QuestionHI, i just bought a turntable, which has an output of an RCA cable with a left and
right plug. Im trying to hook this turntable up to my Mbox 1, which my
monitors are running through. How do I plug the RCA cables into the mbox so
that i can play the turntable through my speakers?
AnswerHi Benny,
There's an important thing (or three) to know about turntables. Aside from magnetic vs. other carts, the main one is that the signal from phonograph players, as they're technically called, is very, very low, even lower than line level. It's also been recorded with a freq. transformation known as the "RIAA Equalization Curve"; you can read more about that here:
http://www.sound-o-mat.com/vinyl-faq.shtml#riaa
So what you're getting out a turntable needs to be heavily boosted as as signal (which is why pops, clicks and vinyl hiss is so noticeable, although the curve does help remove the hiss) and also the amp you're plugging into, in this case an Mbox 1, needs to have what's known as a "phono hookup" which boost the signal as well as applies the reverse transformation for the effects of the RIAA Equalization Curve.
It also needs to be grounded, if it's not grounded you're in bad shape, sound-wise. I haven't looked up the specs on the Mbox 1 but if it doesn't have at least one "phono (line) in" pair of red/white plugs and a place to hook up the ground line from the turntable, then the only way you can make it work is to buy what's known as a "phono preamp", which is basically a, well, pre-amp that corrects the RIAA equalization and boosts the signal to what's called "line level". If you do a Web search you'll find lots of them; the cheap ones will sound bad, so it's worth spending money to buy a decent one, but no need, unless you want, to go crazy on the audiophile ones, although I have to admit some of the tube/valve-based phono preamps out there, while expensive (we're talking US $1000 and up) sound pretty damned great. Good luck! Cheers, Wink
