F-XLR to M-RCA recommendations

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

** I am not an electrical engineer

Lol!

Me neither Mike, but thanks to reading so many posts of yours and others here over the years, I do know the proper procedures to follow because of ground shorting and they are:

To contact both the dac and preamp manufactures to see what their engineering team has to say and provide them with the product data link of Cardas, Jenson, Purist Audio Design, the custom cable builder or whatever after market company the exact product data link.

And also provide Cardas, Jenson, Purist Audio Design, the custom cable builder or whatever dac and preamp manufacture the exact dac and preamp manufactures product data link so they can have access to their specs too.

I think these are the most important things to do, if one were to move forward with this so you don’t damage your rig.

@OP - there is zero point in using balanced connectors unless the connection is balanced to balanced. Balanced circuits are designed to cancel common mode noise, but to do this they only work if the source and receiving component have balanced inputs. Even then, depending on the quality of the balancing circuitry, a single ended connection may be better.+1 to fatdaddy2 for the earlier post on this which bears repeating.

a single ended connection may be better.+1 to fatdaddy2 for the earlier post on this which bears repeating.

Thanks, I'm listening @yoyoyaya and @fatdaddy2

@tyray, thanks. Just on your earlier post about galvanic isolation - that generally involves using a transformer in, generally, a DAC, to isolate the DAC from incoming noise on the USB input.

However, transformers are often used in balanced circuitry - especially in pro audio - so that can make things a bit confusing.