Moniterman's Thompson adapter cable

[porkpeye]

The saga continues...

I received a KVConnection XLR/headphone cable today. I tested it and It does work, but the gain from my test mic which is a self powered condenser mic is very low with this cable. Similar to the first cable I bought both the internal and external mics stay active at the same time. The headphone monitor function is also dependent on the app your using with either of these cables.

Now the really odd part... Just for laughs I switched back to the first cable I bought from iphone-XLR-cable.com, which doesn't work right (normally), and it started working right by some fluke. No idea why, but the pumping/clicking noise stopped after about 45 seconds and sounded beautiful with much more gain than the KVC cable. To be honest, I was trying out FIRe when this happened and at first I thought it was that app that caused it to start working. Foolish thinking. As I discovered after disconnecting the cable and reattaching it again the pumping/clicking noise returned never to go away again.

I haven't been able to open the first cable's XLR as yet so I don't know what the difference is with the bias circuit, but I did get the KVC XLR open and it has a single resistor wired to the jack. The iphone-XLR-cable.com is so close to working right....too bad. If I can manage to open the Neutrik connector i'll advise what I find.

Oh, and one feature that FIRe has that would be nice to have for Multitrack....overall input gain level. That makes a huge difference.

[jorgren]

The 1 kilohm resistor in the KV cable is what's killing your gain. I think the best cable for many purposes is the iRig. It's sold for guitar, but it provides an active buffer which should work well for your self-powered mic, or a dynamic mic. The only things it wouldn't be good for, would be anything line-level, or stereo, or an active mic needing power (similar to the earbud mic Apple supplies).

[porkpeye]

Update:
I contacted KVConnections about their XLR/headphone cable that I purchased not working with the condenser mic I was trying and they advised that the output on the mic is too low (350 ohms) to get the iphone to switch to external source. They also kindly offered to send a test cable they were working on. The next day I got a shipping notice. Today I got the cable and can report it works perfectly. They also added some extra cable length to make it longer as I had mentioned the other company's cable supplied theirs that way. Great service!
Looking at the XLR jack it appears they added two capacitors along with the resistor. Up shot is it functions as expected. Monitoring live signal however is totally dependent on the app you want to monitor from so the included headphone jack is only functional for playback in most situations.

In regards to the iphone-XLR-cable.com company they finally contacted me (after 3 weeks) to advise they were also sending another cable. I'll advise when I receive it if it works and what the difference between these cables is, if any.

[pwnified]

Awesome, thanks for the update.