Hi. Quick question. I am about to pull the trigger on a pair of near field studio monitors. I’d like to route them directly to two 1/4” mono outs (R/L). In my internet cable shopping, I’ve noticed most monitor cables are stereo. If I opt for stereo cables, will that compromise the audio signal? Alternatively, would someone be able to recommend a mono cable spec? Thanks in advance. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
I’m trying to improve my production quality but I’m fairly new to this and on the verge of spending significant money.
Do the monitors you’re purchasing have balanced line inputs? If so, then you may want to pick up the stereo (balanced) cables. From what I understand, balanced is just useful for longer length of cable runs in order to avoid having the signal drop to an unusable level from a signal to noise ratio kind of perspective.
I used balanced cables from my audio interface to the monitors, but if I was connecting gear that didn’t have balanced outputs anyway, and I was sitting close to the speakers anyway, then mono (unbalanced) cables would be fine.
So the genelecs only have a balanced XLR input, so will be best connected to something with balanced outputs, which the AR has, so all you’d need is a pair of balanced jack to XLR cables.
The Zoia has unbalanced outputs though, so you’d need unbalanced jack to XLR cables for that, which would also work with the AR. The only issue you’d have is if you’re running a long cable (3m plus) to the monitors.
The Digi boxes all have balanced outputs and non-balanced inputs. The exception in that form factor is the Analog Heat MK2 which has balanced everything.
You are correct, did a quick look at the manual and it says unbalanced next to the impedance but states that the outputs are balanced. Thanks for clarifying. Edited my above post so no confusion.
Hope that not to late, but don’t buy special speaker cables!
I thought I’d do me a favor and bought speaker cables, they were picking up all kinds of noise and stuff.
Called Thomann for advice, they said you should use simple mono instrument cables as you would for a guitar.
After I changed to standard cables all noise was gone. I was even patching cables together because the cables I had at that time were to short, just to try if the noise would go away. It did.
Speaker cables are for PA systems, Passive speakers and long distances. Not for monitors in studios, as thomann explained.
That really depends on the input type of your monitors and output type of your interface / mixer / device, so this is not a general advice for all situations.
What do you mean by “speaker cable”, and what monitors and mixer / interface did you use in your situation?
At that I have Event TR8 XL monitors and a RME Fireface UCX which is still in use.
XLR to TRS cables, on the packaging it said ‘speaker cables’, that’s all I can remember.
I am sure there are situations where theses cables would have worked better, but for home-use Studio environments standard instrument cables did the job perfectly for me.
