Direct Injection from a 70V/100V speaker line Haw do you connect a signal from @ 100¥ (or 704) speaker line into an amali- fier line input? ‘The question arose while we were di ‘cussing roies for te Ol Box in the office But most people would ask "why would you want to connect & 100¥ speaker ine nto an ampiiier line input Consider two scenarios: in the first, you're installing a large-area PA which, of course. would use 190V sneaker ines to minimise assesin those ines. Sut you've reached the aver output limit of stl nec more speak ers to caver the area, poss bly quite some distance fram the ampli So youriave to outina second (remote) and speakers, But How can you supply it with signal? Here's an example ofa second scenario atlast year's NSW Surf Lilesaving Chain pionshins, he carnival was spread aut for along the beach. The surfboat area had one PA system while the rest of te carnival had another, with ‘vo pane's of announcers used to call the various races. But tne referee wanted the race fina ip ane atea ta be heard in the ther in other words, two indenendent systems with the capability of being inked tagether What to do? Of course, you could run a coax lead alle way back to the first amplifier and uusea line out” (if thas one!). Apart from the cost and inconvenience of suchalead, that can cause problems of its own - not least rise pickup and line losses aver such a length. When you think abaut it, you alread have signal close by ~ on the speaker lines th 's just that the signal is al too-nigh a level to use in its present stale. The level ofthe signal onthe speaker ines depends on the volume set back a so effectively, any signal But how do you stap the 100V signal destroying your ampliter input (which itno doubt would if you connected it direct!)? Fortunately, the solution is ce lightly simple. look at our approach, id mer eof thes 8 commervaliy available trom Afironies. Their A-4902 100¥ Line Acaptor has alot more bells and whistles than we are siliconchip.com.au giving, including @ volume control and both mig and aux level outputs. It uses a slightly diffe (though techni correct} approaci as well oov UNE want to build 2 100 line adaptor, na Iook at the Alronics version~(ww.altronies.com.au). (In act this unit was prensely the solution used for the surf carnival prabiem) Commercial alternative: the Altronics ‘Aa902 100V Line - Mic/Aux Adaptor. ‘Anyway, back to our design: all we do is attenuate the signal from the soeake lines ha nominal 100:1 resistive divider, leav= ing us about tY maximum atthe junction To isolate the speaker line from the amplifier (and so eliminate the possibilty of um loops) w use a tf audio transformer Like the DI Box, we use one of the high ‘quality Allronies audia coupling transtorr: es, in this case the D705 10k02 19k22 (Ihe 54Q2 centre tap is not used). The circu is housed in 4 metal box (the same as used in the O| box) with a 2+ sere erminal block on ane end for speaker Tine connection (Altranics P2072A) and a3 by Ross Tester AIRONICS M0706 TOL TOKTRANSFORMER up " Sanat ney _ CHASSIS TS pin male XLR output socket on t (Altronies P 080% The only other “refinement” you could add would vea signal on/of switch ~this Could be just about any small switch eq, the rocker switch used in che DI box (Alleanios $3220) and the best pl to connect it would be across the farmer primary (ie, shorting out the 1k resistor, thus killing amplitier input when the switen was turned an) if you don’t mind a bit of double-aueh, that means when the switch s turned off the line adaptor is an, and vice versa, Construction Like the DI Box. tnereisno PC board it is too simple! We mounted the resistors point-to-point from the input terminals 207085 to the switel and wired the trans- former leads direct as well, Note that tne ‘centte lap (Diack) lead is nol used. Againas inthe D! Box, connect pin t of the XLR socket ta the chassis (around) ‘ng that’ it. You can add a suitable label if you wish {we did!) just to make it look professional but thal fs up to you There's manyagizmoin the average road ie's nox of tacks that has Texta mar even pencil abelling!