Volume Potentiometer Wiring

[thinktank2]

I've got a alps black beauty pot (x2) stereo and I'm
trying to use it as a master volume pot coming off
my apogee convertors into my speakers. It's 10k rated.

Trying to figure out how to wire it. I've got balanced
coming of the apogee, but how do I wire it to the pot.
I've got 3 pins. I think 1 is ground, 2 is output, and 3
is input. But if I have a balanced signal, which do
I put on the input or do I wire both of the to the input?

From there, I'm going into a 3 pole on/off/on switch,
allowing me to switch b/n 2 different speakers. Do
I connect ground here? Also, from the pot, which leg
if balanced do I connect here? It seems like I go
from balanced to unbalanced at the pot. Is that right?

Then from the switch, to my xlr jacks. Again, how do
I wire the jacks? And where does the ground lug wire
to if I don't switch ground at the switch? Do I connect
it from the pot? Or from the xlr input.

Hope this makes sense. Thanks for any help.

Nate

 

[SonsOfThunder]

Nate,

If you want to maintain a balanced connection, you must have a 4x pot...

Otherwise you can wire it up as stereo unbalanced.

Does that help?

 

[thinktank2]

Yeah that makes sense, but what about the ground?
I think that's where I'm getting lost. I know if goes
to pin 1 of the pot, but what about the switch and
then where does it go from there?

 

[thinktank2]

I forgot, what about the pot. Do I need
a different pot that will handle balanced
signals?

 

[thinktank2]

Sorry about that, I didn't read your post right.
I'll look for a different pot. Thanks.

 

[pstamler]

Question: are these powered speakers? If not, then a D-to-A converter won't drive them.

If they are powered speakers, are the inputs balanced or unbalanced?

Peace,
Paul

 

[BYacey]

You could do something like this:

Although this is a cheap and dirty way of doing this because it doesn't maintain a constant impedance at the source or load. If the source is electronically balanced and the load is also this could work OK. Nothing to lose in trying.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v354/byacey/Page1.jpg

 

[SonsOfThunder]

That's pretty tricky, Bill. But it just might work!!

:thumb:

 

[thinktank2]

The speakers are powered. They'll take
balanced or unbalanced so I went ahead and
went with an unbalanced signal since I
had the potentiometer and switch already.

I'm sure I could go with a balanced path later,
but I'm not sure the benefits since I've only
got about a 8 ft. cable going from the
convertor to the box to the speakers.

Thanks for the help.

Nate

 

[SonsOfThunder]

If you don't have any noise problems and it works for you...then it works!! :thumb:

Peace!
Charlie