F-XLR to M-RCA recommendations

@jond,

This is from the Laiv Harmony µDAC website and it clearly states analog circuits also?

LAIV Harmony µDAC: Galvanic isolation The µDAC’s digital and analog circuits are galvanically isolated to avoid ground loops and guarantee a clean, interference-free path for the sound signal.

Keep hope alive!

And please keep in mind, I have very limited knowledge on how things work electronically in audio circuitry. So please forgive my ignorance if my questions sound soo - well, ignorant...

tyray that means they are isolated from each other that's all.

Contact Pine Tree Audio, they make excellent cables at affordable costs; and probably have no problem making a custom cable

@jond ​​​​@steakster,

It took me awhile to figure it out but what I gleaned from you guys and the internet is galvanic isolation is only circuit board based, with nothing to do with external connectors. Much appreciated fellas.

Yeah, the adapter’s pin configuration is going to be extremely important to get right. Sorry I didn’t mention that at first! Here’s what Cardas says about their adaptors on their site:

The standard for female XLR to female RCA adapters is for pins 1 & 3 not to be shorted. All other adaptor configurations (male XLR to female RCA, etc.) have pins 1 & 3 shorted unless otherwise requested. Most equipment prefers (or requires) adaptors with the standard wiring. Some equipment requires that pins 1 & 3 not be shorted.

The female XLR to female RCA is what you need here. And Cardas is saying that pin 3 (the inverted "-" signal in balanced drive) is NOT grounded (pin 1) - so the "-" leg of your source output will be left unconnected (floating). I believe this is the safer choice, and the correct choice for DACs with directly coupled active output stages, which is most of them. It’s exactly as safe as running your DAC with nothing connected to the outputs (safe).

Now if your DAC were to have transformer coupled outputs, which the Laiv apparently does NOT (inter-stage coupling doesn’t matter here), then the standard Cardas adaptor wiring wouldn’t work. I don’t think it would be dangerous, but it just wouldn’t pass a signal. I believe the PS Audio DirectStream DACs uses transformer coupled outputs.

If you used an adaptor that shorted pins 1 & 3 (unlike the Cardas config above), then that could possibly pose danger to some DACs (dissipating too much power into a dead short), but this pin config would be the correct choice for PS Audio’s DirectStream.

In short - stock Cardas config for female XLR to female RCA looks like the right choice here. They’re catering to high-end audio enthusiasts like us. But in general, I think most adaptors and patch cables like this would be for pro market. In THAT case, there would be a higher incidence of transformer-coupled XLR outputs, and so they may take the "short pins 1 and 3" approach.

Another alternative is to get a specific Jensen ISO-MAX box that can safely convert XLR to RCA using transformers, for any source and downstream components. I have one for RCA -> XLR conversions and it's quite handy :)

** I am not an electrical engineer