Whats Balanced and Unbalanced Audio?
Unbalanced connectors are generally RCA (F-10, RCAP) and Phono (F-15) featuring one center contact and one ground contact. Unbalanced cables usually consist of one center conductor with an overall shield (GS-6). To protect against excessive noise incursions, Unbalanced cable assemblies should be limited to 15 foot runs. Balanced connectors are able to provide greater noise immunity due to the phase cancelling nature of the twisted pairs and are standard equipment in professional audio installations. Balanced connectors have three contacts: two for the signal (+/-) and one for ground shield. The standard connector for balanced cable is an XLR, Bantam Tip/Ring/Sleeve (TRS) or Longframe TRS. (F-16 phono plugs are typically NOT used for pro broadcast balanced audio applications). Two conductor twisted pair cable such as L-2B2AT (or 4-cond L-4E6S Star Quad) are intended for Balanced circuits, but may also be used for Unbalanced assemblies. One of several wiring tricks, is to solder the blue
