Quickly switch channels for 5.1 measurements

[JonFo]

Here's a cool trick for doing measurements of multichannel systems:

I have a big 7.1 multichannel system that has very sophisticated speaker processors (for active crossovers) and I wind up using REW and R+D a lot to tune the system and the room (40+ acoustical treatments in there as well).

One of the biggest aggravators was that to test the full surround field, I was having to get up, unplug and re-plug the measurement output line into the appropriate pre-amp input to check a given channel.
To be safe, I’d turn off some gear, change plugs, then power up, etc. Tedious would be an understatement given how often I run measurements.

So pain and necessity being the parents of invention, I came up with a pretty cool solution I’d like to share. Some of you might already be doing this, but I’ve not seen anyone post about it.

The solution is a mechanism that will take one input and allow me to switch it (via remote) to any of six outputs.

So what can do that at a reasonable price?

One could use some high-end Zektor switch for this. But for measuring SPL’s and doing basic room corretions, probably overkill.

So I just found this Pelican Pro System Selector It has six ‘outputs’, remote control and I got mine for about $69. So price was right

The unit is no paragon of audio purity, but as I mentioned, not a disaster either. And it sure suits my lazy

To wire it up, we feed the audio card output to the selectors left channel output. All feeds to the pre-amp are connected to each of the six ‘inputs’ left channels (for a 5.1 switching ability).

Now I can sit in my HT, running a laptop that is remote desktop controlling the server running REW, and can remote switch which channel I’m measuring in a second. So now I can make a room change, and in less than 3 minutes, have a complete multichannel measurements capture to compare before and after from ‘all’ channels.

Very slick for the compulsive measurement freaks out there (which would be you, if you are reading this forum)

Here is a pic of mine in-use:

[salvasol]

Thank you for sharing