HELPHELPHELP Extremly Confused about TRS and TS unbal and bal cables/snakes

[StrummerRecords]

Im really confused about this guys... I have a presonus firestudio project that I want to connect to a Presonus HP60 headphone amp... Now the hp60 has a external input on each channel and this is where Im really confused. When you read the spec sheets on the units, the firestudio projects general purpose outputs ( stereo<i beleive> sets of 1,2 and 3,4 5,6 etc.) are balanced trs outputs, and the hp60's ext inputs are unbalanced... so when I look at cable/insert snakes it says the 2 ts end is unbalanced(?) and the trs end is balanced(?) (I think, but i could be totally wrong) this is the exact opposite of the inputs and outputs on the unit. I wouldnt be worried but I started reading about cables(where things started getting really confusing) and I saw things that said connecting ts to trs or trs to ts jacks or balanced to unbalanced or vice versa could be really bad for units and circuts due to something with grounding(which apparently changes depending on the types of jacks and cables) issues. I dont really understand how it all works?? what makes a cable balanced or unbal. ( I heard somewhere that all trs are balacned/unbalanced<one or the other,cant be both or change> cuz of the fact it has tip ring and sleeve and all ts are the opposite of trs Bal/unbal <not sure> cuz its only tip ring.) Also is it true that one is always gonna be for mono and one is gonna be for stereo

I would just really like to know how this all works ( in simple terms/ simplified for someone without technical background who dosent understand circutry/electronic wiring..etc) So for future refences I just really really want to understand balanced and unbalanced and trs and ts connections, also what is bad or a no no to plug into what jacks/whats ok and why(basically a producers crash course on cables an how it all works. Then also please explain how Im supposed to connect my firestudio project to my hp60 for individual mixes on each channel without screwing anything up/damaging anything. Then why do I connect it like this?

***PLEASE SOMEONE, run it down for me and explain all this to me (in simple type terms) not just tell me what to do or what to connect, I would like to learn from someone who is willing to teach, even if its not a one reply thing.... please feel free to private message me and try to help, so i can ask questions back and forth. I really would like to put this step behind me and understand all of it.

THANKS

[Bill@WelcomeHome]

sorry dude, I can't get past the jumping nonsense to focus on your question.

[StrummerRecords]

The jumping "nonsense" was to grab attention saying I really need help.... There gone now

[matt2525]

Strummer, your post is very hard to concentrate on to understand your actual questions, but you seem overall to be confused by a few different concepts.

Anyway, to try to answer a couple of the easy questions I could make out:

a TRS ( tip ring sleeve) connector can be wired in different configurations -e.g. in an insert loom, with one TRS connector wired to two TS connectors per channel, the tip and the ring are send and return (and sometimes this configuration is reversed), with the sleeve being audio ground.

It can also be wired as stereo - Tip being one channel, ring being the other, and the sleeve being the ground.

And it can also be wired for balanced connection - tip is positive (hot) signal, ring is negative (cold) signal, and sleeve is ground.

You can connect balanced to unbalanced audio without damaging the equipment, but there can be level, intereference and grounding problems - although these would be the same as when connecting unbalanced to unbalanced gear - you're just losing the benefits of a balanced audio path.

Part of your confusion seems to be mixing up balanced mono audio connections with unbalanced stereo audio connections - these can use the same connectors and cables, but the important part is to know what signal is being sent through them or to them - and this should be easy to find out from your equipment manual.

HP60 : the XLR inputs are for balanced audio, there are 4 of these, 2 left and two right, making two seperate stereo channels. The individual channel feeds are unbalanced stereo (one TRS connector per stereo channel). This could be fed from another stereo TRS source, using a stereo jack to jack lead (same wiring as balanced jack to jack, but being used for a different purpose), or two jack or XLR outputs - if these outputs were balanced you would have to make sure the connectors were wired up correctly.

Firestudio project : this has balanced jack outputs on TRS connectors. You could either connect these to the A and B mixes on the XLR inputs of your HP60, using balanced XLR-jack cables, or if you need to connect the individual stereo feeds to each channel, you will have to go unbalanced as that is the only option.
Easiest way to do this is using standard insert "Y" cables as a 2 channel mono to one stereo cable. TRS end goes into your HP60, the two standard TS jacks plug into two outputs on your firestudio.

You won't cause any damage to any of your equipment doing this, so don't worry - worst that will happen is you won;t hear a signal (if cables are incorrectly wired), or there will be a low hum in the headphone feeds (caused by ground loops - there's ways to stop this but I'm not getting into an even longer explanation!!_

Likelihood is you won't have any issues at all, but the best option sonically with your equipment would be to stick to two headphone mixes, and use the balanced inputs.