Y-cable or mixer?

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Rabalder
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Y-cable or mixer?

Post by Rabalder » Tue Jan 17, 2012 9:12 am

I have 2 mono outputs that (each) needs to be split into 2 mono outputs.
So, 2 mono outputs needs to become 4 mono outputs.

Is Y-cables a bad idea? Is so, why?
I cant find a small mixer with 4 outputs..

:?:

anamexis
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Re: Y-cable or mixer?

Post by anamexis » Tue Jan 17, 2012 9:26 am

Y-cables are fine.

theextravaganttraveller
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Re: Y-cable or mixer?

Post by theextravaganttraveller » Tue Jan 17, 2012 9:32 am

You might lose some of your output level by splitting with the Y cables... I did the reverse sometime ago, piping an xbox and ps3 through the same receiver input via y-cable and both were very low in volume. I imagine this might be the case in your situation too.

Maybe an engineer can educate us on the technicalities. 8)

Rabalder
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Re: Y-cable or mixer?

Post by Rabalder » Tue Jan 17, 2012 10:13 am

theextravaganttraveller wrote:Maybe an engineer can educate us on the technicalities. 8)
Thats what Im hoping for..

I can understand if the signal gets weaker(which isnt a problem) ,but is that all there is to it?
What about impedance and ohms and what not???

crumhorn
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Re: Y-cable or mixer?

Post by crumhorn » Tue Jan 17, 2012 11:39 am

I'm not an audio engineer but I have a background in electronics.

Using a Y cable to split an output into 2 should be fine. If the outputs are low impedance and the input is high impedance then you won't even notice much of a drop.

Using a Y cable to combine two low impedance outputs is a bad idea because each output will load the other one in a non linear way. Mixing speaker or headphone outputs like that could be fatal to your equipment.
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ark
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Re: Y-cable or mixer?

Post by ark » Tue Jan 17, 2012 6:05 pm

crumhorn wrote:Using a Y cable to split an output into 2 should be fine. If the outputs are low impedance and the input is high impedance then you won't even notice much of a drop.

Using a Y cable to combine two low impedance outputs is a bad idea because each output will load the other one in a non linear way. Mixing speaker or headphone outputs like that could be fatal to your equipment.
I agree.

Let me add that most line-level devices have high input impedance and low output impedance. That is, they are voltage sources and sinks rather than current sources and sinks.

With such devices, there is no problem using a Y-cable to drive multiple inputs from a single output. However, you should not attempt to use a Y-cable to merge multiple outputs to a single input. That's what mixers are for.

Rabalder
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Re: Y-cable or mixer?

Post by Rabalder » Wed Jan 18, 2012 9:46 am

Thanks a lot for the feedback.

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