Let me understand it correctly please:
1) "I think this is designed to be fed by a mixer of some kind and if you don't plan to use a mixer, you'll also need to sum the right and left channels from the output of the phone and no, you don't want to just use a Y cord."
- Doesn't an unbalanced cable naturally Mono, ie combining L and R into one ?
2) Don't I *want* a Mono output rather than Stereo, since I only have one single unit of Evox ?
3) If I'm stuck with unbalanced, will it still sound better than streaming through a Logitech Bluetooth receiver?
4) Does TLS risk the Evox in any way (compared to XLR) due to grounding, etc issues ?
1) No, a Y cord connects the left and right positive signals and in some cases, that can damage the source device- it's not made to connect the channels without some kind of added resistance.
This link has everything you could possibly need to know about this- look for an article titled 'Why Not Wye?', specifically.
2) You don't have a choice if you only have one speaker- they're not stereo.
3) Unbalanced sounds fine- literally no different from balanced. Balanced is used for long cable runs that would cause voltage drop and introduce noise, not because it has any inherent benefit over unbalanced WRT frequency response although the noise level can be a bit lower with balanced. Unless you operate this speaker at very high SPL, you shouldn't hear a lot of noise but in reality, a better source would help.
4) You mean TRS, right? No, there's no risk to the speaker unless you connect something with higher voltage on the signal and by higher voltage, I mean phantom power for a mic, not just higher signal level. There is no problem with grounding or anything else.
WRT the Logitech BT receiver- better ones are out there. I have one of those and it's OK, but it's only being used because I replaced it with a Miccus BT receiver and that's definitely a step up. The range is also far better and it sells on Amazon for $50.
