speaker cables

  • Thread starter Thread starter flawrence
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flawrence

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My monitors have 1/4" and XLR inputs. On my home rig I use my TRS outputs of my interface to the XLR in but I also do some stuff with a Zoom r16 that just has RS outputs. Is there any advantage to hooking them up using a 1/4" RS to XLR cable vs. 1/4" to 1/4"?
Thanks!
 
Is "RS" supposed to be "RCA" or "TS" --- ???
 
The only (slight) advantage of an XLR is that it's a locking connector and therefore less likely to be accidentally pulled out. This may or may not be a factor depending on the layout of your setup.

However, in a situation where the monitors are fed from an unbalanced (TS) source, it'll still be unbalanced at the other end even if you use an XLR.
 
kinda what I thought - thanks!!
on a slight tangent - I have a couple of pretty good 1/4" to 1/4" cables but are TRS. Is there any signal loss or wierdness if I were to use these from my interface (1/4" TS) to my speakers (1/4" TS)?
 
There certainly won't be any "signal loss". The vast majority of the time, this will work fine. Very occasionally (I can count on my fingers the number of times over 40 years doing sound though) I've found TS sockets where the contact for the sleeve (the "S" in the name) is badly positioned and hits the ring instead of where it should be, causing no signal to flow. However, as I say, this is extremely rare and you should be fine.
 
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