XLR to 1/4" Line level

[Paul K]

Ladies and Gentlemen;

 

My TC Helicon units (VoiceSolo and Harmony G/XT) have only XLR outputs, but appear to be line level. My Carvin AC300 combo amp has XLR inputs, but has a weird intermittent white noise thing that is not gig friendly. The defect, which can't be fixed by Carvin anymore, is apparently in the effects engine which can't be turned off. So I'm bypassing it and the pre-amp by going directly into the Carvin's power amp section via the effects loop input, which is 1/4 inch. The signal should be hot enough as I've done it before with other boxes that have both 1/4" and headphone outputs. Do I need some impedance matcher thing to do this or will a simple Female XLR to male 1/4" cord do the trick? The cord run will be short enough that I'm not concerned with noise from an unbalanced run.

 

Cheers,

Paul K

[J. Dan]

You'll be fine with the adapter.

[Mike Rivers]

Ladies and Gentlemen;

 

My TC Helicon units (VoiceSolo and Harmony G/XT) have only XLR outputs, but appear to be line level. . . . . . going directly into the Carvin's power amp section via the effects loop input, which is 1/4 inch. The signal should be hot enough as I've done it before with other boxes that have both 1/4" and headphone outputs. Do I need some impedance matcher thing to do this or will a simple Female XLR to male 1/4" cord do the trick?

 

The effect return is almost certainly an unbalanced input. The most common way to make a balanced XLR to unbalanced 1/4" cable is to connect pin 2 of the XLR to the tip of the 1/4" plug and both pins 1 and 3 to the sleeve. This works most of the time, but some electronically balanced outputs don't like to have pin 3 tied to ground (pin 1). This can cause distortion, which can be fixed by disconnecting Pin 3 and taking the signal between pins 1 and 2. If you buy an off-the-shelf adapter, get one that doesn't have molded-on plugs so you can re-wire it if necessary.

 

[Paul K]

Excellent! Thanks!