I have two active monitors with both line and XLR inputs. I have cables so that I either could connect my speakers via a splitter from the headphone output on my Syntakt or simply use two cables from the main outs. Is one of these methods preferred?
The headphones output is for headphones. I’d use the main outs, it’s what they’re for.
Yes, I have also read the labels 
, but in practice, is there a reason I shouldn’t use the headphone output for the speakers? It’s one less cable to have laying around, and I never use headphones with the Syntakt anyway.
Your active monitor are designed to receive “Line out” signal not “headphone out”.
“headphone out” can be amplified much more than “Line out”.
If you use headphone out and don’t amplify too much you won’t notice any differerence or maybe a really small one.
But “it should not” break anything to use headphone out to drive your active monitor, just potential bad sound in the end if you don’t put the right amount of signal.
In short you just need to carefully tune the “master volume” of the Syntakt to not saturate your speaker, I mean, if you do it, sound will be distorded.
But again it’s not designed for that, so expect some unknown and surprise.
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Also, if you use balanced cables (TRS-TRS or TRS-XLR) from the main outs you’ll likely get much less interference noise (depending on the length of cable used).
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In the manual, it says:
So, the only thing differing between these two is the output impedance. I thought the dBu defined whether something was line level or not, but I admittedly am a bit confused regarding these matter. Is it the difference in output impedance that makes the difference?
Good point. I could have sworn that the main outputs of Syntakt were unbalanced, but in the manual it says “ Impedance balanced audio outputs”, so I guess that means I was mistaken (I guess “impedance balanced” is what people normally refer to as “balanced”, or?).
The main outs deliver a line level signal, which is what your active monitors expect. This signal will be as clean as the syntakt is capable of producing.
The phones out is designed to drive low impedance headphones without going through an external amplifier (like the amplifier in your active speakers). That means there is a built-in amp (and volume control) for the headphone output, which isn’t present on the signal path for the main outs. If you use that you’ll be amplifying the signal twice, once using the (probably cheap, lower quality) built-in amp, and again using the amp in the speakers.
You can do what you want, but I’d use the outputs as they’re designed to be used. Line level outputs for line level inputs, and headphone outputs for headphones.
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It’s the cheaper, simpler form of balanced output, which doesn’t require two active signals:
https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/q-how-impedance-balancing-audio-different-normal-balancing
I think the main outs will give you a better quality signal. On my DT, the headphone outs sound worse to me.
…headphone outs ALWAYS have xtra amplification…that’s no truu line out signal…
deal with the real…or wonder forever why o why ur mixes always sound that little xtra dully…
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Exactly. I tested using the DT as an interface. I feel like I could do mixes with the main out, but I just couldn’t work with the headphone out for critical listening. It was even a step below the headphone outs on my other audio interfaces.
dBu / dBv is a voltage reference, so yes, the impedance is what makes a difference in terms of dBm (as far as I understand it).
https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/dbu-k-dbv-lower-case-v/
+15 dBu @ 440 Ω = -101.43 dBm
+15 dBu @ 36 Ω = -90.56 dBm
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Using the headphone output will give you a lot less room in your gain staging, making it very hard to do any kind of real mixing on the unit. It’ll also be prone to distortion. Using the main outputs will give you much more headroom and generally be more worth it. Even if the outputs of the unit were unbalanced they’d still function the same in terms of gain staging vs the headphone amp.