need help all you electrical engineer dudes!!

D

DazednConfused

New member
Thought it would be simple. Turns out its not, or i'm a moron, one or the other. I have a pair of Samson Resolv powered studio monitors. They work great with my ProTools/MBox setup. That's not the problem. I got the idea I could maybe use the monitors to listen to playback from my laptop's sound card, specifically I wanted to be able to listen to iTunes stuff through the Samsons. I am coming out of a Soundblaster card with a single 1/8" balanced output, trying to get the signal to the Samsons which each have a single balanced 1/4" input. I tried splitters. And I tried going through my mixer. I get hum/noise no matter what kinds of splitters I try. I finally realized the issue is balanced vs. unbalanced. My question is this: How the heck can I get a balanced 1/8" stereo signal from my sound card to the appropriate sort of inputs for my monitors?
 
DazednConfused said:
Thought it would be simple. Turns out its not, or i'm a moron, one or the other. I have a pair of Samson Resolv powered studio monitors. They work great with my ProTools/MBox setup. That's not the problem. I got the idea I could maybe use the monitors to listen to playback from my laptop's sound card, specifically I wanted to be able to listen to iTunes stuff through the Samsons. I am coming out of a Soundblaster card with a single 1/8" balanced output, trying to get the signal to the Samsons which each have a single balanced 1/4" input. I tried splitters. And I tried going through my mixer. I get hum/noise no matter what kinds of splitters I try. I finally realized the issue is balanced vs. unbalanced. My question is this: How the heck can I get a balanced 1/8" stereo signal from my sound card to the appropriate sort of inputs for my monitors?
Click to expand...

OK, a SB does not have a balanced output, is has a stereo unbalanced output. So the signal is never going to be balanced, no matter what cables you use.

Get a 1/8" TRS to dual 1/4" TS, and keep it as short as possible. If you are getting hum, look for sources of electrical noise, like electric heaters, dimmer switches, refrigerators. Turn them off, and see if it improves.

You could, I suppose, route the output through your mixer solely to balance the signal out to the monitors (it might be nice to have the gain control too), but that is not a guaranteed cure for hum.
 
Or you could just set the M-Box as your default sound output...

Are you on a PC or a Mac?

If i remember correctly on a PC you can go to the "sound" control panel and select the M-box as your default output....
 
DazednConfused said:
Thought it would be simple. Turns out its not, or i'm a moron, one or the other. I have a pair of Samson Resolv powered studio monitors. They work great with my ProTools/MBox setup. That's not the problem. I got the idea I could maybe use the monitors to listen to playback from my laptop's sound card, specifically I wanted to be able to listen to iTunes stuff through the Samsons. I am coming out of a Soundblaster card with a single 1/8" balanced output, trying to get the signal to the Samsons which each have a single balanced 1/4" input. I tried splitters. And I tried going through my mixer. I get hum/noise no matter what kinds of splitters I try. I finally realized the issue is balanced vs. unbalanced. My question is this: How the heck can I get a balanced 1/8" stereo signal from my sound card to the appropriate sort of inputs for my monitors?
Click to expand...

Shut off your aux/mic inputs and any unused outputs on your laptop. Keep the cable to the speakers as short as possible and route them 90 degrees across any AC lines or power outlets. Make sure the wiring is right and use a TRS plug for the speaker input with it wired un-balanced (do a search for analog signal wiring).
 
yeah i would just let itunes play through the mbox. thats what i do and it works just fine. set the mbox as the default. then when it's not there, like if you are on the go and you don't have it plugged in it will play through whatever the other available option is. in this case the internal soundcard and then you will still be able to listen on headphones down at the coffee shop.
 
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