[T. Perinne]

Sorry for the newbie question... If I want to go from RCA outputs to XLR inputs on an active speaker, would there be any loss of sound quality from a RCA to XLR conversion cable?  Any better or worse compared to XLR to XLR or RCA to RCA?

Thanks.

[konut]

I had cables made by Markertek RCA to XLR using Canare Star Quad. Very happy with them.

[Ethan Winer]

TP,

> would there be any loss of sound quality from a RCA to XLR conversion cable? <

Unless a cable or connector is outright broken, or you use a cable that's way too long for the application, there will not be any degradation.

--Ethan

[electricbear]

While you will not benefit from the usual gains associated with running xlr ( higher gain, lower noise floor, the ability to do longer runs) you should not experience any degradation or deteriation of sound quality. Just make sure you use good cables with good connectors.

[jgubman]

I wondered about that too, don't most amps have different sensitivity for XLR vs. RCA inputs? Would this kind of adaptor possibly introduce more noise since a signal coming from an XLR output theoretically has less noise from common mode noise rejection employed in the preamp?

[konut]

As I understand it, and I could be wrong, while you're not going to get the extra gain, the extra shielding will, theoretically, result in less noise than the regular RCA to RCA.

[PEB]

For an unbalanced component (RCA) driving a balanced component (XLR male connector on the cable), you can short pins 1 (gnd) and 3 (unused inverted phase).  This will prevent any noise from the floating pin 3 from getting into the diff amp at the input of the driven piece.

For balanced output (XLR) to unbalanced (RCA) input component, do not short pins 1 & 3.

I build adapter cables this way regularly.  Custom length so that you can rearrange your gear in a manner that improves the acoustics.