Distorted sound using mixer+amplifier

[cucereanu]

Hello and sorry if this has been asked and answered before (I looked for this but failed to find my answers).

A relative noob to sound, I bought my first small mixer table (Behringer Xenyx 802) in order to set up a home karaoke. Before even getting to any karaoke thing, I have trouble obtaining a clean sound from my speakers. Here is how I set up everything:
- PC as my source, hooked via a 3.5mm (1/8 inch) jack to the mixer table's aux input
- microphone, also hooked into the mixer table
- the mixer table is hooked to my amplifier (Kenwood KRF-V5070D home theatre unit) (1/4 inch jacks out of the mixer table and plugged into the RCA connectors on the amplifier (Phono entries – I selected the Phono sound mode on the amplifier))
- amplifier connected to passive speakers that came together with the amplifier (Kenwood, 100W)
When I play any music this way, I hear it (as well as my voice from the microphone), but it all sounds very distorted even to my untrained ears, as if muted a bit, coarse sound with random high pitch noises. Don’t know how to describe it better, but it is far from what I hope to achieve.

I tried connecting the same setup to small active speakers directly and I do not hear any distortion. This probably means that the mixer is OK, as well as my source and connection to the mixer.

The problem should be the amplifier: either I set something up incorrectly on the amplifier, or the latter has a problem (though when I simply play radio on that amplifier, the sound is OK with the passive speakers it is hooked up to).

I tried changing various settings on the amplifier, but there is either no sound at all or the same distorted sound.

Does anyone have any idea what I must change to obtain undistorted sound?
Thank you much indeed,
Dragos

 

[jay32267]

Do not hook to phono inputs. They are expecting phono level signals and you are providing a much higher level signal.

Use other inputs on the amp...pretty much anything but "phono".

 

[cucereanu]

Hello Jay and thank you for the quick reply.

I tried connecting the cable from the mixer to every single RCA connector on the back of my amplifier: only the Phono connector gives me any sound at all through the speakers. I also tried connecting the cable directly to the various RCA inputs on the amplifier (not using a mixer) and again only the Phono input resulted in any sound. In both cases the sound is heavily distorted, as if it came through a radio channel that is jammed or not properly tuned.

By the way, now the radio is also distorted in a similar way, so I have no "clean" sound from the amplifier under any circumstances. I checked the connections to the speakers and they are well-attached, so no bad connection there either.

Any other ideas?
Thanks!

 

[jay32267]

Well....my ideas now are starting to focus on problems with the amp.

The thing is....you SHOULD be getting sound from your other analog inputs besides your phono inputs.

This is not how things should be>>>"only the Phono connector gives me any sound at all through the speakers."