Cables

Balanced Cables

Several people have asked me, "What is the deal with balanced cables?" The best thing to remember is that if you have two pieces of equipment that have balanced connections (they will usually say it near the jack or in the manual) it is best to use a balanced cable to connect them. I won't go into why, but they eliminate a lot of noise and tend to prevent a lot of headaches.

The two most common balanced cables you will encounter are TRS and XLR.

This is a TRS cable... basically it's just like a "big" stereo headphone plug. Notice this cable has two little black rings on it. This is important because.....
This is NOT a TRS cable. This a TS cable or regular guitar cable. This is NOT balanced. You can usually use one of these in the place of a TRS cable, but you run the risk of getting noise. See... only ONE little black ring on the end.
This is an XLR Cable, also known as a microphone cable. These are also balanced. The Left side is Female, the Right is Male.

XLR cables and TRS cables are generally the same when used to connect equipment together. If you have equipment that has XLR or TRS connectors, use either one, or mix and match them. This is almost always OK.