[Link: amazon.com]
or
[Link: amazon.com]

If your cables are too long with y cables, what keeps them from being too long with a panel? Make your own custom length - plenty options.

RCA jacks on the components are too close together to use these. These, as a cable, add a foot of wire per channel. A panel would add no wire.

Hard to believe. But without specifics, impossible to know.


The proper tools in the hands of a professional can be used to make an audio cable almost any length your heart desires.

This is true. We were trying to work with the cables we had. Our bad. However, just working with cables and the proper tools, I was hard pressed to work out how I could modify, or make from scratch, Y cables of, say, three to four inches of length.

It's amazing how many great suggestions here miss one point or another.

When I did not say I was plugging into an AVR, but siad I HAD TO PLUG INTO TWO COMPONENTS, I got advice about how to do something like I wanted using an AVR. Of course, that guy missed the fact that I want to have five satellite receiver outputs always going to five inputs on two, count 'em, two, components.

Ignoring that last fact brought people to suggest switchers. I don't know of a switcher that can have all sources connected to all downstream devices short of a matrix, and if I'm able to accomplish what I need with cabling, then a matrix is total overkill.

[Link: planetwavesci.com]

One could purchase a bag of RCA jacks, drill a plate or utility box, and make a custom jig -- but at what cost?

You wrote "each analog output to two devices"- that isn't the same as "five satellite receiver outputs always going to five inputs on two, count 'em, two, components."

What is the component that will receive the signal from the five sat boxes? Maybe it would be better to use something else, with enough input jacks.

You know, I wonder at the cost of Mac's beautifully combed data cables, and the amount of time it takes to do that, especially since it adds NOTHING to the performance of the system.

The advantage of Mac's beautiful wiring is esthetic and it's something to be proud of. In my case, a chassis with thirty jacks (one input and two outputs times ten channels) would LOOK much more elegant than a combination of male-male RCA cables and Y cables. This would take two Y cables per channel; that's the bulk of twenty Y cables stuffed into the back of a rack (yes, this is in a rack).

In addition to anything esthetic, that custom panel with 30 jacks would greatly simplify wiring and troubleshooting. It ACTUALLY has more value than Mac's beautiful data cabling!



But when five satellite receiver outputs are wired such that all five outputs are always connected to two components, then each analog output goes to two devices. Both halves of that are true. You don't see it as the same. I get it.

I understand that you didn't catch what I meant. This should be a lesson for all of us that when we think we have described something that we understand, it's not always understood.

I am baffled, though, that anyone thought switching was required, or that any component didn't have enough input connections.


You have not yet understood that I need each output to go to TWO different devices. I thought at least THAT was clear!


...and I did not say I needed more input jacks. What made you think that I said that? Please quote me!

These satellite outputs need to go [A] to a HearTV device, which has eight pairs of analog inputs; a phone app lets a person choose which of those inputs he wants to listen to on his phone. We're only using five of the inputs. The signal also goes to [B] five standalone 900 MHz transmitters in a different room.

That is, each signal goes to two different devices and each signal is always connected... so no switching is involved.

Another "Y" variation: [Link: amazon.com]

That's pretty great. Now, if only it were two feet long....

I worked out a reasonable way to do what I was trying to do using half the cables we originally envisioned. Thanks for the help along the way!

By writing "each sat receiver is connected to two devices, that means a y-cable would work and it's not the same as writing that all five sat receivers are connected to two devices. It's not a matter of me not catching it, NOBODY saw that you wanted to connect them in the way you wrote after your first post.

You weren't clear in the first post. It's not a big deal, but it doesn't read the way you intended. We won't think less of you if you admit this.

You should have read your own tag line before posting.

Yeah, sorry.

The right way to do this is with an appropriate size audio DA and a fabricated connector panel. The cheap way to do it is with Y cables and a fabricated panel.

A very nice custom panel with engraving and connectors loaded should be under $200. Try Panel Authority. They are slow, and the CAD guy is probably dyslexic, but the finished quality is very good and the price is right.

The second one in this post:

has become the unit of choice.

At the source, each channel of each of the five satellite receivers will get one of these. This gives us two outputs from each channel of the satellite receiver. One cable will go to the HearTV device, the other will go to one of the five RF modulators in the other room.

That's ten of those Ys and twenty cables to the other devices.