audio degedration-can someone help?

[Kiwi]

Maybe you have introduced a polarity reverse - it would only take one pair of wires to swapped around in error. That would introduce a phase cancellation that would take out you lows and mids, and smear your presence.

[captainhook79]

Originally Posted by Kiwi

Maybe you have introduced a polarity reverse - it would only take one pair of wires to swapped around in error. That would introduce a phase cancellation that would take out you lows and mids, and smear your presence.

Interesting! My brother and I have been scratching our heads with the whole unbalanced vs. balanced issue. Trying to preserve "balanced" signal flow. Do you know where I could look in the signal flow for phase cancellations??? Tell me more please... I don't want to put a third whole in the wall (ha ha)

[Bubbakron]

Originally Posted by captainhook79

Interesting! My brother and I have been scratching our heads with the whole unbalanced vs. balanced issue. Trying to preserve "balanced" signal flow. Do you know where I could look in the signal flow for phase cancellations??? Tell me more please... I don't want to put a third whole in the wall (ha ha)

He means that one of the wires or connectors might be backwards(maybe wired inside by accident). Like positive and negative cross!! You can get a cable tester-

Behringer | CT-100 Cable Tester | CT100 | B&H Photo Video

[Kiwi]

Even easier - reverse the polarity of your speakers (or click the 'phase' switch in your DAW for just one channel of your stereo output). If the sound comes right, you know that somewhere you have got a cable or something reversed.

The cable tester (or use a multimeter) would be useful if you establish that this is a phase problem.

[close/far]

Yeah, a cable tester could help to track down the problem. Did you wire the snake boxes / conversion yourself? Double check the pin-to-pin combinations whenever and wherever you change connectors :

tip = xlr pin 2
ring = xlr pin 3
sleeve = xlr pin 1

An obvious working method would be to start at the preamps and plug a mic/xlr directly into the input of the preamp and check that your signal is unadulterated into the converters, assuming that the outputs of your preamps are routed through your patchbay. If that is bad, then bypass your patchbay all together by now running the output of the preamp directly into the converter using a store-bought cable with the proper terminations. If all of that is well and good, then start working backward through the chain : run your mic/line direct into your patchbay (skipping the wall box) and then into the preamp, and so on, adding just one new element to the path at a time. You'll figure it out eventually.

Good luck!