So FOH editor Bill Evans gave me a buzz and asked me to look at these products and offer my thoughts. He contacts me when he wants that everyday, Joe Schmo opinion on something. Occasionally, he wants me to be hypercritical and nit-picky to avoid manufacturer hyperbole and puffery (thanks for the new vocabulary word, Papa Johns!).
After seeing these items, I can understand why. Simple and well-built, the product descriptions in the "What's in the Gear Box?" sidebar (this page), which comes from the company's website, is all the explanation you need to find the answer to your specific problem. The question is, do you really have a problem?
The Gear
Gear Box Pro Ltd. is offering solutions. Solutions that are so simple, they are items that we have all "manufactured" for ourselves in some form or another. We are in a field where not only does the gear change rapidly, but also, for a lot of us, our working environment varies on a daily basis. A large part of the job is integrating and accommodating the ever-changing tools to the ever-changing work venue. You are probably responsible, if not for the actual gear selection, then for powering and testing and connecting the new or new-to-you equipment. I must admit, GB Pro does it in a slick, cool and well-built way. Lets check out their Cable Management Systems.
GB Pro is offering 18 Cable Cubes and five Power Cubes. I was given one Power Cube and 10 of their Cable Cubes to check out. All are designed to help you eliminate the spaghetti nightmare around your gear and on stage. Keeping the cabling neat and tidy just makes it easier for you and your crew to identify and trace if you have an issue.
We all know doing a great sound job is not enough anymore. How it looks can be just as important as how it sounds (no, really!), and with stiff competition for every job, it might come down to how streamlined your setup is or appears to be to the client or other production vendors.
First thing you notice, these things are really well-built, and I mean stop-a-scissor-lift well-built. They have an extruded aluminum housing with a stainless steel connector mounting tray, and the components are Neutrik and Hubbell. One of the coolest bonus features is the integrated fly-track, which accepts single and double stud rigging clips. All the fly-tracks have a working load limit rating of 350 lbs. or 159 kgs, and if you have ever needed to secure extra cabling to a truss or had an odd pick point, or the thousand other little issues you run into every day, this will do exactly what it was designed to do. Help you work smarter, safer and cleaner.
Anyone else have a few items that have had the silk screening "cleaned" away by an over-zealous employee? Do you have any direct boxes that look like you dragged them behind the truck from the shop to the gig? Anyone else think the gear looks just as pro with those white gaff-tape/Sharpie pen, hand-drawn labels? Me neither! GB Pro has virtually eliminated the labeling problems by reverse-laminating color graphics to the underside of Lexan decals. (The same Lexan material used to make cutting boards.) I know that my guys would see this as a challenge, but every effort has been made to ensure this stuff looks good and stays that way.
Here's a personal potshot at all who use this extruded aluminum style housing/container – yes, this is the nit-picky part – round over the edges a little! I could shave with these things – and those edges are hard on fingers and clothes too.
The Gigs
Regarding the Power Cube, I used it to distribute power to three small, powered speakers that I had arrayed on stands in a small arc. Having three speaker stands in a small footprint can always look a little cluttered, especially when jumping signal and power to each speaker. I happened to have a single-stud rigging clip with an 18-inch safety cable that I used to attach the GB Pro Power Cube 4E to the center stand. It did help clean up what could have been a cable mess or an irritating squandering of my beloved gaff tape! It worked great for this gig, as my only other piece of gear that day was the source CD player, so the 4 outlet unit was perfect with no need to utilize the convenient PowerCon thru to another 4E. And although each of my speakers uses a 15-amp AC plug, the 4 receptacles (I think the correct electrical terminology is a "duplex receptacle" per side) on the GB Pro Power Cube 4E are the 20-amp Hubbells, which is an attribute I check on every female electrical outlet by habit now. And a hard-learned lesson it was, I confess! By the way, the unit has a standard 16-Amp total max load rating.
One thing I did notice; the CD player was a tiny, wall-warted version, and the 4E's Edison outlets faced East/West as opposed to North/South. If you were to use the beautifully made, lay-flat, DI-sized devices for distributing stage power, especially if you were utilizing the in/out PowerCons, would the average guitar guy be able to easily connect his extensive wall-wart collection? Again, it's just me being hypercritical. At least you could find the dark colored 4E on stage with its pretty blue LED power indicator lights, two total, one on each side with the PowerCon and Edison connectors.
Con, especially in this day, is going to be price. This Power Cube sells for $195.95. I think my cube taps from CBI are less than $5 each, and I can stack two together if necessary. No currently available products look as good or have the integrated fly-track found on the GearBox Pro stuff, however.
The Cable Cubes are very clean and cool solutions for specific problems. I use a single 8-conductor speaker cable per side when doing smaller shows and this gets everything I need across the stage to where it needs to go. I use a panel on the back of the amp rack with a NL8 female mount. Everything then is in and thru the actual cabinets with an adaptor/jumper speaker cable between the sub's NL8 connector and the mid-high's NL4 connector. Gear Box Pro's solution is the Distro/Matrix, offering passive connections between an NL8 and 4 NL4s on the opposite side, with pins +1/-1 of the Marked NL4s feeding or being fed the respective conductor. This unit also has passively connected two additional NL4s marked as 1,2 and 3,4, so you can use it as a combiner or a splitter for pins +1,-1 and +2,-2 on each of these connectors. I know this was poorly described, but trust me when I tell you that this could be extremely handy!
The only real negative with these is the cost. The Distro/Matrix unit currently sells for $264 retail, but has a dealer price point that may tempt a lot of people to not bother trying to build one by hand again.
There is a "Quick Reference Chart" and a "Pin out Chart" to help the tech better understand the Cable Cube products. The "Application Drawings" in the Cable Cube section of the website are also very helpful.
Currently Cable Cube products are used by Cirque du Soleil, Linkin Park, PRG, Blue Water Tech, PA-Plus, Apex Sound, Soul Fuel Music and Horne Audio, to name a few.
Finally, I know a lot of reviewers for FOH like to do a "drop" test, but I would be more worried about my cheap floors than the Gear Box Pro products!
So my bottom line is, if you want professionally made, clearly marked cable and power distribution, Gear Box Pro makes an outstanding product. If you are that guy or that company where money is no object, this is the way to go. And as long as money is no object, I have been looking for a small business loan…and Christmas is just around the corner.
What's In the Gear Box?
Twin (10021) – The Twin is a simple NL2/combo connector splitter. Three NL2/combo connectors parallel-connected together.
Quad (10041) – The Quad is a simple NL4 "Y" Splitter. Three (3) NL4s parallel connected together. Applications: Primarily used for splitting an NL4 cable (paralleling Bi-amplified speakers).
Distro (10042) – This is a break-out box that connects the first two contacts (pin 1+, 1-) of an NL4 connector to the first two contacts (pin 1+, 1-) of an NL4 and the other two contacts of the first NL4 connector (pin 2+, 2-) and connects them to the first two contacts (pin 1+, 1-) of a second NL4 connector. (This has the same wiring as a Combo that uses all NL2/Combo connectors.) Applications: This enables two (2) full range speakers to be connected to a single four (4) conductor speaker cable.
Matrix (10082) – The Matrix is an adaptor box that breaks out an NL8 into two NL4s. The first half of the NL8 connector (Pins 1+, 1-, 2+, 2-) connect to the same pins on the first NL4 connector. The second half of the NL8 (Pins 3+, 3-, 4+, 4-) connect respectively to Pin 1+, 1-, 2+, 2- of the second NL4.
Combo/Distro (10025) – The Combo/Distro has an NL4 that sends Pin 1+,1- to Pin 1+,1- on an NL4 and a parallel connected NL2/Combo connector. Then Pin 2+,2- is sent to Pin 1+,1- on an NL4 and a parallel connected NL2/Combo connector. Essentially a "Y" connection to each set of contacts on an NL4 connector.
Combo/Matrix (10026) – A Combo/Matrix is equivalent to two Combos in a single box, each of which are connected to one half of an NL8 connector. Applications: If nothing is connected to the NL8 you could use the Expander/Distro as two independent Combos.
Distro II (10043) – The Distro is an adaptor box that breaks-out an NL8 into four NL4s. Each of the NL8 contact pairs connect to only Pin 1+, 1- of each of the four NL4 connectors. This means that only full range speakers using pins 1+ and 1- can effectively connect to the NL4s.
Distro + (10044) – The Distro + is the same as the Distro with the addition of a parallel connected NL8 providing pass through or daisy connectivity to continue on with an NL8 cable.
Distro/Matrix (10045) – A Distro/Matrix is equivalent to a pair of Distros in the same box, each of which are connected to one half of an NL8 connector. If nothing is connected to the NL8 you could use the Distro/Matrix as two independent Distros.
Matrix + (10084) – The Matrix + is the same as the Matrix with the addition of a parallel connected NL8 providing pass through or daisy connectivity to continue on with an NL8 cable.
4E (22720) – The Power Cube 4E model is a passive A/C Splitter device, containing no active components or supplementary circuit interrupter (breaker) devices. A/C is supplied to the Power Cube 4E through a 20-Amp PowerCON inlet connector, directly wired to a 20-Amp PowerCON outlet. This permits multiple Power Cubes to be connected end to end on a single circuit. All PowerCON inlets and outlets are parallel connected supporting a combined maximum electrical load of 12-16 amps.
To check out the company's soco splitters, rack mounts, AC panels, etc., be sure to visit their site at www.gearboxpro.com .
