How to go from RCA to XLR?


I've got an Aragon Stage One processor with RCA outputs and two Aragon Palladium 1K monoblocks with XLR inputs. I know there are a lot of RCA-XLR cables available, but a fabricator told me you have to know which XLR pins are "hot" and these have to match the amps' input circuitry or you will damage the amp.
So how do you know which pins to make hot when you order the cables? When you buy these cables "off the shelf" are you just hoping you get lucky and they match up with your equipment?
Thanks
noslop

Showing 5 responses by atmasphere

Noslop, the news you got is erroneous! If one of the phases is not present, the gain of the amp may be reduced by 6 db, but there will be no loss in power! Whoever told you that really has no idea how this stuff works.
Rwwear, if you have only a single-ended source, get a transformer from Jensen to convert from SE to balanced. That will assure that there will be no issues.
Rwwear, the traditional method of monostrapping a tube amplifier is to put the two channels in parallel, rather than in bridge mode. You put a 'Y' adapter into the inputs, and then parallel the outputs. The output impedance is cut in half, so if you are using an 8 ohm speaker you use the 16 ohm taps.

So whichever output tap you are using, you will need a jumper to go from the left to the right for that value, for example for 8 ohms you put a jumper from one 16 ohm tap to the other, and then the speaker will connect from either 16 ohm tap and Common.

This will not work for transistor amplifiers, which have to be bridged. You could bridge the Citation as well, but at the minimum you would need an input transformer to convert from SE to balanced, or a converter circuit to do the same. Your output connections then would be the taps themselves- C would be ignored, for 8 ohms you would use both 8 ohm taps, one channel would be the 'plus' and the other would be the 'minus'. I think the monostrapping technique is easier.
You wouldn't, but if you don't use one *and* you don't have a balanced source, then you'll need some sort of inverter circuit for the inverting channel.