Best mixer/interface for neutrik Studio Monitors and PC

Posted by irsever@gmail.com (A) on April 13, 2011 at 14:11:48

Hope this is the appropriate forum, I have a pair of JBL 6208's, which are powered studio monitors, although the application in my case is anything but professional.

I'm using them as computer speakers, and although enormous, they really excel at the task, maintaining great stereo separation, they're perfectly happy two feet away from my ears on either side of the desk, unlike the bookshelf-style I had used in the past, which were no good for music unless you got far enough away.

The 6208's are powered, and have no gain control. They are famous for buzzing and being somewhat crude. (they snap on and off with an abrupt noise)
For input options you have a neutrik connector, which is a balanced XLR input with a 1/4" hole in the center. Not sure if it's TRS or TS. I've hooked them up to my ipod and PC in a couple of ways, with varying levels of success, which I'll share here for the comedic value at least. Feel free to skip:

1. A regular Y-cable, 1/8" TRS to RCA, followed by RCA female to 1/4" adaptors. Goofy, I know. This works really well with the iPod, with only a minimal buzz from the left speaker. With no gain control on the speakers, you use the headphone output on the ipod and keep the volume reeealy low.
However, hooked up to the 1/8" headphone output on the PC, this setup buzzes tremendously, again mostly from one speaker more than the other. Not usable. Used with a laptop the noise level is more like the iPod. BTW this using radio shack adaptors and a crappy y-cable. I tried my nicer new one to no effect. The PC and both speakers are all hooked into the same surge protector, an old EMI/RMI filter unit. Old apartment building is guaranteed to have dirty power. Don't know if ground loops are an issue; in a different house I was able to remove some buzzing by plugging the speakers into a different wall outlet from the PC.

2. A radioshack 1/8" stereo splitter out of the PC, with two 1/8" male-male TRS leads, one to each speaker, followed by a female-male 1/8" to 1/4" TRS adaptor. Yes really. I don't have any mono cables, or a stereo-mono splitter. This setup mixes the left and right channels, which I worked around by sliding the balance in the PC all the way to the left or the right. I know, this is a bad setup, but curiously, it results in almost no buzz at all. I have no idea why!
In fact, the only reason I stopped using this setup is since I upgraded to Vista, I can no longer lower the wave volume independently from the system volume, meaning I can't lower the overall volume to the 1-2% needed to combat the 6208's full-blast gain setting.

So.... I believe I need something as simple as a 2 channel mixer with a phono input, and separate 1/4" outputs. I believe they could be either TRS or TS.
I read about the different sensitivities in balanced vs unbalanced setups, and although there's no need for balanced with the 3 foot cables, I feel like the lower sensitivity in the 6208's preamp would help with the gain being automatically set to max. Can anybody set me straight on this? Don't worry about insulting my intelligence, I'm obviously a n00b.

I have other options. I looked at different PCI video cards with funny outputs, and USB and Firewire audio interfaces. I don't really need what the interfaces seem to offer; an easy way to record live instruments onto a PC or laptop, I'm really only after the balanced outputs and gain control. I doubt the circuitry is any better than the built in audio on the PC, although being bus-powered could solve some dirty power problems.
I dunno!

Also, the built in audio on my PC has optical and coaxial outputs, if that opens the door to any other oddball solutions.

When combined, my fuzzy grasp of the problem and the bewildering amount of hardware available leave me in a state of paralysis. I'm hoping the experts here can throw a bone my way. Thanks for reading!

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Topic - Best mixer/interface for neutrik Studio Monitors and PC - irsever@gmail.com 14:11:48 04/13/11 (0)

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