Monitor only playing one side of audio - help??

[DJMoMoolah]

Hi guys,

So I've got a YAMAHA HS series monitor. I'm trying to play sound directly from my laptop. I had some jack cables, but thought I had gotten some mono cables by mistake as only one side of the audio is being played on songs. So, I bought a completely new set of cables (3.5mm jack to twin phono, and a twin phono to 6.35mm jack), all stereo. It plugs from the headphone port of my macbook to the "INPUT 2" jack port on the back of my monitor.

Plugged em in, still only getting one side of audio - can someone help??

And one thing to mention - a really strange thing is when I partially pull out the jack on the back of the monitor, I'll get both sides of audio playing, but it keeps dipping up and down in volume and cuts off - nothing I can work with at all.

 

[rayzer]

sound like jack port is loose or damaged, go with a usb one like a behringer uca202 (mostly cos its cheap) and see does it help. it also has a headphone port which you can use to replace your built in one and still use the same cable

 

[DJMoMoolah]

I'm not sure if it's a jack port problem.. Maybe the port on the monitor itself?? I did buy the monitors as a pair and I am only using one single monitor at the moment - does that even matter? It should still play stereo, right?

Because I even have a brand new macbook and still the same problem.

With the behringer uca202, it takes audio from my USB port? Does it read the audio automatically, or do you need to download software/drivers? Thanks for the advice

 

[rayzer]

sounds like a stereo track is playing through one speaker so it will probably not play audio from one side, one thing you can try is sticking a random song into audacity then click on Tracks then 'stereo track to mono' option then export it to mp3 as a mono file and see does it make a difference

regarding the uca it uses standard audio driver so it should just work right away once you select it in your sound options. works fine on linux and windows for me

 

[I'mNoGuru]

I use a UCA222 as the soundcard for my iPad... For the price you can't go wrong certainly better than using the headphone out on your laptop but should only be seen as a 'stopgap' until you pick up an audio interface

 

[Ledger Note]

It's a loose jack. You're describing a stereo cable (Tip Ring Sleeve) losing contact when all the way in, but when you pull back out some, it regains contact.

 

[THA_REAPER]

Yamahaa HS series has XLR right?

If your TRS jack is not working right you might need something that's USB and connects with XLR instead. You can also get XLR to 3.5mm stereo...make sure that its stereo.

Amazon.com: Hosa CYX-403M Stereo Breakout Cable, 3.5 mm TRS to Dual XLR3M - 3 m / 9.8 ft.: Electronics

Thats only assuming your going extra cheap and are don't have the cash at the moment for a USB interface just looking for a quick fix.

Could probably find better but just giving you something to search for.

 

[bandcoach]

let's go back one step

the HS series expects to see a balanced input on the trs or xlr but will cope with a ts (mono) plug no problem

the output of your computers soundcard is not balanced trs but stereo trs where the tip is left and the ring is right and the sleeve is the common ground

your first set of cables were 3.5mm trs to 6.25mm ts paired mono

so if your first set of cables was failing to work that only indicates that there may have been a problem with the cable or the monitor to which they were plugged in to

to eliminate the monitor as the problem you should have swapped the cables to be in the opposite monitor:
- If the sound then came out of the right but not the left (you don't tell us which side the problem was) when previously it came from the left but not the right then the cable is the problem

- If the same monitor failed to work then it is the monitor

with the changed cables you should repeat the above test - report your results and then we can truly advise what you need to do next

note that your new cable being 3.5mm trs to paired mono rca (that is what phono means) and then having trs rcs->6.25mm trs will still only have you putting mono (ts) into each monitor