Connecting multiple systems and audio solutions for Retro Gamers

[Lendorien]

So here's an interesting question that I haven't seen a lot of discussion on. How many consoles do you have hooked up to your television(s) and what method do you use to hook them up?

 

* Game/AV Switch - Less commonly available now than a few years ago, AV switches come in electronic and mechanical versions allowing you to hook multiple consoles up to one device which then outputs to your TV or AV receiver. I personally have a very nice Pelican System Selector Pro with 8 switches capable of outputting S-video and Composite. It's been off the market for years. I got mine by luck at a thrift store. I had to get a Radio shack AC adapter for it, but I've used it now for 7 years. I also have a cheaper 4 switch RCA brand Video Selector that I use on another TV.

 

* AV Receiver. - I own a high end (as of about 4 years ago) Denon AV receiver which inputs composite, HDMI and Component. It outputs HDMI on all inputs. Nice receiver, but only my newer stuff is hooked up to it... Wii. PS2, PS3, Xbox, etc.). My CRT is outfitted with the above gameswitch, though I intend to switch it out with a high end 15 year old Yamaha RX-V992 Receiver I just bought at Goodwill (for 10 dollars. What a steal. It goes for 100 on Ebay). It has no less than 6 Inputs for Composite and S-video, not including the V-Aux on front.

 

* Y cables. - For RF signals, this is what I have ended up falling back on. Systems like the Intellivision, 2600, 5200, Collection, etc. Are all hooked up to my CRT with a crap ton of y-cables. The down side is that you do get some interference as a result. I've done Y-cables for Composite too, but you end up buying a lot of y-cables that way!

 

* Ground Loops. When you have all sorts of crap hooked up through game switches and into a receiver, you'll probably end up dealing with that obnoxious hum from your speakers that signifies a ground loop. Not always easy to solve.

 

* Rat Nests. - I always worry about fire hazards. I use higher end power strips for my systems, but behind the TV it always looks like a rat nest of wires and such. Cable management is always a struggle.

 

So. How many systems do you have hooked up to a single TV and what methods are you using to do so?

 

I have 7 on my 32" triniton CRT and 4 on my LCD. Another 4 on my backup CRT I use for testing new acquisitions.

Edited April 7, 2016 by Lendorien

[Keatah]

I tried this sort of thing back in the day when I was a kid. I found I could have unlimited systems hooked up at once if I used two switches that handled the ground and the center conductor of the NTSC/Composite cable. Did it this way because if all the grounds were tied together I had degraded picture and hums and all that.

 

But two switches allowed me to patch in one console only. And it worked pretty good.

[7800fan]

I got 6 older AV switch boxes with S-Video support chained for up to 25 consoles. One is like the master box that selects one of the 5 other boxes, and the other ones for individual consoles. Have not experienced ground loop issue but I did get very short and well shielded cable to connect all 5 to one and another set of good cables to my TV.

 

Got room for a few more consoles before I'd need a new solution.

[The Usotsuki]

4. Passive AV switch. And for the NES and SMS, audio splitters.

[HoshiChiri]

Currently 12, with plans for a few more. Nothing pre-crash is in the permanent setup. I have an a/b switcher mounted to the side of my shelving setup, effectively giving me an easy access coaxial port to plug the older stuff into as needed. Only the 'a' port is open for that, the 'b' side has the NES toploader hooked up.

 

Aside from that, I have one of those 8-in hong kong switchers that are so readily available these days (mine's branded mt-viki, but I don't think there's really a difference). Composite only, so it's kinda crappy picture, but it's what works for my current setup. I also have a Kinivo 5-in HDMI switch for the newer stuff.

 

The only thing that's given me any sort of grief via ground loop is the PS3, which has a mighty hum- the problem seems to be less my setup and more our ground itself, as moving the system to another tv with just a DVD player plugged in had the same hum. It's plugged into an adapter that eliminates the ground (all my systems are plugged into surge protectors, so it does still have some protection.)

 

As for the rat's nest nest of wires... a few months ago, I took the entire setup out, dusted, and carefully put everything back while tying off the extra cable length. I chose my shelving based on it's open design, so I ran the cables up and down the support bars. End result? Very little visible cabling, no rat's nest. Although, removing anything would still be a chore, as I'd have to follow the wires, un-doing and re-doing the Velcro bundles along the way, to get any cables back out with ruining the whole thing.

[KeeperofLindblum]

My previous HDTV had two composite spots and one of those two had s-video.

During that period, I used these two mechanical a/v switches with 4 ports to handle eveything. I had few enough HDMI at that point that each one had its own slot.

(around 8 consoles at that point)

 

When I changed to my Framemeister setup, I had to rearrange and eliminate the a/v switches. Currently have a 4k HDTV with 5 HDMI spots and one component. All the HDMI are taken (PC, PS3, Dish, HDMI switch, Framemeister). Component for the Wii.

HDMI switch has PS4, WiiU, 360 on it. (2 empty ports), and the Framemeister has the PS2 on d-terminal and everything else gets to cycle through the RGB port since a good SCART switch either doesn't exist or is very expensive. Consoles here are NES, SNES, Sega Genesis w/ Sega CD addon, and PS1.

 

So my current setup has 10 consoles on it.

I did have the Saturnon Framemeister composite but that is gone.

 

The look from the front is pretty nice, but the rat's nest behind it all is a nightmare. T.T

[Hitachi]

I've been giving this some thought, and after watching some ben heck videos, I have an ultimate setup solution.

 

Rackmount everything. take all the consoles out of their original casings, and put each one in some sort of rack pc enclosure. Then, all of the enclosures in one rack.

 

For A/V: use some sort of smart switch that will take all of the outputs from the consoles, and output whichever is on at a given time.

 

Ideally, each would have a laser etched, brushed aluminum front, so that when they are all in the setup, it mimics a Pioneer SPEC system. (Picture borrowed from Pioneer-vintage.de)

 

[fiddlepaddle]

It always starts out neat and organized, but after a year or two of adding and removing systems I end up with your basic rats nest of systems, switches, and too much crap I don't want hooked up anymore so eventually I'm never sure just which wires are still functional and what exactly goes where.

 

Every so often, I start over. I don't spend much time on configuration anymore; rather be playing.

[7800fan]

It always starts out neat and organized, but after a year or two of adding and removing systems I end up with your basic rats nest of systems, switches, and too much crap I don't want hooked up anymore so eventually I'm never sure just which wires are still functional and what exactly goes where.

 

Every so often, I start over. I don't spend much time on configuration anymore; rather be playing.

 

I bet my sealed and crushed 2600 Pac Man that you have a rogue power strip somewhere in the rat nest that is plugged into itself and not working :D

[+GoldenWheels]

I had my eye on my sister's TV/Stand for a couple years so I had plenty of time to plan what I would do with it. Finally I bit the bullet and got them an HDTV for Christmas...with the caveat being I get the Wega!

 

 

 

I've got a Pelican S-Video/Composite switch on the left of the WEGA stand, an 8 way composite switch on the right. The power strips for each rack are also mounted on the corresponding side of the stand--I used a hole saw to give myself ports. The RF systems go right into the TV. The baseboard trim between the WEGA cabinet and the racks was added by me and it is 4 inches higher than the regular trim behind it...this created a nice little valley for me to hide cords in.

 

So that's a PS2, a SNES, and an N64 on the left, a NES, a PC Engine Duo and a Genesis in the stand itself, and a 7800, and Atari XE, and a 5200 on the right. 9 systems (I just got that Atarimax cart you might notice on top of the XE; there was a Coleco in that XE's spot until a week ago). All systems are at most two button pushes aways....correct TV input, correct switch input.

 

Sorry if that's a ton of photos...I could not resize or do a slide show like I wanted

[Eltigro]

Right now, I have 11 systems and a surround sound receiver hooked up to my TV. I just sat here looking at it and tried to remember how everything was plugged in back there and got a headache. So yeah, it's a mess, but it works.

[Newsdee]

I have about 8-10 systems around an XRGB-Mini. What I did is put a switch behind each input of the XRGB, although I end up fiddling with SCART every time to add/remove a cable with a sync stripper. With this setup I can have up to 3 S-Video, 4 composite, 3 component and 3 SCART machines permanently setup. If I need more I'd add a switch.

 

I also have two machines that I want to use at the same time with the same headset. For that I simply used one of those Y/U shaped splitters in reverse with a gender changer (basically: two male/male cables, the Y splitter, one gender changer -> headset)

[Newsdee]

The other thing is that I get multi power plugs with individual switches, so as much as possible only one machine and it's AC adapter are on at the same time. It makes me feel a bit safer because even with a rat nest behind the furniture, they are less likely to be running hot.

[Lendorien]

As for the rat's nest nest of wires... a few months ago, I took the entire setup out, dusted, and carefully put everything back while tying off the extra cable length. I chose my shelving based on it's open design, so I ran the cables up and down the support bars. End result? Very little visible cabling, no rat's nest. Although, removing anything would still be a chore, as I'd have to follow the wires, un-doing and re-doing the Velcro bundles along the way, to get any cables back out with ruining the whole thing.

 

I have all my cables twist tied up to shorten their lengths, but given that I do occasionally move things, the cable routing option wouldn't work for me. But I can totally see how it would make your setup so very much cleaner.

 

 

I've got a Pelican S-Video/Composite switch on the left of the WEGA stand, an 8 way composite switch on the right. The power strips for each rack are also mounted on the corresponding side of the stand--I used a hole saw to give myself ports. The RF systems go right into the TV. The baseboard trim between the WEGA cabinet and the racks was added by me and it is 4 inches higher than the regular trim behind it...this created a nice little valley for me to hide cords in.

 

The Pelican switches are great. Mine is the System Selector Pro (linky). It's a bit higher end than the standard one and has both Ethernet and component ports in addition to composite and S-video. That was a wonderful Goodwill find, I'll tell you. I've used it for years.

 

I think Pelican still makes a product like it, but it's all HDMI now. This one went out of production back when the Gamecube was still around. The nice thing is it looks more like AV receiver equipment than your standard composite switches, so it looks nice in a good setup.

 

I love that WEGA stand. Wicked cool looking . I love the design. I assume the TV came with it. I have a 32" Triniton in a MASSIVE wood TV stand from the 90's. When I bought my house, we moved in and it was there in the basement. The previous owner didn't want to deal with getting it up the steps or taking it apart it so just left it behind for us to deal with. (Guy turns out to have been a bit of a jack according to pretty much all the neighbors). But it worked out in my favor because it's just right for a 32" TV.

 

 

The other thing is that I get multi power plugs with individual switches, so as much as possible only one machine and it's AC adapter are on at the same time. It makes me feel a bit safer because even with a rat nest behind the furniture, they are less likely to be running hot.

 

Where did you find said power strip. I'd love something like that. Right now, I just unplug the whole setup when I'm not using it. Since I'm not using it most of the time, I suppose it works out anyway because there's less power being used. Yay for a lower electrical bill!

Edited April 9, 2016 by Lendorien

[Newsdee]

 

Where did you find said power strip. I'd love something like that. Right now, I just unplug the whole setup when I'm not using it. Since I'm not using it most of the time, I suppose it works out anyway because there's less power being used. Yay for a lower electrical bill!

 

They're super common around me; but then I'm in a country that uses UK style plugs (meaning that fuses and other safety measures are build into each individual plug).

This is one of mine: http://shop.sckmcl.com.hk/product_info.php?cPath=72_75&products_id=1056

 

Googling online I've found this for US-style plugs:

http://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-6-Outlet-Individual-Switches-RPS-200/dp/B005HTQAK8

 

This one looks also good for people who have machines from many regions:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/New-Design-4-Way-Universal-Power-Socket-with-Dual-USB-Ports-250V-13A-Electrical-Plugs-Socket/32548526145.html?ws_ab_test=searchweb201556_2,searchweb201602_2_10017_10005_10006_10034_10021_507_10022_508_10020_10018_10019,searchweb201603_2&btsid=620b9280-6d51-4ed5-9c8d-7bab12991745

Edited April 10, 2016 by Newsdee

[fiddlepaddle]

 

They're super common around me; but then I'm in a country that uses UK style plugs (meaning that fuses and other safety measures are build into each individual plug).

...

 

Googling online I've found this for US-style plugs:

http://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-6-Outlet-Individual-Switches-RPS-200/dp/B005HTQAK8

 

...

That's pretty cool, and ten bucks isn't bad.

 

In the US, I've never seen a power strip with multiple switches like that, except those that everybody was using a few years ago that were designed to sit on top of your computer case, under your (big fat footprint CRT) monitor, so that you could turn your printer, monitor, and computer on/off independently.

 

Those seemed to disappear once everyone switched to flat panels and laptops.