Beginners Guide to Cables

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It’s not easy being a DJ. There are loads of cables from hooking up your mixer to setting up your lights. All them little holes that you don’t have a clue what they even do. Here’s our bluffers guide to all things cables so you know what you need and what does what to get the best out of your DJ setup.

Speakon: The speakon is a type of cable connector mostly used in pro audio systems for connecting loudspeakers to amplifiers.

XLR: An XLR connector is used again in pro audio
situations. For us its used mainly for connecting mixers to amplifiers, mixers to active speakers, microphones to mixers and also for lighting too (to carry a DMX signal for intelligent lighting).

XLR’s come in male and female versions, from the picture below, the one on the right hand side is the MALE
connector, and the left the FEMALE

¼” Jack: A ¼” jack plug is sometimes also known as a TRS plug and are commonly used on studio equipment (such as mixing desks), speaker inputs, and microphone inputs.

Mini Jack: This is mainly used to carry small signals to audio devices or mixers. A mini jack to mini jack is used to connect the fader start functions on mixers and CD players. The most popular one we do is a mini jack to phono cable which enables you to connect an MP3 player to a mixer, or a mixer to a laptop or PC.

RCA: RCA’s, or phono cables as they are also known are used for connecting audio and visual equipment. The main uses for these in our environment is for hooking up turntables/CD players to mixers, and also mixers to home amplifiers or some PA amplifiers. An audio RCA consists of a red and white RCA plug, red being for the right hand signal, and white or sometimes black for the left hand signal. For karaoke players and also the range of DVJ products we have the cables would include a third RCA plug which would be yellow, and it carries the visual signal.

Balanced / Unbalanced / Stereo / Mono
Balanced audio is a method of interconnecting audio
equipment using impedance-balanced lines. This type of connection is very important in sound recording and
production because it allows for the use of long cables while reducing susceptibility to external noise, this would be a stereo cable as two channels of signal is used. A mono cable is where one signal or channel is used, and as such, is unbalanced.

A crossover is a device used in PA systems to enhance the sound of a multiple speaker set ups.
Crossovers work by taking an audio signal and splitting up the frequencies, sending certain frequencies to the desired output (ie separating bass frequencies from highs and mids).
Crossovers we sell are available in 2 and 3-ways. A 2-way crossover separates low-pass and high-pass frequencies, whereas a 3-way crossover separates low-pass, band-pass and high-pass frequencies meaning you have more control over the overall sound of your system when using multiple speakers.
You can get active and passive crossovers, we only sell ACTIVE ones (as passive ones are built into speakers). Crossovers connect between the mixer and the amplifier. These are then adjusted by hand (or by on screen pre-sets for digital ones) for the frequencies required for each amp and speaker.

Examples of crossovers in use are below,
2-way crossover 3-way crossover

Power Ratings: All of the speakers on our website are rated at 8 ohms and its RMS rating (continuous rating), not its peak rating. All the speakers we sell are at least capable of running at double the RMS value, but its not advised for long All of our amps are again rated in RMS values, but this time at 4 ohms.

Matching amps and speakers can be very confusing, with different manufacturers quoting different ratings for their products, and also how they perform, as a general guide, we advise doubling the rating of the speaker RMS to get the RMS rating per channel for the amp. For example, if a customer has bought a pair of 500 watt speakers, they are 250 watt RMS each, so 250 x 2 = 500 watts RMS per channel for the amplifier. 1200 watt speakers would be 600 watts RMS each – 600 x 2 = 1200 watts per channel RMS for the amp.

There are various different ways of calculating average power needed for a PA for a venue or party, either by room size or the amount of people. The amount of people in the room is probably the best way to calculate the size of the PA needed. Always advise if customers are buying a small speaker PA package (ie and amp and two speakers) that they’d need tripods to mount the speakers on to get the sound above everybody in the room.

As a good guide, as a general rule of thumb, I would advise approximately 100 watts RMS per 10 people. This guide line works very well and
personally I have been using this guide line myself for many years without never having inadequate or excessive volumes.

Up to 50 people: 500 watts RMS
Up to 100 people: 1000 watts RMS (1k)
Up to 150 people: 1500 watts RMS (1.5k) (2 tops and 2 subs advised)
Up to 200 people: 2000 watts RMS (2k) (2 tops and 2 subs advised)

Written by: Adam Forgie
Mobile DJ & lighting specialist

We’ve teamed up with juno.co.uk for all your DJ equipment and Music needs.