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5 pin XLR wiring question


Jack Norflus

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I'm wiring a 5 pin XLR female to a 3.5 mini TRS female so that I can have stereo (left / right) in the female TRS for a headphone feed.

I wired the 5 pin as:

Pin 1to sleeve of TRS

Pin 2 to tip of TRS

Pin 4 to ring of TRS

Pin 3 and 5 I tied both into the ground of pin 1

When I tried this I was getting signal to the headphones but there was a lot of noise.

What am I doing wrong?

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Guest Eric Lamontagne

Jack,

What are you connecting to? I'm assuming that possibly you are connecting to a camera's line level audio output? Always check the pin wiring in the manual of whatever device you are hooking up as one piece of gear can be different from the next. Also, what are you looking for in your headphones? Mono of both channel 1 and 2 in both ears or do you want a channel 1 to left earphone and channel 2 to right?

My suggestion is that a somewhat standard 5 pin config is

Pin1-Ground/Audio Reference

Pin2-Hot Channel 1

Pin3-Cold Channel 1

Pin4-Hot Channel 2

Pin5-Cold Channel 2

Check the manual!

Good Luck,

Eric

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Guest Eric Lamontagne

Jack,

Then I would suggest:

Pin1 to shield

Pin2 to tip

Pin4 to ring

Obviously, a line out isn't designed to drive headphones, similar to headphone output not being designed to drive a line or mic in.

You may consider connecting Pin 3 and Pin 5 to the ground (Pin1). This would be equipment specific.

When in doubt, Check with the manual.

Eric

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Jack,

Then I would suggest:

Pin1 to shield

Pin2 to tip

Pin4 to ring

Obviously, a line out isn't designed to drive headphones, similar to headphone output not being designed to drive a line or mic in.

You may consider connecting Pin 3 and Pin 5 to the ground (Pin1). This would be equipment specific.

When in doubt, Check with the manual.

Eric

Yeah, like this. you may need to do the jump between 1, 3 and 5 but most likely not. I made a little 5 pin F XLR with a mini TRS jack built into the boot and it works fine with Sony and Panasonic cameras with the 5 pin line out and it's wired without the jumpers.

Best regards,

Jim

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Since the topic of un-balancing keeps coming up I feel this brings up another question:

In what situation would you want to ground the negative lead of a balanced line?  I know one answer is that it depends on the piece of gear, but why, electrically, would you want one wiring scheme vs. the other.  For example Sound Devices recommends floating the negative lead in the case of active balanced outputs (302) but recommends grounding the negative in the case of transformer balanced outputs (442&552).

Much appreciation to anyone who's willing to discuss, thanks!

-dh

Reference to discussion on SD user forum. 

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Half way down the page you'll find a section covering different plug to plug configurations

You know I've studied this document before and one thing that I've never been able to understand is that when you look at the connections table and at figure 1 it recommends not connecting the shield to pin 1 on the male connector at all...  This just seems wrong to me. 

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Guest Eric Lamontagne

Derek,

Just my hunch but its most likely that pin1 of the 5pinXLR has a different ground potential that the 3pin XLR inputs and therefore would cause a ground loop/buzz/hum if using both in and out grounds. If you are connecting headphones to the 5pin then you need the ground from the 5pin. If you are connecting an external mixer which is also feeding audio into the camera you would be able to leave Pin1 ground from your 5Pin XLR not connected.

Just a hunch, best test is real life use!

Eric

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" In what situation would you want to ground the negative lead of a balanced line?  I know one answer is that it depends on the piece of gear, but why, electrically, would you want one wiring scheme vs. the other. "

I'm no longer allowed to say "it depends", but in the case of a transformer balanced and floating output, if you only connect one side of the transformer winding, and leave the other end of the winding unconnected, well you have no complete audio circuit, as the audio is floating with respect to the shield/ground.

OTOH, active differential  balanced output circuitry may react differently, depending on the specific components and circuitry involved, to having on side floating, or, OTOH to having one active side grounded. 

Sorry, as I know this might also be obvious to the many folks here who know much more than I...

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I'm wiring a 5 pin XLR female to a 3.5 mini TRS female so that I can have stereo (left / right) in the female TRS for a headphone feed.

I wired the 5 pin as:

Pin 1to sleeve of TRS

Pin 2 to tip of TRS

Pin 4 to ring of TRS

Pin 3 and 5 I tied both into the ground of pin 1

When I tried this I was getting signal to the headphones but there was a lot of noise.

What am I doing wrong?

I just checked the pin out on my Peter Engh breakaway cable and the five pin is wired just as you describe.  Pins 1, 3, and 5 are all tied together and are connected to the sleeve/shell of the mini trs.  The break away is a seven pin xlr and left audio, right audio, and stereo return are all carried through there.  The five pin 1 ground is also jumped to the xlr grounds on both channels at the seven pin.

I use the cable into a 442 and it works great with Panasonic and Sony five pin audio outs.  If you're trying to use it as a stand alone cable without the grounds being tied together with the xlrs that ground potential difference might be the issue as was already mentioned.

Bernie

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