Monitor Controllers & Switchers
Audio Monitor Controllers and Speaker Switchers come in handy if your recording studio has more than one pair of headphones and one pair of speakers. Tidepool Audio has a number of different speaker switchers and controllers.
Some studio setups use A/D and D/A converters that lack any dedicated variable-level speaker and headphone outputs and when the engineer wants to adjust the volume of the control room speakers independently from a set of headphones, a dedicated monitoring output device is necessary.
Another scenario is where the engineer wants to switch from listening to one set of near field studio monitors to another set that may or may not be used with a dedicated subwoofer. Having a monitor controller allows for easy switching of monitors and headphones too.
Some studios are working not only in stereo (2.0), but in various surround formats such as 5.1 or 7.1 These numbers reflect five main speakers (left, center, right) and two rear surround speakers for instance. Having a monitor controller that is capable of switching from two-channel (full-range, no subwoofer) to a 2.1 (two-channel plus sub) to a 5.1 is not a luxury, it is a necessity for some engineers working in the gaming industry.
Not all speaker and headphone level controllers are the same. Lower-quality speaker and headphone controllers may suffer from inferior left-right balance, especially at the lower end of the volume control's attenuator settings. Images may 'pull' to one side or the other in these compromised designs.
Tidepool Audio carries monitor speaker controllers from Audient, Crane Song, Grace Designs, Heritage Audio, Radial and SPL.