@jsml One caution you need to be aware of:
All 3
conductor (Tip, Ring, Sleeve) headphone jacks are unbalanced stereo sources NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH balanced sources of audio. Too many end users will connect a 3
conductor (Tip, Ring, Sleeve) male
plug to an XLR-3
connector then
plug the
XLR directly into a
balanced mono input THEN WONDER WHY THEIR
BASS FREQUENCIES and vocals (normally panned down the centre) DISAPPEAR often with the ambient reverberation remaining sounding akin to the cheap 'n cheerful vocal eliminator they've unintentionally created.
I'll
butt out now as I'm sure our many experts will be along shortly, if they haven't posted while I've been typing.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
To clarify...
Balanced connections may have 3 "wires", while not all connections with 3 wires are balanced.
XLR connectors are used as "balanced" audio connections, this is what makes their signal cleaner and able to go further.
TRS (Tip, Ring, Sleeve) (1/4" or 1/8"
Jack connections) can either be balanced or not Depending on how they are used and wired.
For your headphone
jack, one
wire is left, one is right, and the
shield is for "
ground" (ie
return; like the
neutral).
For a balanced
jack One
wire is "Hot" or "
line" (signal), and the other is the "
ground" (
return), and the
shield is the "bond" (chassis
ground). This is also how XLRs are wired.
So if you hook up your laptop output to a cable that is a 1/8"
TRS jack (headphone
connector) on one side and is a single
connector on the other side you'll have nothing but problems. (typically) on mixing consoles both the 1/4"
TRS and
XLR connectors are wired BALANCED, they are NOT stereo.
If you
plug it in this way the left and right signals will be "summed" or "merged" improperly, and result in things like Ron mentioned, no low end or messed up vocals. Depending on how it's wired you could alternatively also instead just get the left or right and not get all elements of the
track. Also realise that you're now connecting directly to the bond (chassis
ground) and going to get issues from that alone.
Also NEVER EVER directly connect an
XLR input on a
mixer to an 1/8" stereo
connector regardless. As mentioned if phantom is accidentally turned on you are likely to completely FRY the circuitry on the connected device (phone, laptop,
etc).
DIs - Which come in many different flavours help connect various devices to the balanced low
impedance inputs on your
console to help get good clean audio.
The Radial
Stage Bug SB-5 is a great DI for laptops and phones, connects via
XLR to the
console.
The Rapco LTIGLBLOX and other models are another great way to connect however are
MONO not STEREO on the
console side. Great for simple things, also easy to always carry.
The Radial AV2 DI is also amazing, allowing you to connect near anything from a record player to a laptop.
Dante, as mentioned, is a great option on a
MAC as you can use "Dante Virtual Soundcard" to connect to a Dante card in your soundboard or such directly never leaving the digital world, no digital to analog conversions! I've had problems in the past with one specific
venue, but generally, it tends to work flawlessly. It also allows for a huge number of channels to be connected. Imagine 10 or more individual channels coming out of
qlab into your
console on ONE
network cable!
There are a number of various USB audio interfaces of all shapes and sizes that can also be used. Some better than others.
One advantage of something like this is that if you have a poor sound card in your laptop, or it's not working good, and creating unpleasant sound, you can completely ignore it!