Low‑cost patchbays are pretty much commodity items nowadays, and ever since P&R figured out a way to get 24 pairs of standard jack sockets in a 1U panel, just about every other company has come up with its own interpretation of the same idea. The Kelsey Acoustics Patchbay, manufactured for them by Rean (a major plastics company who also make jack sockets), is no exception, though it does have a couple of interesting new features. The basic patchbay comprises a folded metal chassis into which individual circuit boards containing the sockets are slotted. If you reverse the boards, which have sockets front and rear, the front‑panel jacks can either be semi‑normalised (for use as insert points), or non‑normalised, and reversing the board is only a matter of loosening the jack socket's retaining nut on the rear panel. By the same token, the boards can easily be removed for contact cleaning. Using this principle, both balanced and unbalanced connector boards can be fitted depending on the needs of the user.
The unusual twist on this model is that you can also specify semi‑normalised boards with a single stereo jack on the rear, the idea being that a regular stereo jack lead is all that's needed to connect the rear of the patchbay to a console insert point — though this isn't necessarily as straightforward as it seems, because not all console manufacturers yet agree on whether the ring or the tip of the jack should be the insert send. These boards are wired for ring‑send, which I believe is the system adopted by most leading brands, so users with consoles wired the other way around will need to swap the hot and cold connections at one end of their stereo jack lead. The front‑panel jack sockets on the insert boards are actually TRS types, and the cold/screen signal from the insert point is connected to the ring connector, rather than to the screen as you'd expect. This is done to allow both balanced and unbalanced outboard gear to be connected to the insert point.
Another nice touch is the labelling system, something that's always a problem with 1U patchbays. Here, two slim metal channels are provided, each of which is fitted with a strip of white plastic, onto which the socket names may be printed. You could also type up your own labels on an inkjet or laser printer, then slide the strips of paper into the channel. You don't get a lot of height to write in, but it's probably as good as things get for a 1U, 24‑pair jack bay.
Like all budget patchbays, this one uses inexpensive moulded plastic jack sockets; in time, the normalising connections are likely to need cleaning or, preferably, treating with a deoxidising solution. The beauty of this system of construction is that boards are easy to remove individually, and the option of a stereo jack insert point board looks set to appeal to those who hate making up their own cables. The price is attractive, there are some genuinely new ideas and there's a practical labelling system. 'Nuff said! Paul White