There’s a certain point in this hobby where you stop messing around and this is step one. If you collect multiple consoles and want them all hooked up at the same time then this e-waste is absolutely a GEM that not many people talk about.
This stuff lived in schools, video production, churches, control rooms, broadcast installs, government buildings, and numerous other AV racks. These were (and still are) professional infrastructure for real world applications. Actual signal routing hardware made for professional setups that have to just…work and I'm telling you to use it for retro gaming!
Once you start dealing with multiple consoles, multiple displays, weird signal standards, RGB, component, sync problems, distribution, switching, and all the other nonsense this hobby throws at you, the cheap Amazon crap starts showing how garbage it really is really fast. It is officially the backbone of my entire setup. There isnt really nostalgia or any childish memory i get from this pro gear… rather its some weird obsession with getting the PERFECT picture from these old consoles.
On this page you'll find ONLY the Extron pieces I actually OWN and USE. Most of this gear is EXTREMELY useful but it has some quirks to be mindful of ESSPECIALLY AUDIO.
READ THIS BEFORE YOU BLAME THE GEAR: You are not going to get clean, stable, beautiful results out of this stuff if the rest of your setup is garbage. I don’t care how expensive the Extron box is! I don’t care how many inputs it has! If you’re feeding it GARBAGE, it will output GARBAGE. These units give you EXACTLY what you throw at them (that makes them awesome). DON'T USE CHEAP CABLES. If you got it on amazon (except HD RetroVision because I know their stuff has been selling on amazon) I would seriously question the quality of the cable. Same deal with power. Dirty power, sketchy power strips, loose grounds… you’ll get noise, interference, and weird behavior!
And adapters… Stacked adapters, no-name converters, random Amazon junk…. Screw off!
This gear expects a clean, properly built chain. Good cables. Solid connections. Proper signal standards. Stable power. You don’t need to go insane, but you do need to stop being cheap in the places that actually matter! The only thing I'll accept is maybe some BNC to RCA adapters from amazon.
