Preparing to upgrade XMC-1 to RMC-1L - XLR cables soldered!
Dec 7, 2019 14:31:14 GMT -5
repeetavx likes this
Post by markc on Dec 7, 2019 14:31:14 GMT -5
I have been really happy with my XMC-1 but I am taking the 4K TV plunge and instead of getting the HDMI board for the XMC-1 it is better to take advantage of the RMC-1L upgrade route
I have spent this morning preparing by making my own custom XLR cables.
I have a 7.1 speaker setup and two XPA-5 five channel Emotiva Amps.
The three otherwise spare amplifier channels I use to drive my Left Centre and Right speakers with passive bi-amping.
(I know the debate about the worth of this but I see no reason not to, rather than leave the amps empty)
I needed Y-leads for the bi-amping and so made my own single and double XLR-XLR 1.5m leads (four single leads for the side and rear surrounds and three Y-splitting leads for the front three bi-amped speakers)
I used Black Neutrik gold plated terminal XLR plugs at both ends with Canare Starquad L-4E6S cable.
(No prizes for guessing where I might have got this specification...)
7 female XLR (four standard, three wide chuck/outlet) and 10 male XLR plugs plus 15m of the cable cost me £113
Time to cut the cable, prepare the wire ends, solder, insulate the wires inside the plugs with tape (to protect against shorting): 3 hours
I wanted to use the same specification cable for both the regular XLR-XLR single leads and the Y-splitting bi-amp leads so I bought three of the female wide chuck/outlet Neutrik XLR plugs which can take cables up to 10mm diameter and were easily able to take two of the 6mm external diameter Starquad cables. This avoided having to use the narrow diameter Canare Starquad L-4E5C cable.
Soldering ten wires (4 Starquad wires and one screening wire for each cable) inside one female plug for the bi-amp cables was minimally difficult even with my fairly chunky soldering iron with a 6mm wide tip!
Because I have Emotiva amps which all have inverse polarity for XLR inputs, I crossed over pins 2 and 3 in the male, amplifier, end of my leads.
emotivalounge.proboards.com/thread/55486/xlr-polarity-on-emo-amps
Now, I can't wait for the next batch of RMC-1L upgrades to become available so I installed my lovely new cables into my XMC-1 to test them and sure enough they are louder than the RCA (6dB, as they should be)
My sub had to be turned up to compensate when I went into level settings.
I can't explain why, but using a RadioShack dB meter to check each channel, with the XLR leads, they all now need to be at +0dB to give level volumes. With RCA, the surround channels were all needing to be +0.5 to +1.5db higher
My sub does not have XLR inputs, so I have ordered a 3m XLR to RCA subwoofer lead for a little over the cost of a short adapter cable like the Emotiva ones (And I asked for pin 3 to be unterminated rather than shorted to ground, as per Keith's recommendation)
emotivalounge.proboards.com/post/1008925
Is this going to be a problem?
Running a +6dB subwoofer XLR output from the XMC-1 / RMC-1L to the RCA input of my subwoofer?
I have spent this morning preparing by making my own custom XLR cables.
I have a 7.1 speaker setup and two XPA-5 five channel Emotiva Amps.
The three otherwise spare amplifier channels I use to drive my Left Centre and Right speakers with passive bi-amping.
(I know the debate about the worth of this but I see no reason not to, rather than leave the amps empty)
I needed Y-leads for the bi-amping and so made my own single and double XLR-XLR 1.5m leads (four single leads for the side and rear surrounds and three Y-splitting leads for the front three bi-amped speakers)
I used Black Neutrik gold plated terminal XLR plugs at both ends with Canare Starquad L-4E6S cable.
(No prizes for guessing where I might have got this specification...)
7 female XLR (four standard, three wide chuck/outlet) and 10 male XLR plugs plus 15m of the cable cost me £113
Time to cut the cable, prepare the wire ends, solder, insulate the wires inside the plugs with tape (to protect against shorting): 3 hours
I wanted to use the same specification cable for both the regular XLR-XLR single leads and the Y-splitting bi-amp leads so I bought three of the female wide chuck/outlet Neutrik XLR plugs which can take cables up to 10mm diameter and were easily able to take two of the 6mm external diameter Starquad cables. This avoided having to use the narrow diameter Canare Starquad L-4E5C cable.
Soldering ten wires (4 Starquad wires and one screening wire for each cable) inside one female plug for the bi-amp cables was minimally difficult even with my fairly chunky soldering iron with a 6mm wide tip!
Because I have Emotiva amps which all have inverse polarity for XLR inputs, I crossed over pins 2 and 3 in the male, amplifier, end of my leads.
emotivalounge.proboards.com/thread/55486/xlr-polarity-on-emo-amps
Now, I can't wait for the next batch of RMC-1L upgrades to become available so I installed my lovely new cables into my XMC-1 to test them and sure enough they are louder than the RCA (6dB, as they should be)
My sub had to be turned up to compensate when I went into level settings.
I can't explain why, but using a RadioShack dB meter to check each channel, with the XLR leads, they all now need to be at +0dB to give level volumes. With RCA, the surround channels were all needing to be +0.5 to +1.5db higher
My sub does not have XLR inputs, so I have ordered a 3m XLR to RCA subwoofer lead for a little over the cost of a short adapter cable like the Emotiva ones (And I asked for pin 3 to be unterminated rather than shorted to ground, as per Keith's recommendation)
emotivalounge.proboards.com/post/1008925
Is this going to be a problem?
Running a +6dB subwoofer XLR output from the XMC-1 / RMC-1L to the RCA input of my subwoofer?