CABLING
Cabling
The mains cord comes with the CMS. The quality of all other cables lies in your responsibility. Carefully chosen high quality cables are the best precaution to prevent later problems during live operation. The following wiring alternatives are recommended to provide trouble free operation of your system.
LF-Cables – Balanced or Unbalanced?
For LF-cabling – all the low current wiring – your best choice is the use of balanced cables (2 signal conductors + ground shielding) with XLR-type connectors or stereo phone plugs. The cables should be step-on proof, shielded, and never longer than really needed. Too many too long cables mostly lead to confusion and generate unnecessary problems. Of course, connecting unbalanced cables with monaural phone plugs to the CMS’ in- and outputs is also possible and in most cases no interference will occur because of the mixer’s superb grounding managing system. Generally spoken, balanced LF-cables are always preferable over monaural phone plug cables. Today’s audio equipment – like amplifiers, equalizers, FX units, mixing consoles, and even some keyboards – offers balanced in- and/or outputs. In a balanced signal path the cable screen provides gapless connection of all metal parts, offering efficient shielding against the induction of external noise; mainly humming. Balanced cabling together with the common-mode rejection of the CMS’ input stage effectively eliminates even residual interference. All inputs of the CMS provide balanced audio connection and high common-mode rejection.
MASTER OUT L/R, MONO OUT and AUX OUT 3/4 are electronically balanced with relay-switching to prevent power-on noise. AUX OUT 1/2 are laid out in GND-SENSING technology – a special pin-assignment of the output jacks, offering all advantages of the balanced signal transmission, but lets you also connect monaural phone plugs without a problem. Nevertheless – as mentioned above – when longer cables are involved, using stereo phone plugs and balanced cables are the better alternative. The diagrams below show pin-assignments of plugs and cables that represent the best choice when used with the CMS.
MIC INPUT
All phone jack in/outputs of the CMS
Channel Insert, MAIN Insert or AUX Insert of the CMS
All phone jack in/outputs of the CMS
Channel Insert, MAIN Insert or AUX Insert of the CMS
balanced connection of micro- phones of the CMS
unbalanced
external equipment with XLR- type in/output jacks
balanced
Direct OUT via INSERT, uninterrupted signal path
unbalanced
external equipment with XLR- type in/output jacks
balanced
Y-type cable for the connection of external FX units and signal processors with phone jacks
