Ok I have been researching this and have been getting conflicting reports. I have read whats on the site regarding it but am still confused, if you have 2 cents throw it in....'

I am helping start up a second room locally in town to track and mix.

In the core system I have a da-7, 24 channel snake, furman TRS balanced patch bays. 10 channels of outboard pres. Apogee converters, a z-systems optipatch,an HDR and a motu 2408/perfomrer on a g4 . The idea is to bring the snake into the patch bay TRS and normal channels 1-16 to the da-7 input channels 1-16 .Snake channels 17-24 will normal to 8 of the pres inputs and I'll have the other pres on two more sets of ins/outs in one of the bays So you can patch in and out of em.The analog outputs of the outboard pres will normal(or patch) to the inputs of the apogee AD's. All the digital signals will then go to the z-systems opti-patch and sent to either the HDR or computer(or both).

So the question is... is this a cool way to do it or will I be sending phantom power through the bays and thus have the possibilities of blowing some stuff up. In my head it seems the only place it could be a problem is if I was to patch one of the outboard pres actual outputs in to the wrong input. If I make sure they are patched to the Apogee correctly it should be ok.Is this correct....? thanks sorry so confusing.

I also have a snake normalled similarly.

As long as you are always careful to turn off phantom, you'll be fine. But if you send phantom into a line input, you could blow up either the input or the phantom supply.

Sending an input with phantom to another without could be a problem but tends not to be. Phantom is 48 volts but is current limited very low. Thats why a pair of 9 volt batteries (18 v total) can power a condenser mic for a week. The main thing to watch for is old ribbon mics. Phantom in the patchbay is not a problem. Infact, I mix on a Neve that you can't turn the phantom off. That's the design.

Thank you thank you!