I went decidedly old school and bought used broadcast/studio equipment off of ebay. This equipment appears to depreciate rapidly as the budgets are huge when these broadcast studios are built and everything goes to auction when they close. I bought 2 units that retail for $932 each for $150 after tax and shipping - for both.
Nothing fancy about them at all except they are over engineered internally. They use E3 connections which I knew nothing about until recently. Seems to be a good compromise: more robust than 1/4", more flexible than DB25 (and sturdier), easier to work with than soldering, made by EDAC/ELCO but not as daunting to rig up. These units incorporate 1/4" bantam mil-spec jacks on the front. Basically, larger than TT Bantam so less density but more robust. Much less common patch cables so they tend to be a little pricier - that seems to be the main drawback.
I created a complete schematic of my room because I’m a nerd and have a little more free time than I used to. I’m now in the process of planning out new cabling for everything. Going to try and move to almost 100% multi-channel snakes for the main room wiring which should clean everything up substantially. Its not much cheaper if it is at all but I like the committed aspect of it and less clutter. We will see.
