Is it possible to connect the unbalanced 1/4" jack outputs of Apogee's Duet to the balanced XLR inputs of Yamaha MSP7 monitors? What cables should be used?

It could be the type of cables you're using. Are they balanced or unbalanced?

The jacks on the end will tell you what type of cable it is.

If the metal jack (plug) has 2 circles, it's a three-conductor plug (TRS or "tip-ring-sleeve"), which means the cable is balanced. It's meant for stereo connections.

If there's only 1 circle, the plug is two-conductor (TS or "tip-sleeve"), meaning the cable is unbalanced. It's meant for mono.

There's a 3rd kind, (TRRS "tip-ring-ring-sleeve). It has 3 circles, which makes it a four-conductor plug. The extra ring is specifically made for microphone connections in 1/8 in. This is the one you would want to use for a cellphone connection, for normal operation.

But because of what you're doing, the connections and cables have to have to be specific, otherwise you'll end up with lots of noise and interference. It's much easier if you have pictures to look at, that way it won't seem so overwhelming.

This should be able to help. If not, just let me know and I'll do what I can to help you figure it out another way.

TS TRS TRRS TRRRS Combating the misconnection epidemic by Allan Tpper...

Line level output of the mixer would go into the line level inputs of the EQ, and the EQ line level outpputs to the line level inputs of the amplifier. If you are faced with a mix of unbalanced inputs or outputs, to balanced inputs or outputs it gets a little complicated because you need to matrix the balanced signal to unbalanced load and vice versa. There is no single answer to doing this either.

RCA jacks are unbalanced, 2 conductor 1/4 inch connections are unbalanced most of the time. XLR and 3 conductor 1/4 inch jacks and plugs can be either balanced or unbalanced.If either are wired so left and right are a single ring or tip on the 3 conductor 1/4 inch jack, it is unbalanced and they would share a common ground lead. XLR wired with one pin common with shield and right and left have a single conductor on the plug or jack, that is unbalanced.

The problem is you have an ILLEGAL connection based on proper electronic design. This pedal has UNBALANCED high impedance interconnects and the output of your mixer and the PA SHOULD be BALANCED low impedance interconnects. This makes the system subject to noise and you may even get static discharge noise. Also verify that the TASCAM and the PA system are ALL powered from the SAME receptacle or power conditioning module. This is a tough design problem to achieve what you want. Essentially you want to make the master gain of the TASCAM on a foot pedal as I understand it. There is one pedal that CLAIMS to have balanced in and out and if I had the schematic I could verify it... but I could not find the schematic in my searches... look at: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/StealthPedal
This one MIGHT do the job right. You MUST use TRS BALANCED cables, NOT TS, from the mixer to this and from this to the PA. Do research on BALANCED and UNBALANCED and TRS and TS and also XLR cables using google to understand the difference and importance of using balanced interconnections in your system. I would try to get one of these pedals on approval with the correct cables and test it.

You will plug an UNBALANCED 1/4 inplug cable into the MONI jack on the front of the unit. The other end will probably need to be an XLR plug to connect to the Kustom POWERED monitor. Please note that the UNBALANCED output of the Phonic is NOT good engineering practice. The Phonic stuff is normally low-end and they don't do everything correctely, although for a small system it should work. IF you get excessive hum from using a long cable to the Kustom with a "Kludged" unbalanced to balanced cable, you MAY need to use a DI box at the Phonic end to convert the unbalanced Phonic MONI output to a balanced line (XLR to XLR) for a longer run to the Kustom monitor. You might get a 1/4 inch TS to XLR balanced plug that has a transformer in it and use an XLR to XLR cable to the Kustom. Please note that having this plug in the Phonic hangs out and is easily bent over so I would recommend using a right angle connector at the Phonic and plug the 1/4 inch TS to XLR adaoter into that so the yanking of the XLR cable won't break the 1/4 inch adapter off in the Phonic.

This uses a balanced line output requiring the receiving device have a balanced input OR you would have to use a DI or BALUN to convert to unbalanced for devices without a balanced input.

If the receiving device has an XLR input then it will be ballanced and using an XLR to XLR cable should work.

You did not mention what you were trying to drive so I can't help much more than what I have said.

There are a number of configurations for a mixer like the 1832, the most common are PA system and Recording system. There are Main output jacks which carry the mix as summed in the main faders. These in a PA system would feed the pa amplifiers which drive the house speaker system for the audience. These connectors are XLR 3 pin type on the rear, intended for professional pa amplifiers which use balanced +4dbv line input level. Amplifier which have 3 pin XLR connectors for input signals can accept that high level signal. For home style HiFi amplifiers, the signal level is nominally -10DBv and balanced or unbalanced signal lines with 1/4in diameter phone plugs which are connected to the mixer by way of a second set of Main output connectors which are 1/4in phone jacks. Use whichever amplifier input level your amp has.
If you are not using it as a main PA house mixer, but using it for recording, the main output connectors go to a 2 channel recorder or computer sound card recorder. The power amp and your monitor speakers are connected to the connectors labeled "Control Room" (CTRL Rm). These output are useful for recording because the signal through the mixer can be monitored from several buses, Solo, main mix, selected by buttons provided. The buttons only affect the signal heard through the control room monitors, and not the main output which only sees the main mix so selecting "solo" does not interrupt the signal going to the recorder while the engineer in the control can be checking other signal paths through the board.

just use the main left and right outputs of the behringer to run xlr (3 prong balanced) to 1/4 inch (looks like a big headphone plug) cables into the inputs of the crown amp. the mixer has the xlr outputs and the amp has 1/4 inch inputrs, sop the cables will have to reflect that on both ends. run the outputs of the amp (rca outputs, i believe, you may have to get a rca plug to 1/4 inch jack adapter, and then use a 1/4 inch speaker cable) to the inputs of the speakers, again, the amp has rca outputs and the speakers will likely have 1/4 inputs, so you will have to address that wil an adapter. have each speaker in its own channel.

A 1/4 inch short instrument (mono) cable between the AUX unbalanced 2488 and the 1/4 inch of the Voiceworks should work. Operate ALL the equipment from the same power source to avoid ground loops.

You will lose 3 Db since you will only be driving one side of the balanced VW input, but there is plenty of gain. The sleeve of the mono into the VW will ground the - balanced input of the VW. The connection is absolutely safe. Should you encounter noise on the connection, use an isolation device like a DI and use ground lift with the 2488 into the mono jack of the DI and XLR out of DI into the VW. I think you will find this unecessary though in your use.

If you want to record in stereo, the quick and dirty way is to get a 1/4 inch stereo to 1/8 inch plug cable and go frrom the headphone output jack. (Use a Wye connector if you need to listen on the phones)

All the other outs are TRS and XLR balanced and the computer audio (mic) inputs are unbalanced. You would need special cables to connect those.

You CANNOT have a stereo set of RCA jacks "wyed" into a single XLR mono input.

The RCA output drivers will "fight" each other. Some things will appear to work, but give poor performance.

You could make a rudimentary passive mixer by putting a series resistor say 1K ohms from each of the RCA's to a common UNBALANCED input of a subwoofer.

The XLR is balanced so that would not really work unless you also have an unbalanced input on the subwoofer.

The right way to do this is to get a cheap two input mixer that has EQ with it and mix your two mains before sending to the subwoofer. You want a little mixer that also has balanced outputs (XLR or TRS) to send to the subwoofer.

UNLESS the subwoofer has EQ in it, you really need to have an EQ in the little mixer so that you don't send high's to the subwoofer... They don't like highs and the sound will suffer.


.