DACS Ltd, Unit A19 Stonehills, Shields Road, Gateshead, NE10 0HW
1
Introduction
When Jeff Waters (of Canadian metal band
Annihilator
)
was working on his latest album, he wanted
a way to compare and reconfigure his many boutique amplifiers and cabinets without the lengthy
process of manually swapping cables. Accurate comparisons between the different combinations
were near impossible and the time taken between setup changes interrupted his workflow. Our
design solution allowed Jeff to sit in his control room sweet spot and configure his collection in
seconds; he was achieving in a morning what had often taken up to two days.
What it does
The DACS
HeadLine
allows you to connect 8 amplifiers and 4 speaker cabinets. From there, you can
select any connected amplifier and route it to a speaker or, if desired, two speakers simultaneously.
The
HeadLine
automatically detects whether loudspeakers are connected and only allows you to
select channels which have speakers connected.
The
HeadLine
is packaged as two 1U rack enclosures. The first unit houses the user interface for the
guitarist or engineer and the second unit is a relay switching box that sits next to the amplifiers. The
units connect with a standard RJ45 network cable for easy routing and cable management.
The digitally-controlled relay switching ensures amp loads are maintained and the guitar input is
muted during switching. The illuminated switches on the user interface indicate clearly which amp
and speaker(s) are selected.