Figuring out the best way to plug in my Yamaha HS50Ms

  • Thread starter Thread starter celluloid love
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celluloid love

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So I bought a 27" iMac recently and I'm getting tonnes of interference/static when using my Yamahas going through the little 3.5mm headphone output on the back of the machine. Right now I'm using an unbalanced dual TS to 3.5mm cable, so probably a pretty bad solution.

I'm wondering firstly if anyone knows of a straight-up solution to the static (it's not present at all with headphones), but also for the best way to plug in my Yamaha monitors. They have both XLR and 1/4" inputs. I'm after a balanced cable I guess, since that will hopefully solve the static.

thanks.
 
You most likely need to buy a mixer, or some sort of usb audio interface with monitor outputs.

Im not a mac guy, but they probably dont have awesomely good soundcards.

The way I do it is I have a mixer which I connect with a usb interface to my computer (via the cd/tape inputs/outputs) so i have 2 channels going each way. I record whatever through my mixer and all the sound from my computer goes back to the mixer and out my monitors.
 
I've got an interface that I use for recording but it's set up in another room with my tape machine. I'd prefer not to have to plug it into my computer and turn it on every time I want to mix something or even just listen to music, but if that's the way it has to be then I guess I'll set it up. You'd think that for the price of an iMac they'd have sorted out some sort of solution for audio recording people.

Unless it's just the unbalanced cables. But I don't know of a way to get a balanced signal into the 3.5mm jack.
 
TS leads into a device that expects TRS is probably the issue here. Get a cheap USB or firewire interface that has balanced outs
 
celluloid love said:
Cool, thanks for the help.

Before I commit to balanced cables and the interface route, would a cable like this going straight into the mac eliminate the noise? Is it balanced?

http://www.brisound.com.au/view/page/11/item/532.html
Click to expand...

All XLR cables are balanced. If you want to know if it's balanced look how many lines it has on the jack. If it has one (1 channel) it's mono; if it has 2 (2 channel) it's stereo (balanced).
 
junchieve said:
All XLR cables are balanced. If you want to know if it's balanced look how many lines it has on the jack. If it has one (1 channel) it's mono; if it has 2 (2 channel) it's stereo (balanced).
Click to expand...



Ok, you are confusing the issue here, a cable is neither balanced or unbalanced, the two terms are not related to the cable itself. What is of significance are the outputs and the inputs of the two devices, those are where the "balancing" occurs in the way of a transformer. Balanced outputs use 3 wires, two of which are opposite polarities of each other and a ground. Any 3 conductor will work and XLR and TRS are the most common ones but also are used for many non-balanced applications (i.e. microphones have +48V on a pin, stereo cables use the tip and ring for the two signals, etc) and even with balanced systems, pinouts can vary from manufacture to manufacture.

A quick look at the manual shows the phone inputs can be either balanced or not so either he needs to use those (and if he is the cables are not the problem) or get an interface with balanced outs.
 
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