I'm having issues with connecting fill music when using my Tone Match and L1 B2 system. Vocals in Channel 1 (great), acoustic guitars in Channel 2-3 (great) - but when I try to connect music from my phone to any of the channels, it is terribly distorted and doesn't play well.
I have tried several cables - going from the the Apple lightning to a balance 1/4", also have a stereo with a mono adaptor 1/4" - and have not been able to get a connection to work. This works with other mixers.
Simply - how can I connect my iPhone music to play during breaks, etc. Thanks for your help
Hello SLWHITE123,
The cable you describe generally won't work with a ToneMatch mixer. The Lightning adapter accepts a 1/8" TRS jack, but it doesn't send a balanced signal, it sends a stereo left and right signal. The ToneMatch mixers accept 1/4" TRS jacks, but they expect a balanced signal, not a stereo left and right signal. If you are using a single 1/8" TRS plug to single 1/4" TRS plug, that usually produces the sound you describe, sometimes a "hollow" sound. Ideally, you should use a 1/8" TRS plug to two 1/4" TS plugs (as pictured below) into the two Channel 4/5 jacks on a T1 (or into two separate channels for a T4s or T8s.) The T1's Channel 4/5 is really just one channel with two jacks, and works well for combining two signals, such as the left and right stereo signals.
The phone is putting out stereo L and R signals, and since the ToneMatch mixer's jacks are all balanced, it's probably only picking up either the L signal or the R signal and ignoring the other, or cancelling them against each other.
The reason your existing cable works in other mixers is probably that their 1/4" jacks are not balanced inputs, so the signal cancellation doesn't occur (I own one non-Bose mixer like that.)
If you want to connect your phone to one XLR channel, several manufacturers make DI boxes that convert a stereo "consumer" device like a phone or MP3 player to a balanced XLR pro audio signal. One example is the RapcoHorizon LTIGLBLOX.
Does that help?
