Hi all. New to the forum, and new to quad cortex. As I’m building my very simple board I was wondering about getting a balanced signal into the qc. To be honest I haven’t noticed a problem at all going from my wireless to the input using an unbalanced patch lead but I’d rather be safe than sorry. My wireless has a balanced trs output but the qc manual states that inputs 1/2 are xlr or ts female, not trs, can anyone confirm?
Not that it really matters, unbalanced seems to work fine and I can always use trs>xlr input.
I’m surprised no one has answered this. XLR and TRS are the same thing, i.e both balanced. The combo jack on the input of the QC can take either. Separately, it can also take an instrument TS cable. Also, depending on what you’re using, you may want to switch the input from instrument to mic in the IO panel when you swipe down from the top. Instrument is typically for instrument sources and instrument cable (TS). Would switch to mic for balanced cables.
I might be misunderstanding you there, but you wouldn’t want to switch the I/O to ‘mic’ if you used a TRS cable, only XLR. That’s one of my pet peeves I wish they’d correct in the labeling- it really should read ‘1/4" or XLR’ for those inputs, not ‘instrument or mic.’
Would save some confusion.
Thanks for the response, but I think you’ve missed the thrust of the question. I’m aware that xlr and trs are electrically the same, but the hardware specifications in the manual is very specific that the input jacks are “xlr/ts” and not “xlr/trs”. I was wondering if maybe this was a typo or if there genuinely wasn’t a ring connection on the 1/4" part of the combo jack. The fact that the next line lists the input impedance for the ts and xlr inputs separately makes me think it probably isn’t a typo?
Edit - although now I note that page 6 of the manual lists them as ts, trs, xlr. Hmmmmm.
So you might be correct on the “not switching” in the IO, but not because it’s XLR. The jack has nothing to do with the signal strength, it just so happens that mics tend to have XLR and they can also use phantom power which can’t with TRS. But if you used TRS to XLR and vice versa on line level signals they’re the same. The signal strength from lowest to highest at source is mic, instrument, line level. You ideally would want to match the switch with the input signal, if it’s balanced that means line level, but there is no line level option so instrument is the next appropriate. A bit of nerdiness but I was interested myself.
Honestly it’s probably that trs works in the input, just as a ts would. it’s not specifically the trs input, so you probably won’t get any of the advantages of a trs other than it working at a 1/4 ts cable.
yes, that’s all correct terminology-wise, but the switch is merely a toggle between the Input Jacks, you’re either enabling the 1/4" or the XLR on those inputs. That’s why it’s confusing- you could be capturing a preamp or pedal that takes an XLR and many people are confused because they aren’t using a microphone in the process, but they would need to select ‘mic’ to activate the XLR connection. Or, perhaps they are using a mic but have a 1/4" TS adapter cable. If it were labeled according to which cable is connected to the combo jack it would make more sense. It caused tons of confusion when the QC was first released.
Doesn’t look likely that they’ll change those labels though.
Hmmm, but does it though? I thought the switch either boosts or drops the input level to match the appropriate source, for example if you plugged in a mic and you had it set to instrument, you wouldn’t get enough level, similar to how you’d switch between instrument and / or mic on an interface.
Pretty sure it switches between the input types. It’s not a just “line level” or “instrument level” switch. Try switching it while using 1/4” in. There won’t be any signal if you have “mic” selected
it does indeed, and that’s ALL it does. Switch inputs on the combo jack
Again that’s why I’ve argued for years it should be labelled “1/4” or XLR"
but they won’t listen to me