The RSA Protector balanced portable: Images and impressions 1st page, Please post your... - Page 54

I was talking to Ken @ ALO Audio last weekend at a Seattle Head-fi meet, when he mentioned that a customer of his had him make some Protector 4-pin plug to _female_ 1/4" plug adapters.  I presume this is to use regular headphones on the balanced side; this should negate the 'balanced' advantage, but I'm curious if the other sonic improvements (the soundstage expansion, etc) remain intact.  For larger headphones that you would use this kind of thing in there's usually no issue w/ background noise anyway, so I am quite interested in this if it works as I think it does.  Has anyone here tried this, or a similar idea, with their Protector?

i do not even know how such a cable would work, where would you get the ground from? you cant just combine the two negative leads to make the ground, im pretty sure that in one of the threads that ray specifically said not to do this...

Anybody else have a problem with their Protector experiencing interference from a base station/wireless home phone set?

 

My Protector makes interference noise like what happens with many other audio devices when a cell signal is being received close by to the device.  It doesn't seem to have a problem with my 3G cell phone but goes nuts when the home phone rings. 

 

The base station was in very close proximately to my listening seat, so I moved it 5-6 feet and it seems to have alleviated the problem.

 

I have had a Tomahawk and Shadow from RSA and neither one of them had ever exhibited this problem. 

My iBasso D3 used to do that, but not my Protector.  

 

If I listen with Protector plugged in to charge, using my Macbook > Pico DAC as source, I do get a ground loop noise from my power strip.  This is a minor issue when I can unplug either the amp or laptop from wall power and make it go away.  My powered iPod dock has the same problem out of this power strip, and I either have to remove power from the dock or the Protector to make the noise go away.

anybody knows how to do the connections from protector balanced connector to 4 pole xlr plug?

 

the xlr plug looks like this: http://www.google.com.my/url?source=imglanding&ct=img&q=http://www.fascinationproductions.com/ebayimages/productimages/ntrk_nc4mxb_hi.jpg&sa=X&ei=5gICTcGfIIPOrQfjt8yTDw&ved=0CAUQ8wc&usg=AFQjCNEX_i00qUs2NPDvCbhKw-Ur-pJBtw

Edited by i_djoel2000 - 12/10/10 at 2:39am

i'm interested on how to do the connections of this converter..

 

R- & L- is connected together as one stereo ground?

 

btw, i'm curious with the rsa protector balanced mode..how does the output have 4 pins for stereo? i thought balanced mode needs 3 pole per channel?

Edited by i_djoel2000 - 12/10/10 at 4:58am

nope, balanced only needs two wires per channel, once each for the positive and negative phase. hence why you can use a 4 pin XLR for balanced as well as 2 x 3 pin XLR's
 

@soup: that's interesting..i thought 1 single channel of balanced mode needs +ve, -ve, and ground

Yeah common misconception, I think some people connect the shield to the third pin, but in balanced operation there's no need for a ground reference, the hot and cold are referenced to each other. The thing is that most xlr plugs have a spot for ground on the side so you don't have to use the third pin anyways.

@soup: in case i want to connect the balanced output to single ended load. i just put R- & L- together and connect it to single ended ground?

Uh no, that would definitely not work, if you want to run single ended you should plug into the single ended output on the protector, but it doesn't sound nearly as good as the balanced out does, it was designed to be used balanced

so, how do you think ken from ALO did the wiring to single ended??

Yes....the following will be correct:

 

Pin 1 of Protector to Pin 1 of XLR = L+

Pin 2 of Protector to Pin 3 of XLR = R+

Pin 3 of Protector to Pin 2 of XLR = L-

Pin 4 of Protector to Pin 4 of XLR = R-

 

Hope this helps!

 

yeah, thanx man..appreciate your help :)

you cant, if you have a balanced headphone cable, you can make an adaptor to use them with a single ended source, but you cant use a single ended headphone with a balanced source like that. ground is a zero volt reference for the other two channels in a standard single ended set up, where as in balanced they are two channels with the same signal just 180 degrees out of phase, combining the two negative channels will obviously not create a zero volt reference, it just wont work. 

 

Yes you could physically wire up the cable adaptor, you just shouldnt.