any audible difference among popular splitters?

[hollywood_steve]

OK, a question for the big ears crowd......
I need to purchase a two channel mic splitter in the next day or two and I was wondering if anyone has noticed an audible difference between the obvious choices from ProCo, Whirlwind, Radial and Palmer?

They all seem to cost around the same: +/- $100/ch and there aren't any features to set one apart from another, so the only way to choose would be if you could actually hear a difference between the various units. Can you?

thanks.

(FWIW, I will be using the splitter to take vocal feeds prior to the PA system at a jazz trio gig. I'm confident that the instrument sounds are going to come out pretty good, so I'm hoping to get vocal tracks that are at least close to the same level. God, I wish I could get more jazz sessions without ANY PA involved!)

[Clueless]

A (possibly) related question. I've got racks in two different places in my studio. I've got my patchbays laid out so that I can have group and aux sends present in both patchbays. By default, I have all my groups going to one bay and all my auxes going to another. I was planning on using a simple Y cable (it's coming +4 from the back of a Midas Verona--plenty of drive, and balanced) to split the signal and send to both bays. My question: how much am I going to mess up my signal (if at all) by sending it both down an 8m wire and a 3m wire as opposed to sending it down only one or the other.

[Plush]

We like the Whirlwind splitter with the genuine Jensen transformer. Sound is excellent and interfacing courtesy the Jensen is always problem free.

[jazzbutcher]

Timing is everything....

I am in a similar boat - but when I called Whirlwind, they said that they didn't even have the Jensens in stock and that it would easily take several weeks to get hold of them. Blahh. Since my gig is happening this weekend, I am borrowing a lowly ProCo 4-chan splitter that i have used in the past with (what seemed like) no problems that I could detect. I was planning to (selfishly) take the direct out for my recorder and give the iso split to the PA.

Why do I feel like I'm just gonna end up making my own splitter with Jensens before too long? Pre-made splitters with Jensen transformers seem priced outa sight!



-dave

[hollywood_steve]

Anyone have experience with this model?

http://www.mercenary.com/pms02mispboi.html

[ClickTrackAudio]

I currently use 24 channels of the pro-co splitters and I don't have any audible problems. I've been meaning to take the scope to them to see what the phase relationship is *really* like, but I haven't had the time.

Having said that, I'm in the middle of construction of a new truck from the ground up and am planning on getting some of the whirlwinds...at that point I'll be able to compare and give you a more educated answer.

Cheers

Click.

[ClickTrackAudio]

Originally posted by jazzbutcher
Timing is everything....

I am in a similar boat - but when I called Whirlwind, they said that they didn't even have the Jensens in stock and that it would easily take several weeks to get hold of them. Blahh. Since my gig is happening this weekend, I am borrowing a lowly ProCo 4-chan splitter that i have used in the past with (what seemed like) no problems that I could detect. I was planning to (selfishly) take the direct out for my recorder and give the iso split to the PA.
-dave

It may be selfish, but giving the recording feed the direct is the preferred way to go (not that it happens that way all the time).

I do come from a live background, and the phase issues potentially induced by the splitter is fairly negligle when it comes to the tonne of other issues that need to be dealt with when you're pushing large power. (I'm not saying its not a problem, I'm looking at the grand scheme of things).

The biggest issue, of course is grounding (do you have your lifts flipped or not?) and phantom. You'll need to supply the phantom, and some live FOH guys aren't very comfortable in giving control to someone who isn't in the artist/audience view .

Its all a matter of negotiation!

Cheers

[SLS]

I use ProCo splitters as well. I haven't gotten into any "serious" A/B'ing, but if there is any difference, it seems negligable. Also, most live situations don't yield the kind of controlled environment where this type of difference will heavily affect the quality (at least in my experience).

Yes, dealing with the FOH engineer is a whole separate set of issues, and sometimes I just let the venue or the FOH engineer provide the split as long as it seems good. I am just so tired of dealing with splitter snakes!

[Remoteness]

Steve,

I have not A/B'd ProCo, Whirlwind, Radial and Palmer, but I've used everyone except the Palmer and they all do the trick just fine. With that said you'll never go wrong with a Jensen. Either way do everything you can to keep the primary side of the transformer feed for yourself.

Clueless,

At +4 line level you should not have any problems with the extra cable attached. Are you going to use both bays at the same time or individually? If both bays are in use, make sure the inputs are bridging correctly.

Plush,

Whirlwind also provides a "Jensen" like transformer that's half the price and rings out very nicely. It sounds pretty damn good to my ears.

Dave,

There's a beauty in making your own stuff. You know what you have and how it's built first hand.

Whatever you folks do, make sure you add ground lift switches for every secondary output. Sometimes you may need to ground the secondary feed... most of the time you be lifting the feed.

Adam,

Why are you tired of dealing with splitter snakes?

[SLS]

Originally posted by Remoteness
Adam,

Why are you tired of dealing with splitter snakes?

Lol, you covered a lot of ground on that last post.

Well, first of all, they are kind of a pain to lug around and deal with sometimes. Second, and it may just be my experiences, they seem finicky. I dunno, it seems like there is always some issue that comes up when using one.

[baze sax]

sorry for asking this at two threads about splitters. I want to split the mic signal to two channels on the mixer to enhance the lead vocal against the extremly loud bands. I plan to use some type of trafo splitter (not the high end jensens).probably the art prosplit. may I get some impedance, ground, phase or some other troubles?

[NorseHorse]

Can't you just turn the gain up? You have ample opportunity: the mic pre, the insert, the channel fader, the master bus, the speaker amp, etc.

And to contribute meaningfully to the original poster, I would recommend staying away from the Horizon MS4. The isolated outs sounds distinctly different from the direct outs. The ISO outs are thin and harsh with the stock transformers.

[mixedupsteve]

Originally Posted by baze sax

sorry for asking this at two threads about splitters. I want to split the mic signal to two channels on the mixer to enhance the lead vocal against the extremly loud bands. I plan to use some type of trafo splitter (not the high end jensens).probably the art prosplit. may I get some impedance, ground, phase or some other troubles?

The impedance the mic sees will be lower so you might have to add a little more gain. It sounds like your using the wrong mic or maybe the singer has bad mic technique. What is the problem exactly?

[baze sax]

ok, I'll explain the circumstances. the mic is nice(wireless condenser), I am a good singer. everything is ok when the levels are normal. but I always work with diferent bands who generally play very loud and set up the mixer by themselves. you know the result. I still have a good sound in louder parts but when I sing lower parts the vocal is lost. I have read somewhere about enhancing vocals with a second channel 5-8khz fill. that's why I ask. what is the best way to split the signal,and possible problems? greets

[Remoteness]

Splitting the mic signal into two channels is not a bad idea.
I do it often for a variety of reasons.

That being said, I think a compressor will be more helpful than splitting into two channels.

[somethingstarted]

quick question while were on the subject of splitting signals...

so we have all our mics and instruments going into a snake that goes to the back of the sanctuary where the mixing magic happens. on our board we have all our direct outputs going to an Aviom Personal Monitor System and then the board naturally mixes everything down to the house seperately into 8 subgroups... it looks alot like the mixer in part three (3) of PreSonus

now onto the meat.

what i'm hoping to do is hook up a few daisy chained firestudios to a pc without disturbing the Aviom Mons coming from the direct outputs of each individual cannel. i'm thinking about going with the splitting the snake, but that might require us taking apart a LOT of stuff and such which would be gooooood if we could avoid that... so maybe what if we could take the channels either 1- after the orginal snake and before the mixer, and split it there and take the split channels to the firestudio, or 2- take it after the direct output and split it there, the only diference is that if i do it after the direct out than when we change the house DBs then it would probably affect the recording on the PC.... except they usually feed the individual channels into 8 subgroups for the house, so they probably wouldn't get affected too much if it is after the direct outs, the only thing there is it is no longer raw sound its altered by the EQ of the mixer or the house... any ideas here?

and also another is that if we split it would the be any audiably difference in the sounds? HOW should it be split and when? should we use preamps at any time to boost the signal? i seriusly doubt we would get noise gates for every channel haha




thanks for your help.
allan

[mixedupsteve]

I would take it pre mixer. That way it's a mic level and doesn't go through the mixers micpre first. Pretty standard really.

[tourtelot]

I have been lucky, I guess, and have been using my own splits and taking the direct for recording. I have two 8-channel ART units and I scoped them before I used them the first time. Someday, Jensens all around but. . . .

They will take more than +18dB before they clip at anything higher than about 80Hz. Remember, that's +18 at 80Hz! They get pretty awful really fast below that range at that level but since I use them for mic level signals, they are really good from about 40Hz to about 15KHz; plenty good for a PA feed. They are one U high and have pads and ground-lifts.

BTW, has anyone got any sense of any loading issues, or other nasties caused by any transformers on the direct side of things? I wouldn't think so; just checking.