Re: Anyone using a Rane SM 26B?

[Chris Muir <cbm@well.com>]

At 7:58 AM -0700 10/4/00, Mike Biffle wrote:
>Again... watch out trying to recombine outputs from other boxes with 
>a patchbay. Splitting is fine... (Anyone have a more technical 
>explanation of this?)

This is sort of a simple view of this issue:

Outputs are generally quite low impedance (600 ohm or lower), Inputs 
are generally quite high impedance (10K ohm or higher, although most 
modern equipment is in the Meg-ohm range).

Low impedance is used on outputs so that there is sufficient power to 
drive a run of cable. Low impedance outputs deliver enough current to 
cause them to fight to drive the line. You could build a simple 
passive mixer into a patch bay using resistors to raise the impedance 
to a point where the outputs are isolated from each other.

An input loads an output, but modern high impedance inputs are hardly 
any load on a low impedance output. Several high impedance inputs can 
hang off of one low impedance output without undue loading. Splitting 
in a patch bay works pretty well, particularly if the inputs you are 
splitting to have similar input impedances.

_________________________________________________________
The optimist sees a glass half full...     | Chris Muir
The pessimist sees a glass half empty...   | cbm@well.com
The realist sees a glass twice as big as it needs to be.