So basicly I'm heading off Battlefield 4. I'll still do thoughts on patches if any major balance related comes. But as I'm taking some time off game itself, I need first to get back in to be able to analyse patch impact. In meanwhile....

This will be english side of my personal blog in which I post irregularly about my tech hobby. And this little thing I just got will be first in that sense.

LINE5 A985 Headphone Out Switcher

I use computer bacily as only device producing audio. No TV, no radio (my alarm doesn't count), not really need to use phone for that. To listen any audio I have 3 devices. Really crappy speakers, Sennheiser HD-555 hi-fi headphones and SteelSeries Siberia V2 Black&Gold gaming headset. In order to use all I need to switch between output jacks. For this purpose I've had cheap, plastic media switcher. It did its job well until the point where Siberia arrived. After that I found having two options. Either switching between cables or using both headphones with splitter. I used the first method for awhile. Not really best choise if you want to keep everything in good shape. Luckily for me both Sennheiser and SteelSeries use golden jacks which are really durable. The plastic switcher wasn't so lucky. So I went for second option and modded switcher to its current condition. So it has 3 holes and volume slider. I ended jamming it to full since I control volume with keyboard. The three holes are for mic (not in use), speakers (button down) and headphones (button up). I've been looking for replacement for over an year, along with my brother who has similiar troubles. And then @Slick offered a solution, in his own not-so-clear way.

So basicly Slick showed off product that he had got for headphone etc. testing. Good thing since I wanted that one too. Problem was that Slick pronounced name wrong (LineP) and since it was on Afterparty (plus I don't have Twitter or want to bother him with stuff like this) there were little to none ways to track the product down. Only after doing yet another random search on eBay and Amazon for switchers I got lucky hit. The LINE5 A985. I started second part of tracking and looked for reviews, unboxings and maybe manual. What I got was happy surprise. LINE5 A985 was listed on DealExtreme, Singapore/Hongkong company with lots of cheap but quality stuff and free shipping. After bit fiddling I placed my order.

Now to real stuff. The product arrived like all other stuff from DX. Some soft bubblewrap around the box itself. Main reason why I only buy cheap and basic stuff anyway. Products own box was really big, had lots of pics and basicly manual written on side. I opened it and was like 'Ok, this is interesting...' The unit is size of palm (see the pics). The box had only it inside along with some cables. All were wrapped with closed cell foam. Insane proofing for something so simple. The cables were slim style 3.5mm male to male in various colors. I'm pretty happy with just those. They cost around 3€ piece here and I paid $23 for whole product. So 4*3€ is already same as price in euros. Besides they are nice slim style which is generally better.

Unit itself is brushed aluminium. It has little rubber feet at bottom, knob for selecting input or output and total of 8 holes for jacks. That would be 4 in and 4 out. You can open it with allen key and flip PCB around. For this you also need to open both ends. In all it feels pretty solid. Jakcs click into place and don't just fall off. On minus side the finish isn't very good and edges are bit sharp. Also knob wiggles I little but those are minor things. Major problem is that knob is on input side of interface. I guess this is since the product is meant for having multiple input devices.

Usage. You can use it two way. Either have multiple input devices or multiple outputs. You can't have both. I tested this by having dual in-ears (Sennheiser CX-400 and CX-300 II) and using both pc and phone as inputs. If you have two inputs connected, knob switches between them. If you have only one, it switches between outputs. You can still connect multiple outputs and have audio in all of them. So every hole outputs same signal. Same goes when you only have one input and several outputs. You can use any of holes to plug input device and all will work.

Quality. I can't really say anything about durability. That would come after 6 months of use. I switch outputs maybe 3-10 times a day. Mainly evenings from speakers to headphones but also mid day when gaming for awhile. And also at evenings from general audio to gaming. Audio quality is uneffected. All ports work. I'm really impressed. My only concern is knob. Like I said before, it feels bit fiddly. But for price I'm really happy.