Connecting studio monitors to a mixer. Balanced or unbalanced? What cables?

[user_123]

Hi guys,

I am pretty new to home recording, and I am new to the forum. I have a rather simple question regarding connecting studio monitors to a mixer. I want to connect my monitors to soundcraft compact 4 mixer. Which is the best way to do it? Should I use TRS – TRS balanced cables or TR – TR unbalanced? Or maybe XLR – TR(S) cables? My mixer has balanced monitor outputs. The length of the cables will be 5 meters.

Here are the inputs and outputs:



Any help would be very appreciated.

Best regards,
John

 

[bouldersoundguy]

The mixer outputs appear to be balanced so I'd keep the connection balanced using TRS-XLRM.

By the way, unbalanced 1/4" connectors are TS for tip-sleeve. The don't have a ring contact. It's also a good idea to think in terms of signal flow (mixer connected to the monitors rather than the other way around).