Source of cheap jacks

[Mark Hammer]

Just came back from a lunch hour jaunt with a patch bay that I picked up second hand for $26 (+taxes).  Like most generic patch bays out there, regardless of make, this one has 48 three-conductor "Neutrik type" PCB mount pĥone jacks facing front and another 48 facing the back.  So, 96 PCB-mount, threaded collet stereo phone jack for about 30 cents each.

So many people seem to be switching to software-based processing and production that the need for huge patch bays is diminishing, and these things can often show up cheap in used music gear stores.  I've bought two so far and in both cases, the jacks are part of a PCB with 4 jacks, 2 facing in each direction. The boards can be easily cut in half so that you end up with 48 sets of dual-jack"modules" that you an install into pedals.  In my context, the cases I'm using these days have the jacks all rear mounted so this suits me just fine.  I understand that folks using Hammond-type boxes where in and out are on opposite sides à la Boss miht find this aspect less useful.  I suppose you can always saw a module in 4.

[Paul Marossy]

Good tip. Yeah, I too have noticed that patch bays are dinosaurs these days.

[sfr]

I've done the same thing very recently!  Unfortunetly, the one I picked up seems to be all mono jacks, but, seeing as the jacks are normalized, I think I can make them work in an multi-fx enclosure very well!