Redco R196 DB25 to XLR Panel

The Redco R196 is a passive breakout panel that converts a single DB25 connector on its rear into eight discrete XLR female jacks on its front face — all in 1U, drawing zero power. Its job is interface translation: gear like an Apollo x16 or a Dante interface with DB25 outputs speaks a different physical language than the XLR world everything else lives in, and this panel is the interpreter. It sits permanently in the rack and turns that impedance mismatch into a clean, labelable row of industry-standard connectors that any stagehand or guest engineer can work with without hunting for a specialized cable.

At 50 mm deep and 1 kg, this panel barely exists in your rack — it's essentially flush. That shallow depth matters on fly dates where rolling racks need to close and latch without rearranging cable management. The eight female XLRs on the front face your working environment, so inputs or outputs from your interface are immediately accessible without reaching around the back. Because it's entirely passive, there's no signal path coloration, no power requirement to budget, and nothing to fail electronically. The $299 price reflects Redco's build quality — machined panel, proper Neutrik-style connectors — over the cheaper DB25 fan-out snakes that flap loose and develop intermittent contacts after a few tours.

This panel earns its rack space if you have any DB25-equipped interface and want a permanent, professional termination point rather than a dangling octopus cable. One panel per DB25 port is the right approach — don't try to share or daisy-chain. If your interface has four DB25 ports and you need all 32 channels terminated this way, budget four units and four rack spaces. If you only occasionally need a couple of channels off a DB25 port, a quality fan-out cable is cheaper and takes no rack space. This is a touring or install solution for engineers who want the same patch point every show, not a workaround for a one-off session.