Work at home? Multiple PCs? Maybe you need a mixer?

This is a story about convenience, but also a story of how complicated and expensive we audiophiles can make our lives!!

I don’t know why I didn’t do this 5 years ago when I started thinking about this. I work from home and have 2 computers I regularly switch between, in addition to occasionally having a separate audio source as well. My desktop speakers are pretty sweet, DIY setup driven by an NAD desktop integrated amp, sitting on a pair of IsoAcoustics stands.

Here’s the problem: While I can switch keyboard, mouse and even my desktop camera and microphone at the push of a button using a KVM switch I could not switch audio. I’d have to manually switch the amp between BlueTooth (laptop) and Aux1 (desktop) and I’d often forget what it was set to.

The ultimate solution was to use an inexpensive desktop sized mixer like this one to combine all the sources.  A mixer, for those unaware, is kind of the opposite of a preamp.  Instead of switching sources (tape, DAC, etc.) you combine or mix multiple sources together. 

For my home office now instead of switching between PCs they are both playing all the time. Now I never miss an alert sound, and my video meetings play perfectly regardless of which system I am on. Also, since it’s all playing through the same device I don’t have to worry about where I plug in my headphones.

Of course, what kind of audiophile would I be if I didn’t replace the mixer’s power supply (i.e. wall wart) with a high quality version from iFi? Honestly that was probably overkill. I had a noise problem that turned out to be a wiring problem. Lesson learned!