickel-jacks-mono-pitch-grey

Where do you buy stuff like that for 10-20quid?
 
Yes that sort of bay.

Look on UK ebay for starters.  I got 2 x 6 row bays for about £100.  I got 4 x 3 row bays for about £50 delivered.  All of these things are only worth what someone will actually pay for them.  With the 3 row bays I only bid about £20 on 1, but the guy couldn't sell the rest so he let me have them for £5 each  & the rest was postage.  I even have some bays I've been given for free.  If you keep looking there are a lot of B gauge bays about because the BBC decommisioned a load about 10 years back, lots got thrown in skips, to be pulled out by staff.

If you want to buy my trident trimix console I would give you the patchbays I have for free with all associated cabling & the patchleads  !
 
Oh I see, wasteful goverment organisational offloads. Nice one! Too bad I didn't know about this last autumn when I was extending my bays. Oh well, next time.

There's some interesting stuff floating around in Finland when YLE (the local BBC equivalent) offloads their old formats from time to time as well. I know at least 3 studios that currently have several Telefunken M15 quarter inch two track machines that were given to them for free/supercheap in prime serviced condition. Gathering dust unfortunately.
 
I've got two 3U B-gauge bays for a total of 192 points.  I paid about $25 for each on ebay.  They're all switchcraft jacks.  There are plenty of deals to be had out there.  A lot of people abandon their b-gauge stuff and switch to TT simply because of the amount of rack space it takes up.
 
Yes, there's good B-gauge on ebay most of the time, simply because of all the commercial studio closures and also the facility of being able to re-route in the DAW nowadays.

Analogue patching just isn't as necessary as it used to be for a lot of folks. Therefore prices are low.

 

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