Our industry has seen the explosion of 500 series products in recent years and with it, an equal number of 500 series power supplies. This format excels in its potential for quickly dialing in sounds, however, has been greatly limited by the lack of flexible routing options without the use of expensive external patchbays and wiring harnesses. The portability and compactness of has always been balanced out with the need for bulky, full 19” rack mountable patch bays. The ability to use a 500 Series setup in a live performance has been hampered by the need to carry around heavy snakes and have access to the back panel on stage, with no easy solution for linking modules in separate racks.
We at Black Lion Audio have never settled for industry convention or what is considered “good enough.” Instead, as always, we have approached this problem with the goal of delivering functionality and performance never before available. Enter the Patchbay Rack 8! Equipped with a fully balanced TT/Bantam patchbay, the PBR-8 has unlimited routing options for quickly dialing in sounds that don’t require modules to be loaded in any particular order. Easily try out a signal chain, re-route it, split it using one of the built-in “Mults”, send it to modules in another rack, route it back, then send it out, all from the front panel!
Providing a stable and reliable power supply has been long been one of the issues dogging this format. To solve this issue, the PBR-8 features OST (On Slot Technology) developed in Europe by Heritage Audio. This technology allows us to take advantage of individual regulation per channel, insuring that noise, power issues or crosstalk of one module do not effect other modules. The hefty power supply provides 400mA per rail per slot maximum, with an overall of 1.6A (1.8A non continuous) per rail, whichever is reached first. Coupled with the patchbay, this OST not only makes the PBR-8 one of the quietest and most reliable 500 series power supplies, but without the most functional and flexible ever built.
