[ls13coco]

Okay, so this is an aspect of this hobby that I have an absolute weakness with. Here, I am absolutely lost.

What I am trying to do;

Hook up multiple amps, through a loki, to multiple dacs.


So as it stands, I have 5 stand alone amps right now which all take turns feeding into a amp/dac combo unit.
I absolutely hate having to un-plug, plug-in the RCAs every time.
I have a Rdac on the way after August so I will at least have the ability to have 2 dacs going at the same time.
I ordered 2 sets of splitters last night and have a Schiit Sys coming as a birthday present soon.
I plan to buy a Loki soon, as well.

How can I run this with the least un-plugging?
Ideally, I'd like to run the loki into both dacs from all my amps at the same time, being able to run any amp into both dacs without unplugging anything.
I am not currently sure if that will be attainable, but at least eliminating some of my RCA switching would be a plus.

Thanks!

- splitter ignorant.

 

[Allegro maestoso]

Greetings!

I have recently had a fun time experimenting with connectivity. I'd like to recommend the ONE LittleBear MC403 RCA switcher, available on Amazon. It has two big selector knobs, four inputs (they count bluetooth as one, which has actually come in handy for me), and three outputs. I was using it to take signal from two DACs and route it to my three headphone amps, until I took my Magni 3 to work. I still use it for the remaining two amps. With some creativity, you might be able to use two of them to manage all of your devices. You would have to remember what device is in what position (splitter one, input 2, output C, etc.).

For digital splitting, I use a (cheap) fiber optic splitter to send signal from my CD transport to both DACs. The digital coax from my FiiO DAP was a little more complicated. I finally got it to work by connecting a FiiO digital coax cable to an RCA Y-splitter, then an RCA female-female coupler to two digital coax cables, each going to a DAC. Pics of those components are below. I still have to plug and unplug my Cayin DAP with its USB output (I have a USB cable plugged into each DAC), but this is a compromise I'm willing to live with for now.

Something that really helped me was taking a pen and paper and sketching a diagram of source components, DACs, amplifiers, and splitters/switchers. I labeled their available connection types (RCA, USB, Toslink, etc.) and drew lines and labeled them to represent the cables connecting everything. I did this multiple times, experimenting until I found the ideal solution, then ordered cables, adapters, and splitters.

Best of luck, have fun, and post pictures of your completed spaghetti pile!

My rig/cabling layout has changed a little since I took the pictures, but you get the idea.

 

[Christoph]

Having a similar question, looking for XLR balanced switches in a high qualitiy.

I found a XLR switch similar to the mentioned 'little bear' switch above for XLR at amazon: Nobsound Little Bear MC3
But i have doubts if this is the best quality...