Balanced Cables – TRS to XLR

Should work fine. Just get something better than $10 cables as those usually have bad shielding so you actually could get hum…

Kent Sandvik, post: 30929, member: 3967 wrote: There are *balanced* TSR to XLR cables. And S4 has balanced outputs. Just make sure you get the right male or female connectors for the XLR side.

I’m limited to the RCA Outputs of the Mixtrack Pro. I think I’m going to search for a better quality RCA to XLR.

Hee Won Jung, post: 30936, member: 948 wrote: RCA to XLR i would only use in a no other option scenario…and if you have to keep the cord the shortest possible distance.

RCA will degrade after 4ft(RCA to RCA) but from my limited usage i have gone up to 10ft without any real noticable sound difference.

Dont cheap out on cables, and always ALWAYS have backups.

My controller only has RCA outputs. So, what are my options other than going from RCA to XLR. Would it be any different if I convert to 1/4″ TRS? I dont have a mixer. Im running directly from the controller to the powered speakers which have both XLR and TRS inputs.

I’m 99% sure that the RCAs are unbalanced so you need to find an RCA to XRL unbalanced cable. Or a box between that converts from unbalanced to balanced. It really depends on the environment where you work. If it’s noisy one and long cable runs, balanced are a must. If short runs you could get by with unbalanced cables. For studio work, nothing beats a quiet environment using balanced cables.

Traktor has a way to preference setting to send mono through one port only so there’ no need for any fancy two-stereo cable systems. Assuming the audio interface supports this, if not that’s a bad audio interface/driver.

Unbalanced can run 3 meters before you start getting high frequency loss. Unbalanced is prone to interference. Pins one and three are bridged in rca – xlr which is still mono. It remains an unbalanced cable with the limitations of unbalanced in place. If you have 2 RCA to a single xlr then you really run the risk of a hot signal. As a single rca outputs 24.5 volts. Join them(left and right) together you have nearly 50v and is not good for your gear which is expecting only 24.5. On top of all this unbalanced is Hi-Z. when your xlr input is low Z so this also puts a strain on the circuitry. Then there is the whole -10dB and +4db arena which I wont go into here.
My advice is keep unbalanced for unbalanced circuits and balanced for balanced. Let your gear do the job it was designed to do and if you need to go from unbalanced to balanced get a DI box which has the needed circuitry designed to convert your signal and above all else, keep things professional.

Hee Won Jung, post: 30946, member: 948 wrote: You will want to use something like this:

http://www.rane.com/bb44x.html

I believe Jensens make something similar to this that will probably be cheaper.

This looks like its more suitable for my budget and needs:

http://www.amazon.com/ART-CLEANBOXPRO-CLEANBoxPro/dp/B003S7T49K/ref=pd_sim_sbs_MI_1

Before I try this, I’m going to order 2 single RCA>XLR cables from monoprice (one for left and one for right) and try running them directly from the controller to the the individual speakers (red to right speaker and white to left speaker). My reading tells me I should be ok up to 10ft./3meters. If I have any problems with this scheme I will try the box above. I will probably get the box eventually anyway since it allows me to convert an 1/8″ Mini-phone plug to XLR also. This way, I can always use an ipod/tablet/celphone as backup to out sound to the speakers.

Here are the cables I’m going to order this week:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10244&cs_id=1024404&p_id=4778&seq=1&format=2