Handbook for Sound Engineers, 5th Edition

29.16.13 Goodbye Jackfields, Hello Routing

Considering that one of the easiest audio subsystems to organize using digital technology is signal switching, it’s astonishing jackfields lasted as long as they did. Analog switching matrices are at such a level of development that they can be considered transparent to the system. Digital routers of course have no impact on signal quality whatsoever. Neither in any way, even when many are cascaded, create performance limitations. They are dense (many thousand source/destination crosspoints will fit in the same rack space as 144 jack holes) and decreasingly expensive—much less expensive per crosspoint than a comparable jack circuit. Control is soft and the operation can thus be anything from a humble ...