Unbalanced -> balanced TRS

[MattPete Ultimate Tone Slacker Find all posts View Profile Close MattPete]

OK, so I finally bought a set of monitors for my computer (Maudio Studiophile BX5). The problem is that I'm occasionally picking up some noise from my external harddrives. The cables going from by powerbook to the speakers are unbalanced. Is there some sort of cheap box I can run my powerbook into so that I can run balanced cables to the monitors (and hopefully cancel out the noise)?

[TwilightOdyssey Darkness on the edge of Tone Find all posts View Profile Close TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Unbalanced -> balanced TRS

Is your thinking that the ground on the XLR will act as a drain for the HDD noise? I'm not sure this will work. You can use a PASSIVE DIRECT BOX to try that experiment out. They are cheap, and DBs usually have a "Ground Lift" function. An ACTIVE DIRECT BOX will work better, but cost more. In any event, most likely, the noise is caused by something else: either the cables you're using arent' shielded, or the spkrs don't have proper shielding, or if they are too close to the HDD, you will get noise, too ... If the HDD's noise is getting into an unbuffered circuit on your soundcard, you will get noise no matter what you do. In all likelihood the noise is NOT making it onto your recordings, tho. I'm using Roland powered monitors, and they occasionally have HDD noise, too.

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[MattPete Ultimate Tone Slacker Find all posts View Profile Close MattPete]

Re: Unbalanced -> balanced TRS

Thanks for the advice. I'll google "Active direct box" and see what I come up with.

The reason I thought that using balanced cables would help is because the drives that are causing noise are external firewire drives. I never noticed the noise with the cheap speakers I had, so I thought it might be the cabling (the Studiophiles are supposed to be shielded so that they can be used near computers).