How badly (if at all) will splitters degrade my signal?

  • Thread starter Thread starter hoobass
  • Start date Start date
H

hoobass

New member
I just bought a Zoom R16 that I want to use to track my band live. We have a Crate 7-channel powered mixer, so we're definitely a low-fi outfit. But since our mixer doesn't have I/O for each channel, I bought a couple of XLR splitters for our mics (and will likely get a few 1/4" splitters for our instruments). Goal being to split each mic/inst. w/ one lead going to the PA and one going to the recorder.

The splitters I have are 3' XLR, 1 female-to-2 male. Should I be terribly concerned about signal degradation with these? We all use 10-20' XLR and instrument cables currently. My thought is adding another 3' to the signal chain won't have much effect, esp. since our PA isn't exactly audiophile quality. But I'm also concerned about additional noise or static.

Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
I don't think there will be any problem. It'll halve the impedance of the microphone that the mixer / recording unit sees but I don't see that causing problems. I use them quite a bit on my microphone when recording to split the signal - one to the recording desk and one to a powered floor monitor I use when recording the noise band. There's never been any audible difference between using it and not using it. Certainly no static or noise has ever been introduced by using them.

Go ahead would be my view.

G
 
Back
Top