[Leonardo Drummond]

Hello everyone!
 
To make a long story short, I got myself a Little Dot MKVI, non plus version, that doesn't have the single ended output and I sort of need one. So I thought about just building an adapter. I already got the parts on their way, but I have two questions:
 
1) Can this adapter damage the amplifier? I don't intend to use it very often or for a long time, but it would be nice to plug a headphone in the amp other than the K1000. Also, there's going to be a local meet here soon and it would be great to be able to listen to normal headphones with it.
 
2) I don't have any sort of DIY knowledge of any kind, the only thing I've done so far was to build a 3 pin XLR to RCA jack adapter, which I've done looking at a simple schematic I've found on the internet. However, I can't find a 4 pin XLR to P10 schematic, so could anyone tell me which bits to solder exactly?
 
Thank you all in advance!
Leo

 

[Leonardo Drummond]

Anyone?

 

[nikongod]

Balanced to SE cables are a bad idea. Dont do it. 

 

[Leonardo Drummond]

Oh dear... thanks for the info
 
I better go for the + version, then!
 
Just out of curiosity though, why is it not recommended?

 

[nikongod]

Balanced to SE headphone adapters often work well. BUT there are some problems. 
 
What do you ground the ground too? What happens if the outputs are not referenced to ground? Will the amp respond well if the out of phase connections are simply connected together?
 
What sucks is that you can actually build a balanced to SE adapter that will work with almost any specific amp. The problem is that there is nothing stopping anyone from plugging them into an amp they dont work well with, and poof. people plug stuff into other stuff as mindlessly as can be imagined, and except for this one case its totally fine. 
 
The 2 best solutions are:
Mount the 1/4" jack on the amp so nobody can misuse it.
Reterminate your headphones to plug into the balanced outs. 

 

[qusp]

yep and even best case scenario you lose out on DNR  unless transformer coupling, or some other form of BAL->SE conversion goes on. usually people ground the inverting output of the opamp = bad (some commercial amp manufacturres have been known to do this 

 ), unless you use signal ground or star ground plus the non-inverting output there will almost definitely be some illeffect, but as Nikongod said that can cause issues too with the wrong gear.

 

[Leonardo Drummond]

Thanks again guys!! I think I understand.
 
I just thought it would be possible since the new version of the MKVI does have single ended inputs and outputs, and (although this is pure guessing) I don't think any changes were made to the circuit, so I thought an adapter like this would just add SE output functionality.
 
I asked David ZheZhe about it and he told me such an adapter is not recommended, but then I just figured it could well be a case of a manufacturer just being overly cautious and burocratic with his equipment. But oh well...