XLR Y-CABLES - Help please

[chribble]

Not sure if there is a thread on this already. Could not find one apart from this
http://www.turtlerockmastering.com/foru ... ight=split
which was DIY.

I'm looking for some high quality splitting cables - female xlr to dual male xlr.
At the moment I'm using these exact cables: http://www.thomann.de/gb/cordial_cfy_03_fmm.htm

I didn't notice until I started sending busses out of the box, rather than tracking in parallel, that I think there is some bass loss.
Could this be impedance or something to do with a need for a transformer?

Anyhow - I'll need cables like this so I can track direct and dirty at the same time in the same fidelity. And also have the options of bussing out.
i'm also having issues lining up the latency of these when coming back in the box, but i'm sure that's because my return latency setting arn't set correctly at the moment.


Anyone know any good versions of this cable. Not willing to DIY.

Also - a 1/4" cable to multiple 1/4" would be good as well as I am looking for a better way to tracking guitar via mult-amplifier at the moment.
(I was previously just using the bypass and thru on a boss TU2 which works - but I'm sure this introduces signal noise)

THANKS


Chris

[rob]

so do you need more of these Y split cables or do you doubt the quality of the ones you have? They like fine to me...it is hard to go wrong with a Y split adapter.

Bass loss is unlikely to be an issue, unless the output coupling cap in the device is higher than it should be and you are loading both splits with a low Z load. In this situation you would probably have other issues such as loss of headroom or higher distortion as well.

Some simple experiments will tell you if there is a performance issue or not. Connect one split at a time and monitor the result. Then connect both splits...Any change?

with respect to splitting a guitar signal....this is another whole can of worms and will give rise to a bunch of issues. Ideally you need an active device specifically for this task or at less a good quality active DI and split the DI outputs.

[chribble]

Thanks Rob,

I'll try this out tomorrow and report back. I think it could be the cables but i'll try it with other xlr cables also. also use one side at a time etc.

[Nile]

with respect to splitting a guitar signal....this is another whole can of worms and will give rise to a bunch of issues. Ideally you need an active device specifically for this task or at less a good quality active DI and split the DI outputs.

Hi Rob. Just curious if you rate this Jensen passive guitar splitter circuit. http://www.jensen-transformers.com/as/as013.pdf. Do you really need an active circuit for the best chance of maintaining 'purity' of the guitar tone?

Cheers

Neil Thomason

[rob]

in my opinion to preserve the entire tone and level of any passive pickup electric guitar you need to present as high an impedance to it as possible.

the jensen box is not a particularly high impedance and you get both loads reflected back onto the guitar's output.

I high quality active DI does it much better

[Nile]

in my opinion to preserve the entire tone and level of any passive pickup electric guitar you need to present as high an impedance to it as possible.

the jensen box is not a particularly high impedance and you get both loads reflected back onto the guitar's output.

I high quality active DI does it much better

OK so then maybe a dedicated active box like this from the Australian manufacturer Ivan Richards? http://www.ivanrichards.com/richsplit.html. Uses a Sydney made Harbuch transformer, which I don't know much about.

But to go back to your suggestion, when you say use an active DI, is the inference here to use a Y-cable to then split the balanced mic level output of the DI into two unbalanced cables to run to each guitar amp?

Thanks in advance Rob, always great to pick your brain, appreciate your time.

[rob]

that box is a perfect example of what i'm talking about.

otherwise, yes .. guitar to DI ( at unity gain ) to Y split to amps.

but whilst this deals with presenting the correct load to the guitar, it won't resolve any ground loop issues you might get between the amps. This the function of the transformer isolated output on the Evans box