[hugz]

i must admit, xlrs confuse the heck outa me. it's true.

from what i can tell, a balancd audio xlr should use 3 pins. if this is the case, why do i always see 5 pin xlrs around the place?

secondly, what's the general standard of male vs female? male goes on the cable end and female on the amp end? or the other way around?

thirdly, i currently own a DIY firstwatt F2 (single ended). I plan to soon build a DIY firstwatt F1 (balanced). for simplicity I figure i'll just wire them up both with XLRs so that i can use the same set of cables for both. in this case, how would i wire this up so that the F2 (single ended) is being powered by a balanced DAC with xlrs. can i just run an XLR cable from the balanced output of the DAC to the single ended input of the amp... but wire up the amp so that it only accepts signal from the ground and hot pins of the DAC. will this provide me with a normal single ended output?

 

[dsavitsk]

Start here: http://www.rane.com/note110.html

 

[Jambo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hugz /img/forum/go_quote.gif from what i can tell, a balancd audio xlr should use 3 pins. if this is the case, why do i always see 5 pin xlrs around the place?

I've never seen a five pin xlr but if I was to take a guess I'd assume it's left + right in one connector...

Quote:

Originally Posted by hugz /img/forum/go_quote.gif thirdly, i currently own a DIY firstwatt F2 (single ended). I plan to soon build a DIY firstwatt F1 (balanced). for simplicity I figure i'll just wire them up both with XLRs so that i can use the same set of cables for both. in this case, how would i wire this up so that the F2 (single ended) is being powered by a balanced DAC with xlrs. can i just run an XLR cable from the balanced output of the DAC to the single ended input of the amp... but wire up the amp so that it only accepts signal from the ground and hot pins of the DAC. will this provide me with a normal single ended output?

Yes you can do that. Make sure you choose the same hot pin on both channels though or your channels will be out of phase!

 

[sejarzo]

A five pin XLR can be used for stereo or for supplying a non-standard voltage to a the electronics on board a microphone, AFAIK. I think there are some rather exotic tube mics that use such cabling.

The Wikipedia entry on XLR's indicates that the 5 pin connector is a standard for stage lighting and effects control cabling.

Neutrik makes the X series with 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 contacts.

 

[MusicallySilent]

I think normally the amps balanced out for headphones is always female for a male connected headphone...


Here is the back of rays apache courtesy of his sponsered thread:

His inputs are as females also but the preout is a male which has me curious too

 

[TVaudio]

There are many different combos for this. We have 4 pin camera headsets, one 5 pin camera headset, used to have 9 pin for intercom on cameras and floor director boxes. I believe our old Senneheiser commentator headsets we used for hockey were 5 pin as well, because they had a cough/interrupt on them.

 

[sejarzo]

Balanced XLR outputs on pro gear are male, inputs are female.

I think of it sort of as the pins pointing in the direction of the signal--does that make sense?

 

[Pars]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sejarzo /img/forum/go_quote.gif Balanced XLR outputs on pro gear are male, inputs are female. I think of it sort of as the pins pointing in the direction of the signal--does that make sense?

Seems ass backwards to me... for the male connector it would be possible to short the pins. This normally doesn't bother inputs, but outputs don't usually like it too much on sand state gear. Not advocating switching convention, just commenting on it.

 

[srobertson]

I've seen exactly one XLR connector become damaged in my entire lifelong career as "oh yeah, that kid knows how to do it"-man. And that thing had a right to break - it was inside an SM58 that had been caught by someone's leg as they were running in front of a snake and pulled off a 10-ft stage to hit the ground jack-first. Those things take a beating.

I don't really think there's much of an argument for one form of polarity or another (and yeah, I did try to come up with one), because most pro audio equipment used live will eventually receive a good kicking, be it cable, mixer, mic, what have you; the internal connections and cabling are probably more prone to failure than the connectors themselves, IMO.

EDIT: but there is at least one reasonable argument for cables to be directional (signal comes in female end, out male end) - phantom power. If a tangle of cables leads to two providers of phantom power being wired together, the result would probably be a sharp CRACK followed by tens of thousands of dollars in delicate condenser mics being replaced. Again, this is pro-audio recording / live sound only, but if the convention is established, it makes sense to follow it in headphone gear.