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Dear comrades, going to get an amp with XLR inputs, which my pre doesn't have.
Are there any good quality adapters or RCA-to-XLR cables you can recommend?
Thank you!
Follow Ups:
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Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
For my Oppo-95 universal player, I have ever tried a pair of really cheap XLR to RCA cables before.
It was really bad sonically.
So I spent US$120++ (excluding shipping) on a pair of Cardas XLR to RCA adapters.
The sonics were much better.
I really don't want this to become a huge production. Just want to plug'n'play.
For now, as per suggestion of the amp manufacturer, I'll get a RCA-to-XLR cable. Then we'll see.
Impedance and gain shouldn't be a problem.
Thanks again, and will let you know about the results.
The OP did not say that his amp inputs are balanced, although that may be implied. Some devices have XLR inputs or outputs and can be configured to accept/produce unbalanced signals (e.g. Lavry DA-10 DAC). If the amp can be run in unbalanced mode than Neutric makes excellent adapters at a very reasonable cost. Go here, for example: http://www.markertek.com/Connectors-Adapters/Audio-Adapters/XLR-to-RCA-Adapters/Neutrik-USA-Inc.xhtml
There is no benefit in using balanced mode, unless your preamp is a balanced circuit as well...and you indicated it is not. Rather than using an adapter (an excellent one is made by Cardas), there is usually an RCA input jack on amps that can run balanced, but optionally in single ended mode. Adapters are compromises and in this case with absolutely no benefit.
Thanks for the response.
Obviously, the amp I'm going to get has only XLRs. So, I need a rca-to-xlr adapter or cable.
Another factor to consider is gain. There are two reasons why connecting an unbalanced RCA to balanced XLR might result in adequate gain and this might be an issue of as much as 20 dB:
1. There is a basic loss of 6 dB in amplitude when using only one side of the balanced input.
2. Most unbalanced sources (e.g. consumer) output lower voltage than balanced sources (e.g. pro).
Even if there is sufficient gain in your preamp there might still be an issue of the preamp clipping before it can drive the amplifier to full power. Whether this will be a problem or not will depend on your speakers, room and how loud you like to listen to music. My powered speakers have two gain settings to accommodate the different standards and the high gain setting has about 20 dB more gain than the low gain setting. I switched my sound card to a balanced pro configuration so that it would better drive my powered speakers in balanced mode and then discovered that the soundcard inputs didn't have enough gain when running with the output of my unbalanced cassette deck.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Tony,
Can you please explain how is it possible to get gain by connecting RCA to XLR? I thought 2V IN can have a MAX of 2V OUT. I would love to get gain, because I use a passive TVC.
Here is my situation:
My CDP gives out 2V. This feeds to the TVC. The TVC has RXC as well as XLR out. But I connect to the amp using RCA. The sensitivity of the amp is 1V for full power. Will I get a gain by connecting the XLR of the TVC to the XLR of the amp?
My TVC is Promitheus Reference C-Core and amp is the Parasound A21.
Can't say what will happen. It depends on product details. For example, the TVC might put out more voltage on XLR than on RCA. But then it is possible that the amp expects more voltage on the XLR than on the RCA input. I would get a cheap XLR cable and see what happens.
If you still need increased voltage you can use a transformer if you don't want an active amplifier.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Tony,
I think you are saying that, if the CDP has more volts thru the XLR, then TVC will give out more XLR, which makes sense. But if CDP has only RCA (or lets say 2V both on RCA and XLR), I don't think the TVC will give out more voltage to amp thru XLR. It will put out the same voltage as it would do through RCA.
"But if CDP has only RCA (or lets say 2V both on RCA and XLR), I don't think the TVC will give out more voltage to amp thru XLR. It will put out the same voltage as it would do through RCA.
As I said before, it depends on the circuits involved. There are various ways of building products with two output connectors and there are various ways of building products with two input connectors. There is no way to use pure logic to deduce what will happen, as there are various possible implementations that can produce different results. One has to know how the particular circuit works.
If you want to know how a particular box handles its RCA and XLR inputs or outputs it will probably be necessary to open up the box and trace the wiring, but it is possible that the user or maintenance documentation will provide the necessary information. Or, you can just measure the device.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Tony,
You were right. I did get the gain, because each "leg" of the XLR carried the voltage. So the voltage to the amp was doubled. I am pretty happy with the results.
But, if your preamp doesn't clip due to gain issues, you get the advantage of having finer steps in your volume control and a better likelihood of playing in the optimal range on your preamp's attenuator (which generally measures worst at the low end of the dial).
If you want a step up from just adaptors, many people tend to recommend Jenson RCA-to-XLR devices which emply a high quality transformer. Others will have to speak to the benefits of taking this approach. But I have seen these recommended in the past.
I agree with roscoeiii, and I use Jensen transformers between my Tom Evans single-ended preamp and Clayton balanced input only amps.
I own two types of adaptors, Cardas and no-name, and cannot tell a single meaningful difference between the two. You can try adaptors, but my experience with using them resulted in hum, buzz, and generally noisy sound.
IMO, if you are planning on keeping both the preamp and the amp, you should try the Jensen PI-rX transformers, which are input transformers that convert rca to XLR. Many manufacturers implement balanced inputs by using the transformers as there can be both sonic and performance benefits. You can buy a single stereo version (both channels in one box) if you have a stereo amp, or they also sell a single channel model that I use (two of) with monoblocks. There are some impedance matching issues that you need to look at. In general, the amp should have an input impedance of about 50K ohms or more. Jensen's website has the information or you can call them as they are very helpful. Also, the XLR output from the transformers to the amp should be as short as possible - Mine are just over a foot. The Jensens are around $250 or a little less.
If there is an impedance mismatch, or if your preamp has too much gain, you can look at the Interocitor One, by SMc Audio that allows the use of longer cables by lowering the output impedance using transformers, and that also reduces gain slightly for folks with high gain preamps like the CAT Ultimate or with sensitive amps (low voltage for full output). Go to the link, select "products" then "Interocitor One" to see more about it.
...thank you.
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