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Studio Speaker Help

egothrasher

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Jul 17, 2020
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So I just got all my equipment in and need help with setting up my speakers and sub.

My setup is Laptop > DAC (usb) > Subwoofer (RCA) > Speakers (Speaker wire - RCA Single).
When I set it up like that, my studio monitors just make a white noise/crackling. I know the monitors work as I have connected them directly to the DAC. So I believe my issue is the cable I made.

I made a cable from RCA to speaker wire. Attaching the positive part of the speaker wire to the sleeve in the RCA cable wire. Then attaching the negative speaker wire part to the other rca cable wire not in the sleeve. I've attached the wire to the high level outputs of the sub.

Any and all help is appreciated.
 

CDMC

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What you are doing won't work. The high level output from the subwoofer only pass through what they receive from speaker level inputs. They do not take a line level signal (RCA) and convert to speaker level output.

Without knowing your specific equipment, assuming your DAC has a volume control, and assuming your speakers are active (built in amplifier) your choices are:

1) Use an RCA y cable from the DAC output and run one set of RCAs to the sub and one to your speakers. This will result in your mains running full range, but some studio monitors have a high pass crossover built in that you can engage.

2) If your subwoofer has a high pass crossover and RCA level outputs, run RCAs from your DAC to subwoofer and the high pass output from the subwoofer to your monitors.
 
OP
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egothrasher

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Jul 17, 2020
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Ok, so I will have to run the RCA splitter then. The monitors do have a low cutoff at 80hz, which I will also set my subwoofer to, 80hz cutoff. That should hopefully then have the low end playing on the sub, and everything else through the monitors.

Thanks!!!
 
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