Microphone splitter


A microphone splitter is a device with an input from a microphone and multiple outputs. It is also known as a "rathouse" due to the large amount of cabling involved. A splitter is often used at larger venues to provide feeds from microphones or other sources to both a front of house mixing desk and a monitor desk. This allows the monitor mix to be different from the house mix, so that the musicians may hear a mix with certain instruments emphasized, which can assist in achieving a feeling of "tightness".
In a simple splitter the outputs are connected in parallel, with no isolation between outputs. In cases where each output is connected to a system with a different ground potential, this can cause ground loops, a common source of noise in an audio system. To provide isolation and prevent ground loops, outputs may be connected via a splitting transformer or a number of buffer amplifiers.
Each additional output puts additional load on the source, which can cause signal degradation. Active splitters with buffer amplifiers are the only solution to provide an unlimited number of splits, but are costly.