TS & TRS cabling on MPCX

This weekend I'm planning to rewire my audio setup as it's a bit of a mess.
Reading on the manuals to see what's the optimal cabling the issue of TS & TSR came up.

MPCX manual states that TS cables (instrument) goes front and TRS (line) goes back.
All my additional gear are synths and as such I'd connect those to the back panel, however I don't have enough TRS-cables. Can I use TS-cables instead? Can this cause damage?
Another problem is that the instruments I have don't specify anything about the cables!

yYs you can use ts cables just fine. It's not a requirement. It wont *short* anything and cause it to blow any fuses or anything whacky. trs is a ballanced line which means it has two signal wires as well as a ground, where as ts is unballanced and has only one signal wire and a ground. The pins on the ts and trs jacks are oriented the same way so a ts cable will marry with a trs jack just fine. I highly suggest buyinf yourself a "TRS Snake" and then cutting the harness apart and individualising the trs cables.

All TRS does is cancel noise along the way using the positive and negative phases of the audio signal. At worst you might get noise if the cable run is too long but otherwise it should be fine. You'll get a nice volume drop as well, but that's what happens when you go from balanced to unbalanced in most cases, so just turn up the gain wherever the outputs are plugged into and you'll be good.

Also, a tip ring sleeve cable won't cancel noise by itself. It's the device/instrument at either end that does it. Not sure what synths the OP has but I think most synths are unbalanced outs, so TS is fine.

Crumb$ wrote:Also, a tip ring sleeve cable won't cancel noise by itself. It's the device/instrument at either end that does it. Not sure what synths the OP has but I think most synths are unbalanced outs, so TS is fine.

Exactly, it only matters if both devices are balanced anyways. My Tannoy monitors have TRS jacks but they're unbalanced, you only get cancellation if you use the XLR inputs. I still find it weird that none of my synths are balanced but all the samplers Ive owned were.

AFAIK synths are also designed to be integrated into modular systems or amps, where balanced signals *could* be harmful, especially for „old tech“.

a lot of older technology doesn't have voltage protection to prevent electricity from flowing the wrong direction, or expected very specific voltage levels when connected.

definitely pay attention to what your gear expects, and at try and pay attention to signal flow and voltage levels.

not knowing can be okay, but it does stink to make an expensive mistake.