Balanced 3 pin Cannon/XLR to Naim 4 pin DIN
Posted by: Stephen Bennett on 25 June 2002
Hi all.
I'm using a NAP 140 with a pre that has balanced outputs on XLRs. Can someone tell me how to wire this up?
Regards
Stephen
I'm using a NAP 140 with a pre that has balanced outputs on XLRs. Can someone tell me how to wire this up?
Regards
Stephen
Posted on: 25 June 2002 by pm
Hi Stephen,
I had a related problem with an ADC I wanted to connect to my Naim so that I could burn some LPs to CDR. My Yamaha unit only took balanced inputs.
Since I already had a spare 4 pin DIN to twin phono I decided to go the following way. I found it easier to attack it in two stages.
Your "balanced out" has two signal leads and the ground (screen). The signal has a "hot" and "cold", (normally pins 2&3). The cold being an inverted replica of the hot. The screen is pin 1.
To convert balanced to unbalanced (without extra electronics) you connect hot to the centre pin of a phono and both the cold and screen to the outer case (ground) of the phono.
So to recap, from your pre, you will have 2 XLR to single phono leads. That connects to a twin phono to 4 pin DIN into your 140.
You could make up a "Y" lead if you like. I believe your 140 pin assignment is (CCW from top left), Ch2;-ve;+24v;Ch1. So you would end up with the following connections; Ch2 "hot"; both screens and both "cold"; +24v ; Ch1 "hot".
You can see that it ends up a bit crowded on the gound pin!! Thats why I went for the two part solution.
WARNING!! You lose half the signal! So expect to have to turn up the wick a lot more! I'm afraid there's no way round this with just cables.
The electronic solution is relatively simple if you are handy with a soldering iron and construction. A few choice words in your favourite search engine should get you going.
I'm in the process of doing this at the moment as although the results are ok, I feel they could be better.
Out of idle curiousity, which pre-amp? In any case, let us know how it goes.
I had a related problem with an ADC I wanted to connect to my Naim so that I could burn some LPs to CDR. My Yamaha unit only took balanced inputs.
Since I already had a spare 4 pin DIN to twin phono I decided to go the following way. I found it easier to attack it in two stages.
Your "balanced out" has two signal leads and the ground (screen). The signal has a "hot" and "cold", (normally pins 2&3). The cold being an inverted replica of the hot. The screen is pin 1.
To convert balanced to unbalanced (without extra electronics) you connect hot to the centre pin of a phono and both the cold and screen to the outer case (ground) of the phono.
So to recap, from your pre, you will have 2 XLR to single phono leads. That connects to a twin phono to 4 pin DIN into your 140.
You could make up a "Y" lead if you like. I believe your 140 pin assignment is (CCW from top left), Ch2;-ve;+24v;Ch1. So you would end up with the following connections; Ch2 "hot"; both screens and both "cold"; +24v ; Ch1 "hot".
You can see that it ends up a bit crowded on the gound pin!! Thats why I went for the two part solution.
WARNING!! You lose half the signal! So expect to have to turn up the wick a lot more! I'm afraid there's no way round this with just cables.
The electronic solution is relatively simple if you are handy with a soldering iron and construction. A few choice words in your favourite search engine should get you going.
I'm in the process of doing this at the moment as although the results are ok, I feel they could be better.
Out of idle curiousity, which pre-amp? In any case, let us know how it goes.
Posted on: 25 June 2002 by Paul Ranson
AFAIK there are essentially two types of 'balanced' output, electrically balanced, which is a + and - output symmetrical about and referenced to 0v/earth and transformer balanced which is floating wrt 0v.
In the first case you should be able to use the '+' and '0' of the balanced output to feed the power amp, leaving the '-' disconnected. In the latter you will need to common the two '-' outputs to 0v and use the '+' outputs for the signal.
Did that make any sense? In any case 'professional' gear is designed to be abused so you shouldn't come to any harm. The Naim input has a DC blocking capacitor and its 0v is floating from real earth so it should also be safe.
Richard Bowles is probably the man you need to talk to if it doesn't all work out simply.
Paul
In the first case you should be able to use the '+' and '0' of the balanced output to feed the power amp, leaving the '-' disconnected. In the latter you will need to common the two '-' outputs to 0v and use the '+' outputs for the signal.
Did that make any sense? In any case 'professional' gear is designed to be abused so you shouldn't come to any harm. The Naim input has a DC blocking capacitor and its 0v is floating from real earth so it should also be safe.
Richard Bowles is probably the man you need to talk to if it doesn't all work out simply.
Paul
Posted on: 27 June 2002 by Stephen Bennett
The 'Pre' is a MOTU 896 Firewire audio interface -somewhat specialist! This one required the use of pin 2 (earth) and pin 3(signal) on the XLR to the Naim 4 pin din. All fine and dandy now. The NAP140 is a nice match for my PMC TB2 monitors by the way. I could easily live with that in my hi fi!
Regards
Stephen
Regards
Stephen