I'm going to be seeing YMSB next week (Sunday, June 28, in Troy, NY), and I think Ben, their sound wizard, gives board patches, but XLR only. I want to run via my UA-5 into my JB3 (the 1/8" analog connector on my JB3 is a bit flaky, but the optical part works fine), so I was thinking that I could just run a pair of XLR cables from the board into the front panel of the UA-5. If I did this, I assume I'd have to back the sensitivity off a bit compared to running mics into it, as I assume the board would be putting out a line-level signal rather than a mic-level signal. (If anyone has experience running this way off a YMSB board feed and could tell me the approx. level [which "o'clock", for example] to set the sensitivity, I'd appreciate it.)
The other way would be to use some adaptors (which I have) to go into the RCA connectors on the back panel, and use the (single) "input volume" knob to adjust the levels.
From a sound quality perspective, is one way better than the other? I think I'd be more comfortable going into the XLRs, as that's what I use all the time (I've never used the back-panel inputs), and my fingers are used to adjusting the front-panel sensitivity knobs, as opposed to the back-panel knob, which my fingers haven't dealt with before.
Any info or tips would be appreciated. Thanks!
Aloha,
Brad