Mofo46 Posted January 23, 2013 Share Posted January 23, 2013 Hi, I thought I'd ask on here first due to the wealth of knowledge I've received from recent posts/questions... We're recently upgraded our pa and so our foldback monitors to active laney ones (not amazing but not bank breaking) but when our guitarist went to buy some new leads for the monitors they asked her "are they active or passive as you'll need different leads". I had no idea there would be a difference, and this is what I need some advice on, are they simply referring to a normal jack to jack lead or a j2j which is balanced? I understand the difference but only in an XLR level, can anyone help as I'm the default sound engineer/tech guy but I'm obviously not upto speed! Anyone else on here the guy/girl that cringes when a touch of feedback comes through a mic and has to adjust the desk one handed whilst still trying to play?!? Thanks in advance for any help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barkin Posted January 23, 2013 Share Posted January 23, 2013 I'd have thought that for active you'd want instrument (screened) type leads, while passive would be best served with speaker cables. BICBW... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nottswarwick Posted January 23, 2013 Share Posted January 23, 2013 We use xlr leads just normal mic cables, or guitar leads, depending what is handy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monckyman Posted January 23, 2013 Share Posted January 23, 2013 What he said. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nottswarwick Posted January 23, 2013 Share Posted January 23, 2013 Obv, make sure you get leads with the right connections. Our desk will output on xlr and jack on the aux sends, and the monitors accept both, hence it is easy to use any lead that is not a speaker lead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mofo46 Posted January 25, 2013 Author Share Posted January 25, 2013 Cool, that's what I thought. I think it was just a case of the guy trying to sell her something that he wanted to move/make more money on. Thanks for the replies Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOD2 Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 No the guy in the shop was right to ask. An "active" monitor is a box that contains both an amplifier and a speaker. To connect that to the PA you'll need either an instrument lead (e.g a guitar lead) or an XLR mic lead. Which one you use depends on the available connections on the mixer and the monitor itself. A "passive" monitor is just a speaker box with a separate amplifier placed somewhere else on stage. To connect the monitor amplifier to the monitor speaker you would use a speaker lead - definitely NOT an instrument or mic lead. To connect the mixer to the monitor amplifier you'd use an instrument or mic lead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mofo46 Posted January 29, 2013 Author Share Posted January 29, 2013 Hi, thinking about it that does make sense, passive would be like normal hifi speaker cable (two cables) and active would just be a signal so single cable. The guy was bigging up some cables which had a larger diameter than normal cables and made by Stagg but not Stagg and some other weird 'facts', some made sense but I don't have a tonne of experience to be fair. I guess I've just always used active equipment - less to put in the car IMO, I did rent a pa from a cheap place in Southampton and everything was seperates, filled two cars with our gear (acoustic 3-piece!). Cheers for the advice, guess I just need some standard guitar leads then! Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyfisher Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 Just re-read this and you don't mention whether the active monitors have jacks or XLRs or both. Standard guitar leads will work (assuming jacks) but are not balanced so very long leads might cause noise problems, depending on the environment. If you have a choice then XLRs will be best as they are balanced, so no noise problems. I try to stick to XLRs for all our signal cables (mics, desk, active PA/monitors etc), speakons for speaker cables and jacks for instruments. Jacks are the main source of possible confusion so I try to keep use coloured cables for instruments and black cables for speaker cables. It's not always possible but I think it's a good aim. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
icastle Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 It's very easy [u][b]ACTIVE[/b]:[/u] If your monitors have amplifiers built in (the give-away is that you need to plug them into the mains) then they are classed as active monitors and you need shielded cables (XLR - XLR or guitar leads). If you use unshielded speaker cables with active monitors then they'll buzz like hell. [b][u]PASSIVE:[/u][/b] If your monitors don't have amps built in then these would be classed as passive monitors and you want speaker cables (unshielded). If you use shielded cables with passive monitors there's a danger that you'll melt them and they'll short out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mofo46 Posted January 30, 2013 Author Share Posted January 30, 2013 Hi, it's jack from the desk to jack or XLR at the active monitor so I'll use a decent guitar lead (which was what I was using luckily) and had no probs at all. Thanks for the info, I definitely learnt something, cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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