037 – Balanced vs. Unbalanced Audio
The type of cable you use determines how far you can run the signal.
Written by Scott Adamson
When most people think about live sound or the excitement of working in live music, they’re usually not thinking about cabling. It can be kind or boring if you’re not into the geeky side of audio gear (like I am). However, cables are one of the most important parts of our audio systems.
Modern digital audio components use all kinds of cabling to transmit digital audio: CAT5, CAT6, fiber optic, coaxial/BNC, etc. But standard analog audio signals come in two forms, unbalanced and balanced, which are slightly different and use specific types of cables. And the main difference for us as engineers is how long we can run these signals before losing audio quality.
I talk about these differences, plus explain the neat trick balanced audio cables use to cancel noise, in our latest YouTube video:
