Best recording signal signal direct boxes according to redditors

Personally I would use an LTIblox and an XLR cablefor this situation. It will take your 3.5mm headphone jack and send it to mic level XLR with an easy to access volume dial. Its not the cheapest solution, but it is what I would do.

First question - I use exactly one of those SSR's in my sous vide controller to control a 500W cartridge heater. You will have to use a heat sink. Even driving a 500W load it gets too hot without one, even at lower duty cycles. You can get them with a bulky heat sink that works great, but I salvaged a chipset heat sink from an old motherboard that was a bit more compact. You might even need active cooling (a fan) driving a 10A load depending on how big of a heat sink is practical, which is a big complication.

Side note: Big Clive has a detailed teardown of that relay where he discusses it in quite a bit of detail.

Second question: GPIO2 has a pullup resistor because that is needed for the ESP to boot, so it will always be high at start. Really the best option is to get a more convenient ESP8266 board like a Wemos D1 Mini or NodeMCU, which expose more GPIOs that don't have pullups. GPIO 4 or 5 are what I tend to use.

I'm not sure what you mean by a PNP-NPN pair, something like this? You can just use a level shifter, but I'm 99.99% sure you can drive those Fostek relays directly with 3.3V no problem. They are fine operating near the voltage threshold because they have a driver circuit inside.

Metal container will murder the wifi signal for sure. Especially since that enclosure is probably grounded since it's a mains powered appliance it'll act like a Faraday cage. I'd be surprised if you really got any signal at all.

Just my $0.02 and don't let me stop you, but you'd probably be safest buying something premade like the Sonoff TH16. It's rated for 16 amps, but you can assume it actually lives up to that (Itead is pretty legit) so that should be a decent safety margin. And it's an ESP8266 board that has all the headers exposed for programming so you can hack it to your heart's content. If you're in it for the learning then by all means get your design working... and then buy something made professionally to use for real. It's just not worth the risk of burning the house down when the Sonoff devices are so affordable.

Also agreeing with /u/lukeimyomama, an SSR is a bad choice here since they tend to fail short. If the heater has a built in safety that's not the worst thing, but still I think I'd rather have a coil relay. They also dissipate way less heat (virtually none), which is a major annoyance if you use the SSR. The biggest reason to prefer an SSR is that you can PWM them since they switch states very fast. That's why I use it in my sous vide, so I can have pseudo-analog temperature control, but that's not what you want to do. You are controlling the power at the heater, so the relay will be open or closed all the time. A higher current rated coil relay will be much easier.

Right now you’re sending left and right signals to a balanced input that is inverting the polarity of one of those signals, hence the horrible sound. You need to sum your left and right (tip and ring) signals before they hit the input of your transmitter.

With some soldering skills, you can make your own 1/8 TRS to XLR(M) summing cable

Or you can buy a summing box that is purpose-built for connecting 1/8” headphone outputs to balanced XLR inputs. Like this one.

I wouldn't recommend any of that Lexicon line. I bought the Omega three years ago and after fighting with it for six months, I put it in my closet where it continues to gather dust. I myself plan on purchasing one of these in January.

Rapco LTIBLOX is exactly what you need. It converts a stereo PC miniplug into a balanced mic-level XLR, with a volume knob. It's cheap, too!

Just had a thought, could an ADAT splitter help in this situation?

> focusrite shoulda put adat out on the Clarett 4Pre

You’re not wrong there!

Edit: I think I’m going to go for the Behringer regardless, as it seems to be the best way to get signals from one room to another with minimal cables (and also given the inputs are all on the front of the unit, unlike most similar units). Thanks so much for answering my questions, though!

Ps. How’s your pedal looking?

Hmm, interesting!

If you want to stick with your source, you could try a single-ended to balanced converter: https://www.amazon.com/ROLLS-MB15b-Promatch-and-More/dp/B0002IL4B4/

Or you could go straight-up with a balanced DAC. The Lexicon Alpha has balanced outputs: https://www.amazon.com/Lexicon-Alpha-2-Channel-Desktop-Recording/dp/B000HVXMNE/

(if your budget is $400, you could try the Cambridge DacMagic Plus, which has balanced preamp outputs, haven't used it but I'm definitely intrigued myself)

That one should work fine.

Or go for something better:

Cambridge Audio DacMagic 100

Pro-Ject USB Box S+

Topping D50 HiFi Audio DAC

SMSL SA M3

SMSL Sanskrit

M-Audio Transit Pro

Nobsound Hi-Fi

Sabaj D3

Topping OPA2134

Is SPDIF your only option? If you can use HDMI for audio then that will work easy using a converter like this and then using those 3 cables I linked in my other post.

it's like what's under Drumph's golf pants:

Depends

If the mic input on the wall ( XLR right?) is set up for mic level you need a device like an iFace device or this interface ( much cheaper than the Iface) to step down your line level source to mic level.

If the system is setup for it, it may accept a line level input with the input gain set at a lower level for that wall plate input, but that still leaves the challenge of taking your TRS stereo unbalanced source, and summing the two chanels to balanced mono (XLR)

You don't need to run it stereo, just buy something like an LTI block, or just a 3.5 to xlr. We use LTI blocks for everything from laptops to iPads, phones, etc. Don't run phantom power on that channel. Looks like you cant turn it off to specific channels, so use a DI so that you dont fry anything


https://www.amazon.com/Rapco-Horizon-LTIBLOX-Laptop-Interface/dp/B003MLFCMA

http://www.amazon.com/Rapco-Horizon-LTIBLOX-Laptop-Interface/dp/B003MLFCMA?tag=s601000020-20

I've got one, and use it all the time. This is a mono-sum solution though.


Your amplifier is designed to receive two channels of balanced audio. Because of this, you'd only need the balanced transmitter, but you'd want to do it at line level. Reducing the audio level to a mic-level signal would raise the noise floor, as the amp would have to be turned up to compensate.

I like your Amazon link below.

The place I used to work has a handful of thse: https://www.amazon.com/Rapco-Horizon-LTIGLBLOX-Laptop-Interface/dp/B003MLBEYK

Has a ground lift, and as long as you don't care about stereo, you don't have to worry about using extra connectors or adapters.

I also have the Radial ProAV2. Which is 2 ch & accepts 1/4, RCA & 1/8" https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ProAV2--radial-proav2-2-channel-passive-a-v-direct-box

It doesn't work the way you might hope but something like it is possible. You will want to read about Target Display Mode:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3924

After that, one of these devices should do the trick of enabling you to connect to the iMac in target display mode.

http://www.amazon.com/Kanex-HDMI-Mini-DisplayPort-Converter/dp/B003LGOWNQ/

http://www.amazon.com/Atlona-Technologies-AT-DP200-Signal-Converter/dp/B002JQPRPG/

http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-AV360-Mini-DisplayPort-Converter/dp/B00477ORBK/

Then all you need is a device with an HDMI output like a Roku or an Xbox.

Actually best way is to get one of these plus an XLR cable. Plug into the 'mic' input.

Rapco Horizon LTIBLOX Laptop Interface Device https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003MLFCMA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_rpVyCbZX2EM46

This adapter will properly combine the left and right channels into mono for your speaker, it also has a volume adjustment on it.

I don't know of any alternatives to asio except using window's Direct Sound and that was awful in my experience. If you have another input available on your interface maybe you could play your tracks from your phone or tablet? But you would likely need an adapter like this http://www.amazon.com/Rapco-Horizon-LTIBLOX-Laptop-Interface/dp/B003MLFCMA

Buy one of these and an XLR cable of desired length. Then plug that creation into the middle port. Done

Thanks for replying!

You mean something like this?

First off, good idea, but i run the sound from my laptop via usb to the mixer, which does not generate any noise. this looks more like a solution for my problem, in the end he uses a double insulated charger and theres no noise, i should look for smth like that!

I was a grounding issue with the laptop I was using here is the link to the adapter I bought to fix it Rapco Horizon LTIGLBLOX Laptop Interface With Ground lift https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003MLBEYK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_CYbDyb847KGTH

There is never a need for true stereo audio in these types of situations so I would just mono sum the laptop right from the start. These little buggers work great for that...

https://www.amazon.com/Dsan-LSP-1-DSan-Laptop-SoundPort/dp/B010C6MJ50

I understand the need for the gain adjustment on the output side to the wall-input since if its off the noise could get funky, For your purposes, just get a variable in-line XLR pad and put an XLR -> 3.5mm adapter on the end. That way you can adjust for the in-room systems needs without screwing with your gain staging on the mixer side.

I believe when adding shipping costs, the second seller (NU Image) in this list has the best price. Their ratings aren't so great. From a well-know seller, I think this is probably the best price. Both of them ship to Canada. Good luck!

There are Stereo to Mono devices out there - Stereo Left/Right in, and TWO Mono out.

https://www.amazon.com/Stereo-to-Mono-Signal-Converter/dp/B072VWCCBX

There are also what are called Distribution amps, that have several (8,10, 12,...) Amps built into one unit.

This one is 6 Stereo channels or 12 Mono Channels -

https://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-ma1240a-multi-zone-12-channel-amplifier--300-815

https://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-ma1260-multi-zone-12-channel-amplifier-60wpc--300-8150

This is really a Power Amp with little to no controls, so you would need some type of pre-amp so you can adjust the volume of various sources.

There are some Mixers and some passive devices that could give you basic Volume Control -

Here is an example of a very basic 4-channel mixer for about $60 -

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/802

Here are some Passive Volume Controls. These are meant to control Studio Monitors or Computer Speakers, but they should serve your purpose -

https://www.amazon.com/JBL-NPATCH-BLK-Compact-Controller/dp/B01I3B0OH6

https://www.amazon.com/Mackie-BIG-KNOB-PASSIVE-Controller/dp/B01NCUZ32O

https://www.amazon.com/Volbox-Adjuster-Stereo-Control-3-5mm/dp/B00XDKKQ9E

An alternative would be to find an old Stereo Amp that had PRE-AMP Outputs. The Pre-Amp out could feed the Stereo-to-Mono Converter, and the Stereo-to-Mono could feed the Distribution Amp.

Using an old used Stereo Amp with Pre-Amp Outs, would also give you all the input connections and controls you need.