Any audio mixers that satisfy the following?

[38034580]

Requirements:

• Must run off a 12v power brick (I will be running it off ATX power)
• Must have a clipping indicator or an output audio meter
• Must have RCA or 3.5mm as the main output (Record out and headphones out don't count)
• Any number of channels is fine

[Thaldor]

2 hours ago, 38034580 said:

Requirements:

• Must run off a 12v power brick (I will be running it off ATX power)
• Must have a clipping indicator or an output audio meter
• Must have RCA or 3.5mm as the main output (Record out and headphones out don't count)
• Any number of channels is fine

With exactly those you are looking at very small pool of mixers. Two things that would make the pool of possibilities a bit bigger would be 2 x 6.3mm mono output and/or USB-powered.

12V power and 2 x 6.3mm output (you can get 2x6.3mm mono to 3.5mm stereo cables from pretty much everywhere with studio equipment) would give you Yamaha AG08, a bit pricey option but runs on 12V power brick.

 

USB power would give you Behringer Xenyx 302USB which has master RCA output.

 

Just going through Thomann, there's Reloop RMX-44BT which would mark all the parts but it's a DJ mixer so has a bit different feature set.

[38034580]

17 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

With exactly those you are looking at very small pool of mixers. Two things that would make the pool of possibilities a bit bigger would be 2 x 6.3mm mono output and/or USB-powered.

12V power and 2 x 6.3mm output (you can get 2x6.3mm mono to 3.5mm stereo cables from pretty much everywhere with studio equipment) would give you Yamaha AG08, a bit pricey option but runs on 12V power brick.

 

USB power would give you Behringer Xenyx 302USB which has master RCA output.

 

Just going through Thomann, there's Reloop RMX-44BT which would mark all the parts but it's a DJ mixer so has a bit different feature set.

Do those 6.3mm ports output +4dbu or -10dbv? If the latter, your option will fit my case, as 5V will work too, albeit with less wattage available

[Thaldor]

19 hours ago, 38034580 said:

Do those 6.3mm ports output +4dbu or -10dbv? If the latter, your option will fit my case, as 5V will work too, albeit with less wattage available

Most likely all of those are +4dbu, the Yamaha directly says +4dbu, Behringer says max. +22dbu, I would be surprised if the reloop would have -10dbv output (the RCA out is unbalanced but IDK) since that is more consumer spec to use.

[Heats with Nvidia]

If it only needs to be a mixer, the Yamaha MG06 runs on 12V and is a really sturdy little thing that i use since a couple of years in various stationary and mobile applications. For example i occasionally strap it to the handlebars of a bicycle and power it with 12V lead acid batteries and it works perfectly even in this application and after some years of (ab)use.

[38034580]

4 hours ago, Thaldor said:

Most likely all of those are +4dbu, the Yamaha directly says +4dbu, Behringer says max. +22dbu, I would be surprised if the reloop would have -10dbv output (the RCA out is unbalanced but IDK) since that is more consumer spec to use.

1 hour ago, Heats with Nvidia said:

If it only needs to be a mixer, the Yamaha MG06 runs on 12V and is a really sturdy little thing that i use since a couple of years in various stationary and mobile applications. For example i occasionally strap it to the handlebars of a bicycle and power it with 12V lead acid batteries and it works perfectly even in this application and after some years of (ab)use.

An answer on Quora says that the 1/4 inch TS is -10dBV while the XLR is +4dbu, but if the 1/4 inch TS is indeed +4dbu and I use this to connect it to my soundbar's AUX input will my $700 (now $400) soundbar's amp be fried, as it uses digital processing to apply EQ, sound modes, surround, etc?

[Heats with Nvidia]

 

7 hours ago, 38034580 said:

An answer on Quora says that the 1/4 inch TS is -10dBV while the XLR is +4dbu, but if the 1/4 inch TS is indeed +4dbu and I use this to connect it to my soundbar's AUX input will my $700 (now $400) soundbar's amp be fried, as it uses digital processing to apply EQ, sound modes, surround, etc?

No, it won`t be fried under any circumstance. It will just start to distort, when you crank it up too much and the VU meters won`t make much sense.

[38034580]

2 hours ago, Heats with Nvidia said:

 

No, it won`t be fried under any circumstance. It will just start to distort, when you crank it up too much and the VU meters won`t make much sense.

But the VU meter's "0" point is below 0dbfs

[Heats with Nvidia]

0dBfs is the point at which a digital device starts to distort digitally. Nothing more. So yes, the mixer won`t distort at that level. But the input amp of your soundbar will start to distort, when you exceed its maximum input voltage. But usually you can turn its input sensitivity down and make it fit the output level of the mixer.

[38034580]

1 hour ago, Heats with Nvidia said:

0dBfs is the point at which a digital device starts to distort digitally. Nothing more. So yes, the mixer won`t distort at that level. But the input amp of your soundbar will start to distort, when you exceed its maximum input voltage. But usually you can turn its input sensitivity down and make it fit the output level of the mixer.

Does this distortion happen before or after the soundbar's digital volume control? (the digital volume control is currently set very low, like 3-4 points out of 40). And, the mixer will distort above +6db, and the reason why they labeled it "0" before 0dbfs is to give headroom

[Heats with Nvidia]

That depends on how its built. Usually the first input stage can handle it and you can just turn down the digital volume control to prevent it from distorting, but sometimes its even too much for the first stage. But even in this case, just turn the output on the mixer down and its fine.

[38034580]

14 minutes ago, Heats with Nvidia said:

That depends on how its built. Usually the first input stage can handle it and you can just turn down the digital volume control to prevent it from distorting, but sometimes its even too much for the first stage. But even in this case, just turn the output on the mixer down and its fine.

How much? if it indicates +6 on the yellow LED which dB value will be my new 0dBFS?

[Heats with Nvidia]

1 minute ago, 38034580 said:

How much? if it indicates +6 on the yellow LED which dB value will be my new 0dBFS?

Do you mean the 0dBfs of the mixer, or of the soundbar? If you mean that of the soundbar, that depends on the maximum voltage the analog first stage can take before it goes into the digital volume control, which by the way, can also be analog, but digitally controlled and then go into the ADC, or it goes directly into the ADC after the analog, first stage. What the 0dBfs of that stage is, can only be determined by measuring it, but this won`t help you anyway.

 

I really want to know, what the problem is, you want to solve. Because all of these mixers will work just fine on almost all others devices when you just adjust their output volume in a way it doesn`t distort.

[38034580]

32 minutes ago, Heats with Nvidia said:

Do you mean the 0dBfs of the mixer, or of the soundbar? If you mean that of the soundbar, that depends on the maximum voltage the analog first stage can take before it goes into the digital volume control, which by the way, can also be analog, but digitally controlled and then go into the ADC, or it goes directly into the ADC after the analog, first stage. What the 0dBfs of that stage is, can only be determined by measuring it, but this won`t help you anyway.

 

I really want to know, what the problem is, you want to solve. Because all of these mixers will work just fine on almost all others devices when you just adjust their output volume in a way it doesn`t distort.

Problem is, I need to find my 0dbfs of the soundbar relative to the mixer's LEDs, as the soundbar takes in -10dBV, and in this hypotethical scenario, the mixer outputs +4dBu.

[Heats with Nvidia]

In that case,

 

-10dBV is =-7.78dBU

-7.78dBu-4dBU=11,78dBu

 

So the mixers LEDs will show roughly -12dB at this point. But usually the input sensitivity given by datasheets its the most sensitive one and you can just turn down the input.

 

Also you have a very good measuring device for this. Its your ears. As long as the distortion is not very extreme and very long, nothing will break.

[Thaldor]

25 minutes ago, 38034580 said:

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IMO you are thinking way too much. I don't mean it's a bad thing so don't take it as that. Coming from the music side of things I can tell you there are things that will fry stuff connected to them, like my 60's guitar amp won't give mercy if you connect it to a some poor tape player to record it same as it's 3x12" cab won't give mercy to any amp connected to it because it's wired parallel and 8/16 ohm standard really wasn't a thing in the 60's so it's 2.7ohms pure Yamaha mayhem. But anything half-way modern won't fry things unless you go the extremes like connecting some PA amplifier to some stereo speakers style of madness.

You have a mixer going into a soundbar, you already at that point have 4 volume control stages: 1) devices connected to the mixer 2) mixers input 3) mixers output 4) soundbars output. You will set 1st stage to be optimal output for the devices amps, 2nd stage you will use to balance the devices (what you want higher volume, what you want at the same, you get it), 3rd will be set so you don't push the preamp side of the soundbar (so probably pretty low, until the soundbar doesn't clip) and 4th will set your listening level. You most likely cannot control the "gain" of the soundbar (basicly the preamp volume or the input volume), so that will be the mixers output volume controls job or either you get some cheap stereo volume controller to lower that signal even more but as you have a mixer you can lower the signal even by lowering the input volume to the mixer, as in, the mixer doesn't automatically set the amplification level of itself so if you lower the input volume -> you lower the output volume and so lower the signal going to the soundbar, if still too high, you can lower the volume on device and bring that signal even lower.

The mixers leds will never sync with the soundbar. At the point where mixers output amp is receiving too high signal and clipping, your soundbars preamp is already gone way past that point.