Balanced & Unbalanced I/O

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I have two questions:

1. What happens if I plug an unbalanced stereo source (TRS) into a mono input (TRS) that can accept balanced or unbalanced signals?  (assume the stereo source is basically just mono cloned to both channels)
2. What happens if I plug a mono source (TRS) that supports sending balanced or unbalanced signals into an unbalanced stereo input (TRS)?

[Enderman]

First of all, regular mono is TS not TRS

In the above case, which is the most common one,

1) the L and R channels get shorted together, essentially combining both channels into a single mono audio stream.

2) the L and R channels on the input will both contact the same sleeve, so the mono audio gets sent to both the left and right channels.

 

 

However,

If your mono channel is TRS, that means that it is using balanced circuitry and the two stereo channels will cancel out, see below for more info (you do not want to plug stereo into a balanced input)

 

I honestly have no idea what device you're using that "supports sending balanced or unbalanced signals"

It's either one or the other, you can't do both.

[Enderman]

Here is a better explanation:

 

With stereo, your left and right channels will be playing almost the same audio, so imagine the blue signal is not inverted and is the same as red.

When it gets flipped and recombined of the right side device, it will then cancel out and you will end up with a flat line output with a bit of noise of the difference between the L and R channels.

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38 minutes ago, Enderman said:

First of all, regular mono is TS not TRS

Yeah I know, that's why I specified what the plugs were since it was unusual

38 minutes ago, Enderman said:

However,

If your mono channel is TRS, that means that it is using balanced circuitry and the two stereo channels will cancel out, see below for more info (you do not want to plug stereo into a balanced input)

Yeah I had a feeling that's how it would go... hm....

38 minutes ago, Enderman said:

I honestly have no idea what device you're using that "supports sending balanced or unbalanced signals"

It's either one or the other, you can't do both.

Well it says Bal/unbal beside the port and it's an output. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Hm, I guess I'll have to get some adapters to make sure everything works properly.

[SSL]

1 hour ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Yeah I know, that's why I specified what the plugs were since it was unusual

Yeah I had a feeling that's how it would go... hm....

Well it says Bal/unbal beside the port and it's an output. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Hm, I guess I'll have to get some adapters to make sure everything works properly.

 

Can you explain what the fuck the device is or is that a state secret? Kind of hard to make a recommendation if we don't at least know whether the signal is mono or stereo.

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18 minutes ago, SSL said:

 

Can you explain what the fuck the device is or is that a state secret? Kind of hard to make a recommendation if we don't at least know whether the signal is mono or stereo.

lol this is the mixer http://mackie.com/products/profxv2-series (ProFX4v2)

Link to manual: http://mackie.com/sites/default/files/PRODUCT RESOURCES/MANUALS/Owners_Manuals/ProFX4v2_OM.pdf

Spoiler

Spoiler

Back to my questions:

1. Say I had a regular stereo source (think PC speaker output, etc.), and I plugged this into line in 2 for example (through a 3.5mm -> 1/4" adapter of course).  What would happen?  If I understand Enderman correctly, it would interpret the signal in a way that basically would cancel the left with the right resulting in a weak signal consisting only of the differences between them.
2. Say I plug the MON send output into a normal stereo line in jack, again, for example on a PC... would I get the same signal in each channel with the right inverted? or something else...?

Basically, I'm just wondering if I can connect things to this "directly" or if I will need to use splitters like this:

Spoiler

I'm thinking if I just had all mono (TS) cables this would be simple and would work, but if I were to plug a stereo (TRS) connector into any of these ports on the mixer, it would treat it as mono balanced and thus there will be problems if the other end is stereo unbalanced.

[SSL]

The monitor output appears to be stereo TRS just like a normal headphone jack - although worth noting that the signal sent to this output vs the headphone output is not the same. Line 2 appears to be a mono input, so the correct way to consume a stereo signal would be split it to lines 1 and 2.

 

I expect that you can use TRS cables here, but you just need to be mindful of the number of channels that are on that cable.

[Ahoy Hoy]

You could just buy a stereo cable
like this one i found in a super quick google search
then just pan each channnel and there ya go.

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11 minutes ago, Ahoy Hoy said:

You could just buy a stereo cable
like this one i found in a super quick google search
then just pan each channnel and there ya go.
 

I decided to just get a stereo to mono cable (well two actually). It should do exactly what I need with no weirdness.