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my first speaker setup

post #1 of 6
10/3/10 at 10:03pm
Thread Starter 

I recently had some issues with my driver for my HD580's so I decided to buy some speakers till it was fixed.

 

I found some Mackie MR-8's locally used for a good price :-D

 

the guy gave me XLR to 1/4 cables

 

I have a Benchmark DAC1 with balanced XLR in the rear and two headphone plugs in the front.

 

I quickly realized these cables wouldn't work, but I wanted to test them out. I plugged the 1/4 to my headphone plug and connected the XLR to the monitors.

 

 

I powered everything up and started some music, I couldn't hear voices at all.. it's like whispering. It sounded like crap ( this is when I freaked out ).

 

I grabbed my brothers 1/4 to 1/4 he uses for his guitar and plugged one side to the headphone plug and the other to my monitor, boom fixed. It sounds great

 

My question is why will it work with a 1/4 to 1/4, but it sounds horrible with the 1/4 to XLR?
 

I plan on getting some XLR to XLR to plug in into the back of my DAC1 balanced to the monitors but I'm worried I may have the same issue.

 

I'm hoping the studio monitors are fine and it's just the cables themselves?

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post #2 of 6
10/4/10 at 3:30am


Quote:

I grabbed my brothers 1/4 to 1/4 he uses for his guitar and plugged one side to the headphone plug and the other to my monitor, ...

 

where exactly did you plug the 1/4 to the monitor? back of MR8

 

Quote:
I plan on getting some XLR to XLR to plug in into the back of my DAC1 balanced to the monitors but I'm worried I may have the same issue.

 

you shouldn't. but I guess you need a Y-adpter XLR male to dual female XLR to connect the dac to the speaker (make sure is the right termination... > wrong).

 

I've not actually tried this, so I may be coughwrongcough.


Edited by Lenni - 10/4/10 at 4:55am
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post #3 of 6
10/4/10 at 4:03am

The XLR -> 1/4 inch might not be working properly because it's not a balanced connection. 

 

Get a XLR -> XLR balanced connection for best performance.

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post #4 of 6
10/4/10 at 9:43am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lenni View Post


Quote:

 

where exactly did you plug the 1/4 to the monitor? back of MR8

 

 

you shouldn't. but I guess you need a Y-adpter XLR male to dual female XLR to connect the dac to the speaker (make sure is the right termination... > wrong).

 

I've not actually tried this, so I may be coughwrongcough.

 

I went from the headphone jack on my dac1 to my mr8, it has a 1/4 jack on the back says TRS (Balanced)

http://www.mackie.com/home/showimage.html?u=/products/mrseries/photos/MR8_BacK.jpg

 

I'm confused on the cables, here is the back of my dac1 too

dac1_rear_3.jpg

 

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post #5 of 6
10/4/10 at 12:43pm
Thread Starter 

I just spent $87 on XLR cables, and it was worth it :-P

 

both speakers are working and sound fantastic, I'm not sure how motivated I am to fix my headphones ( uh oh )

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post #6 of 6
10/4/10 at 1:13pm

thanks for let me know of the TRS (learn something everyday).

 

sorry for the confusion: from the pictures I assumed that only one speaker carried the input connectors... not both. you don't need a Y-adapter. my bad. all you need is a pair of balanced IC's (male to female XLR's). if you still can hear sound then something is faulty with either the dac or the monitors.

 

[edit]: you've got it going already. 


Edited by Lenni - 10/4/10 at 1:19pm
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