Instead of a long-winded response - let me try to be more concise. Someone else can get more gory this time.

"do the RCA connectors cancel out the balancing"

Yes - RCA are unbalanced w/2 wires, TRS uses 3 wires.

Most mixers have XLR inputs - those are balanced. Use them if you can. Same for outputs. Get XLR-to-TRS cables of the correct gender on each side to make this work. Most monitors have XLR inputs - so assuming your mixer has XLR out - you can use XLR-to-XLR cables for that connection of the correct gender on each end.

Balanced also many times has a different impedance than unbalanced and an impedance discontinuity can have a negative effect on noise immunity as well as signal level.

Balanced connections have the greatest immunity to noise being injected into your signal and also radiated noise out the cable affecting other equipment.

Your sound is as weak or strong as the weakest link in the signal chain. Montage is not likely to be this. Although something has to be the weakest link - so if Montage is the weakest link in the signal chain - then you should have a very satisfying sound.

Hello Jason - thank you! So I'm using the wrong leads - but what effect does that have on the sound? I'm using a continuous chain of unbalanced leads now. If I changed them to a single balanced lead direct to the monitors, how would that affect the sound?

My little mixer does not have XLR connectors - only RCA. It has served me well through 20 years with at least a dozen different synths, and still does with the Tyros and the Korg, Possibly not with the Montage though. My cheapest recourse is to continue using it with the Tyros and the Korg using the Sony hifi, but connect the Montage to the monitors directly using XLR or TRS leads (hot tip, cold ring, ground sleeve). The monitors (despite their lowly status!) will accept any input lead, TS or hot tip TRS/XLR.

I imagine that has to improve the sound quality, leaving only my Alesis M1s as the weakest link.

Hello Jason - sorry, I meant to ask what advantage XLR has over TRS - they seem to do the same job in the same way?

In general, there is not going to be a benefit XLR vs. TRS. It's an identification simplification. The female receptacle for an unbalanced 1/4" looks the same as a female receptacle for balanced 1/4" - so XLR makes it easier to know you've got balanced. Since I didn't know what you had for the mixer - it's just easiest to guide you to XLR and have you land in the right area.

Without balanced I/O on the mixer - you may be able to still do OK. Shorter runs would be better. It's hard to tell what's going on with other setups - for my setup, I just was sure to purchase cables and adapters to keep the entire route balanced. I do have an adapter in the chain - straight out of the Montage I have TRS-to-XLR adapters. Connectors present discontinuities themselves - but I'm not being a purist here nor am I going gold or anything like that. My goals are different than yours. I use the adapters so I can swap out cables with the backline folks who have "a million" XLR-to-XLR cables and hardly any balanced 1/4". This is not your goal, however, so you can skip the adapter and just have a cable that is 1/4" TRS to whatever-your-balanced-mixer-ends-up-being-as-your-favorite-input-to-use.

Note: I also do not have a mixer in the chain - I go direct from Montage to HS-series (Yamaha) Monitors. Since these are used in demos - as well as studio reference mixing monitors of choice (or as an option) for many studios - I figured I couldn't go wrong selecting these for the S90XS I got many moons ago. I'm happy with what I hear.

If you have some musician friends with a mix of equipment - see if you can get a mixer that provides a balanced input and output. See if that makes any difference ensuring you have proper balanced cables between everything. No sense in building something "better" if your results do not change. You mentioned in another thread that your ears cannot necessarily "taste" the difference between peppermint and strawberry. That's a paraphrase. It's possible your head is attenuated against upgrades. (Read - Disclaimer: I will not be blamed for your equipment purchase). There should be some form of a smiley face here - but it's not my style.

Rod,
The RCA input jacks scream consumer level inputs and outputs on your mixer. Meaning it probably looking for an input of -10 maximum. You realize you maybe sending a healthy Line Level signal of either +6 or +0, which should fairly quickly red line your mixer.

The RCA jack INPUT should be your first hint of "weakest link" There is nothing wrong with RCA gear, don't get me wrong, it simply denotes a consumer product level ... which typically top out at a level of -10.

Please look in any documentation on the (yet unidentified) mixer, I'm sure it doesn't have any examples of connecting music synthesizers or any Line Level (+4 or greater) gear connected to it as examples. If you were a -10 input and some plugged a +4 or greater signal into you - you'd be screaming mismatch!!! And most likely flashing a warning if you had one!

Start there. If you don't want to identify the mixer, that's fine.

Your monitors may, and probably do, have a variable input control that accommodates weak signals (-10 consumer level ins) and more powerful (+4 line level ins) so the mixer connection to the powered speakers is most likely fine. Typically, the powered monitors are going to accept both consumer and pro level gear.

While RCA, TS, and TRS cables can carry all strengths if signals, RCA typically tops out at -10... typically.

It's the keyboards you've been plugging into that (consumer level) mixer with adapters or cables that adapt the jacks to match, but does nothing to lower the 'round' OUTPUT LEVEL to fit that 'square' INPUT hole you are trying to make it fit into. 🙂

What you can do - on your Montage lower the Main Output signal strength : go to [UTILITY]
Touch "Setting" > "Audio I/O"
Set the MAIN L&R OUTPUT = -6dB
This will better match the level signal your mixer is probably looking for and will prevent your signal path from being degraded by mismatching the level. Yes you will need to now boost things but you will be doing so with the proper gain staging.

Hope that helps.

Hello Jason, and thank you - that answers my problem. I will stick to TRS as that's what Montage has - and I have learned that balanced leads are actually 'stereo' leads in Old-Timer speak! I have a total of 17 spare TS leads from 1 to 5 metres in length - all scrap so far as Montage output is concerned. I've moved my monitors to better positions for just the Montage, and have ordered up some TRS leads for it. Be assures - I will not hold you responsible for any bad outcome, but will thank you if it's good! I'll report back in due course. As to my hearing capability, my spectrum is down to about 35 - 14,000 Hz against a youngster's 20 -20,000, so aiming high is pointless!

I might consider a new small mixer though - they're such useful things when using MIDI to drive other synths.

Thanks again ...

... I wouldn't keep using that mixer - but my guidance is due to his experience with the +4dBu Korg M3 he mentioned being OK with connecting to this thing for so long.

You lose a lot of headroom by going this route - might have to lower the level around the noise-floor - I'd just go straight into the monitors myself - probably the lesser of two evils although I do remember the thread of combining his various gear to a single set of monitors.

Here my highest end RCA equipment is a Tascam 238 8-ch analog (Cassette) recorder with 8 ins and 8 outs of RCA at -10dBV (-7.782dBu).

@Rod,

Stereo and balanced are not the same thing. TRS is a connector type for 1/4" which does not denote how the signals are configured between the three circuits (tip+associated wiring, ring+associated wiring, sleeve+associated wiring).

In stereo, you have one reference and two possibly/probably very different signals - one for left and one for right. The two signals have little in common with each other electrically other than a common time-base (ideally). So the waveform of just the conductor designated as "left" (on a scope) vs. the conductor designated as "right" can be very different shapes.

In balanced - ideally this is a differential signal. This type of signaling has two of the conductors as "mirror images" of each other. When these two wires, sharing this type of signaling property are coupled together (twisted) - the resulting configuration is more immune to external noise and can be routed over greater lengths with less loss. These properties are not shared with stereo cable although the connector looks the same between the two. This is a property of encoding - or the output/input buffers at each end.

Hello BM and Jason - Wow! A concentrated lesson on stuff I knew nothing about - a bit of wire is a bit of wire, right? Not actually, it seems! Your Post arrived after I'd posted in response to Jason, BM, so you'll know I'm in the process of plugging the Montage directly into the monitors with TRS leads currently on order. I found the box the mixer came in - a Chesley MK 67T - which was made in France, and I bought it here on the 27 January, 1993, for 690 francs (£69). The box makes no claims, and I can't find the Manual (if it had one!). However, it has done service with everything from a Bontempi 2-manual organ to my wife's little Casio CT90 (I think), including a Quadrasynth and a Genesys, though pretty well everything used straightforward TS phonos or RCAs. But maybe I should bring things up to date after your explanation of the stress I'm imposing on the little chap!

Thanks for the gen on TRS vs Stereo too, Jason. I'd have thought the wires can only carry what is generated by whatever they're plugged into, be it differing left/right stereo signals, or mirrored signals? However, I checked that I have ordered TRS leads, just in case! I now await their arrival - and then - El Momento Verdad! See if the M1s can stand up to the Monster!

Thank you, gentlemen - I shall look upon my rack of dangling leads with a new respect and much more insight!

Slight redirection to your last statement: it's Stereo over TRS vs. Balanced (Differential) over TRS.

http://music.arts.uci.edu/dobrian/w14/music151/shuremicrophonetechniques.pdf

The above is a fairly good reference with diagrams which shows the "mirror image" differential signal - talks about other items like impedance.

There's also more background here:

http://whirlwindusa.com/support/tech-articles/high-and-low-impedance-signals/

Which has more rule-of-thumb on impedance matching along with equations which I'm not sure help as much as the more general guidelines.

I'm not sure if I dug up Montage output impedance specs before. I feel like I'm retreading over some tracks here. Not worth getting into all that other than to say if your eventual mixer has a "High-Z" input of a 1/4" TS female connector (meant for guitars and the like) - don't use that type of input. It's the "High-Z" part I'm recommending against.

Hello BM and Jason - I've dropped the output level of the Montage to -6dB as advised (as I'm still using the mixer and the Sony hifi for sound), and there is a distinct improvement in the lower end - much less muffled and more in tune. Very encouraging - I wish I'd asked this question much sooner! I have compensated by raising the mixer output from 70% to 75%, so still masses of headroom if I feel like blowing the roof off ...

Thanks for the links Jason! I don't mean to get too deep into the theory, just enough to understand what's going on. I remember years ago there was much concern about the resistance of monitors being 4ohms or 8ohms, which you never hear about now, so I suppose all that has been technically resolved or a standard agreed upon.

Remembering Louis's problems, I tried plugging in my headphones (Sennheiser) - much the same level as the monitors, but now much closer together musically. I'm really quite pleased - thanks, BM!

I use 2 different personal mixers. One digital and one analog. I have my Montage, my CP1 and my Matrixbrute all connected to the analog mixer. I already own XLR cables which are usually used for microphones exclusively. I don't want to buy replacement TRS cables.

My Yamaha CP1 actually has XLR outputs on the back. I have my Montage also plugged into the XLR mixer inputs. Be careful to never turn on the phantom power as that is usually provided through those XLR "mic" inputs. My Allen and Heath ZED 14 has a nice recessed phantom power button that can't be accidentally pressed.

My Matrixbrute uses the regular unbalanced outputs. I have each synth L/R channel routed into its own mixer channel rather than using the "stereo" channels. I can control them separately that way including EQ. I can have different EQ on the left channel vs the right channel If I desire.

Some comments/observations below I found that are useful. I use XLR exclusively if I can help it. I'm not sure why "phone" and RCA connectors are still used except in cheap consumer product environments.

My high end CP1 has XLR outputs.
My high end JBLs with Sub have XLR outputs/inputs
My Allen & Heath and Tascam mixers have XLR I/Os
My Yamaha TF1 had XLR I/Os (sold it)
My BBE 882i Sonic Maximizer has XLR I/Os

TRS is for a left - right - ground connection.
XLR is for a balanced connection.

TRS can ground the hot tip when plugging in, while XLR won't.

"XLR is a superior connection in many ways. TRS and TS "phone plugs" in general were never designed for long-lasting connections. They are really pretty poor connectors when you come right down to it. There is insufficient "wipe" for what ends up as the final contact point. And the ground (sleeve) connection doesn't even have a spring contact of its own, it is just the fulcrum against which the other two springs work. They were designed for telephone switchboards where the connections are being set up and taken down frequently - that's why they're called "phone" jacks and plugs! If they're left in the same setup for a long time they can and will develop intermittents. XLR connectors are considered gas-tight and just don't have these problems." Quote per DriverGuru

This is the truth. Just disassemble a TRS jack or look into one with a flash light. Super cheapo junk! The contacts are a joke. They are junk and I can't believe professional gear/guitars etc. still uses them. Mainly used because they are plentiful, convenient and inexpensive. My Montage and my Matrixbrute should have XLR outputs. These are not toys.

Hello david - 'Driver Guru' is undoubtedly correct, although I can't agree with your conclusion that everything else is junk! 40 years ago it's all we had, it's still in use today, and I've never had any issues with phono, RCA, or mini-jacks. They all work as advertised. XLR is a recent innovation and most especially handy for mics or guitars, always being moved about so a reliable connection is needed, but synths tend to be heavy and stay put, so less stress on the connections. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I don't really like the look of XLRs, a bit clumsy imho - but there, I find the new Rolls Royces the same ...

Hello - This morning my new TRS leads arrived from England and are now installed, by-passing my little mixer and plugging directly into the monitors from the Montage. About 15 minutes balancing the speaker outputs - and Wow! From a woolly low end and a piercing high end (plus the odd volume glitch) to musically happy sounds across the board. All this from a pair of 10 year old Alesis M1s. Thanks to members of this Forum whose advice on mixers and leads saved me from making a potentially disastrous mistake - like buying new monitors costing a hundred times what the leads cost! Probably teaching my Grandma to suck eggs - but check your leads and mixers for capacity if you're not happy with your sounds across the board!