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I'm just a little confused on the correct way to wire the Neutrik Combo Jacks in my vocal/amp booth wall plates. They are XLR/TRS combo jacks. Pin setup is listed below:

XLR Pins: 1, 2, 3
TRS Pins: TN, RN, SL
Other Pins: G

Here are my questions:

1) I have 3 pins for TRS and 3 pins for XLR. I know that those need to be matching, but can I simply wire it with one 2-conductor shielded mic cable, and then jump the terminals from XLR to TRS, or is it better to wire 2 seperate cables (XLR-XLR & TRS-TRS)?

2) There's an extra ground pin. What the heck do I do with that? Do I jump to it from the "sleeve" pin, or do I connect with a totally seperate ground wire?

Thanks in advance for your help on this.

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Comments

anonymous Sun, 12/04/2005 - 15:58

I wired up a bunch of those in my room. IIRC, it's the T, R, and S lugs that bear the signals from a TRS plug. TN, RN, SN are switching connectors for normalling (eg, TN = "Tip Normaling") When you don't have a 1/4" plug inserted into it, the switches are closed--T connected to TN, etc. When you insert the plug, they disconnect. The switches only work for 1/4" plugs. Inserting an XLR don't affect the normalling switches. (I wish it did--I wanted to use those for a panel of normally hard-wired mic connections that could be overridden by plugging a mic cable into it. Oh well...)

If you are running it to a device that has both line and mic inputs and provides a means to switch between them other than the act of unplugging the line input plug, I'd run separate cables for XLR and TRS. Otherwise, just strap 2 to T, 3 to R and 1 to S and run one.

The G is the XLR shell connection. (Sadly, the ones I have don't actually have a lug in the space marked GN -- it may have come in handly for controlling a switching circuit to make it do what I wanted.)

Hope that helps

--Bob

anonymous Mon, 12/05/2005 - 20:58

OK -- I had to get the project done last night, so I took a guess. I did jump the pins 1, 2, & 3 to SN, TN, & RN (respectively). I left the ground pins alone. It works like a charm! Phantom power works fine, and you can stick an XLR in one side and a TRS in the other, and it transfers straight through. Thanks all for your help.