Hello all,
Longtime hobbyist, first-time poster. Big fan of this forum, which has helped me a lot in the past.
With my Coronacation idle time, I've managed a quick build of a Hypex Ncore 252MP-based Class D amplifier kit. It is excellent and, in the two-channel format I'm using it, also a bit of trouble to route to my subwoofer.
I'm wondering: given a two-channel "hifi" amplifier system and limited pre-amplifier routing options, what would be the best way to route from an XLR connection into the XLS200's Speakon input? I want to do this in order to take advantage of the crossover within the subwoofer's amplifier board, and to avoid RF interference across an RCA line from my preamp.
For reference: I am a DJ, using this audio for home practice. Sound is from two ELAC towers (they're...fine). Sources are two Technics turntables into a Vestax PMC-25 mixer. For those of you not familiar with the latter piece of equipment, by far its most superior output signal can be found in the "Main L-R" output, consisting in two XLR male jacks. There are also "Booth OUT" and "AUX OUT" signal options, but these are run with TRS and, in my perhaps-biased opinion, sound inferior.
Hence my need for an XLR-to-Speakon solution. The first option I've tried is to install an XLR y-splitter before the Ncore amplifier left-channel input, routing one XLR fork-end to the amp, and the other to a XLR-to- Speakon-terminated cable for connecting to my XLS200 subwoofer. For reasons I do not quite fully comprehend yet--and would love to understand--the Y-splitter produced: a) very quiet, poor sound to the Left channel, where the connection split was made, and b) absolutely no output from my subwoofer.
What would be a cheap, inexpensive way to maintain Main the signal to my sub?
Thanks for reading, and greetings from Los Angeles,
BN
Longtime hobbyist, first-time poster. Big fan of this forum, which has helped me a lot in the past.
With my Coronacation idle time, I've managed a quick build of a Hypex Ncore 252MP-based Class D amplifier kit. It is excellent and, in the two-channel format I'm using it, also a bit of trouble to route to my subwoofer.
I'm wondering: given a two-channel "hifi" amplifier system and limited pre-amplifier routing options, what would be the best way to route from an XLR connection into the XLS200's Speakon input? I want to do this in order to take advantage of the crossover within the subwoofer's amplifier board, and to avoid RF interference across an RCA line from my preamp.
For reference: I am a DJ, using this audio for home practice. Sound is from two ELAC towers (they're...fine). Sources are two Technics turntables into a Vestax PMC-25 mixer. For those of you not familiar with the latter piece of equipment, by far its most superior output signal can be found in the "Main L-R" output, consisting in two XLR male jacks. There are also "Booth OUT" and "AUX OUT" signal options, but these are run with TRS and, in my perhaps-biased opinion, sound inferior.
Hence my need for an XLR-to-Speakon solution. The first option I've tried is to install an XLR y-splitter before the Ncore amplifier left-channel input, routing one XLR fork-end to the amp, and the other to a XLR-to- Speakon-terminated cable for connecting to my XLS200 subwoofer. For reasons I do not quite fully comprehend yet--and would love to understand--the Y-splitter produced: a) very quiet, poor sound to the Left channel, where the connection split was made, and b) absolutely no output from my subwoofer.
What would be a cheap, inexpensive way to maintain Main the signal to my sub?
Thanks for reading, and greetings from Los Angeles,
BN
Speakon is a speaker level input, your XLR is not. Your best bet is the RCA inputs. If you want to use XLR upto the sub, then you would need to have an active converter to RCA. Simplest way is to just use a cheap XLR to RCA cable and see how well that works. Have you actually tried the "AUX out" or "Booth out" to the sub? I cannot imagine that it would actually be very bad, specially for something like a sub. The Booth output seems to have a little bit higher level, and lower impedance, so should in theory be a little bit better.
Some thoughts:
- The SpeakOn input is expecting speaker-level signals. Feeding line-level in there will result in exceptionally quiet sound.
- The "aux out" will probably work just fine - run a couple of phono cables from there to the subwoofer's phono inputs
- An alternative routing method would be to use the SpeakOn input as it's intended - run cables (they don't have to be particularly thick or anything - current is very low) from your stereo amplifier's output to the NL4 input on the subwoofer. Make sure you read the manual to figure out which wire goes to which pin.
Chris
- The SpeakOn input is expecting speaker-level signals. Feeding line-level in there will result in exceptionally quiet sound.
- The "aux out" will probably work just fine - run a couple of phono cables from there to the subwoofer's phono inputs
- An alternative routing method would be to use the SpeakOn input as it's intended - run cables (they don't have to be particularly thick or anything - current is very low) from your stereo amplifier's output to the NL4 input on the subwoofer. Make sure you read the manual to figure out which wire goes to which pin.
Chris