Which cables to use for connecting Novation Summit to NI Komplete Audio 6?

Chats

Hi there,

I'm about to purchase a Novation Summit (so friggin excited!), and have a question about which cables to use from the Summit into a NI Komplete Audio 6 interface.

According to the manual, the 4 outputs on the back of the Summit are TRS psuedo-balanced outs, and I'm not sure but I think the 1/4" jack inputs on the Komplete Audio 6 are unbalanced (TS?) inputs.. however it's hard to find specifics for that on their website. To confuse things more, there are 2 XLR "multi" inputs on the front which from my understanding are always balanced?

My question is: if I need to run 3m/10ft cables from Summit to Komplete Audio 6, should I use TRS or TS cables? From what I understand from reading online is that there should be minimal noise picked up over distances of 10ft or less with unbalanced TS cables, and since the inputs on the Komplete Audio 6 are likely unbalanced anyway, I may as well use unbalanced TS cables?

However, I have also read that if you use TS cables in TRS jacks, it can cause a short in some cases.. so I'm not sure which way to go here. I just want to get the best sound quality possible out of the Summit and without any chance of damaging it with the wrong cable types.

Lastly, my active amplified speakers only accept RCA unbalanced inputs. Can I safely plug in unbalanced TS to RCA cables in the back outputs 1&2? Or could this damage the output amplifiers? I'm having trouble finding any TRS to RCA mono cables, they all seem to be TS to RCA.

Cheers for any help!

Uwe303

Hello,

on the komplete audio interfaces all inputs and outputs are balanced. I guess otherwise there would be tonns of complains about defective interfaces here in the forum, and op amps can handle shorts directly, maybe a few "high end" op amps can´t idk. So you can use what you want, also 3 meter cables with line level shoud be no problem but of course symetrical transmission is better.

Uwe303

Hello,

on the komplete audio interfaces all inputs and outputs are balanced. I guess otherwise there would be tonns of complains about defective interfaces here in the forum, and op amps can handle shorts directly, maybe a few "high end" op amps can´t idk. So you can use what you want, also 3 meter cables with line level shoud be no problem but of course symetrical transmission is better.

Chats

Thank you this is great!

It sounds like I bought the right cables then :)

Unfortunately though the Komplete Audio 6 interface I just bought isn't functioning properly so I'm going to return it and try another unit

Uwe303

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/40671#Comment_40671

This can happen unfortunately, had the same with my focusrite 8i6 3rd gen. Can you maybe explain what's not working correctly?