Connecting Your Equipment To The Aurora Sidecar:
As you can see from the block diagram, all rear panel inputs and outputs are XLR
connections and are transformer balanced and floating. It is important to take advantage
of the transformer's isolation from grounds as the transformer could not care less
whether it connected to a balanced or unbalanced source or destination!
Balanced cables and connections are configured the normal way with pin 2 = hot phase,
pin 3 = cold phase and pin 1 = ground. Pin 1 should not be any part of an audio signal
and, if connecting to an unbalanced source or destination, connect the signal to pin 2 and
the shield to pin 3, as shown below.
As detailed above, ground loops may occur if the studio equipment is sourced from
multiple power outlets (which may even be on different phases or lacking the earth
connection altogether), sourced from multiple power distribution strips (all plugged into
one another) or from double insulated devices that use a 2 pin power connection.
If all the studio devices are at the same ground potential, there is no potential difference
between them so no ground loop, caused by equalizing currents between the devices,
will be created. It is better to keep all the equipment at the same ground potential so that
the lifting of pin 1's in the XLR's will not be necessary.
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