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Questions on balanced inputs and XLR Cables

HamDog

HamDog

AudioGuy
Just got a multi-channel amp with balanced inputs. My pre-amp has balanced outputs. So for the first time, I want to try connecting them using XLR cables.

Doing a search on Google, some XLR cables are advertised as microphone cables. Are these different than other XLR cables? I don't want to spend a lot of money as I'm not a person who believes in expensive cables. Just some generic XLR's.

Anything else I should watch for when choosing XLR cables?

And do gain controls work on both balanced and unbalanced inputs/outputs?
 
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HamDog said:
Just got a multi-channel amp with balanced inputs. My pre-amp has balanced outputs. So for the first time, I want to try connecting them using XLR cables.

Doing a search on Google, some XLR cables are advertised as microphone cables. Are these different than other XLR cables? I don't want to spend a lot of money as I'm not a person who believes in expensive cables. Just some generic XLR's.

Anything else I should watch for when choosing XLR cables?

And do gain controls work on both balanced and unbalanced inputs/outputs?
Click to expand...

An XLR microphone cable is typically synonomous with a normal/standard XLR cable.

To watch out for? Nothing more or less than other cables. Decent parts, decent workmanship.

In every case I've had both balanced and unbalanced connections and gain controls they worked both ways.

I've never purchased any balanced cables from MonoPrice, but I have some HDMI cables and they're very nice for the $ spent. I'd imagine their XLRs would be too...assuming they sell them.

They're easy enough to make too, if you wanted to go that way.
 
Thanks. I got concerned when I saw "for microphone" on the ones at Monoprice. And my amp doesn't have gain controls, so I thought there would be better matching using the balanced connections.
 
I'll second the suggestion to build your own. That will help ensure you don't end up accidentally with expensive cables, something you don't believe in.

Virtually every cable I've seen (and I haven't seen them all) as off-the-shelf store-bought XLR cables have the ground connected at both ends. In my opinion, this is absolutely the WORST way to make XLR cables for anything other than microphones. Chose one end to be ground free, and stick with this scheme throughout your system.
 
There is one thing to definitely watch out for - make sure the pins on your pre and your amp are wired the same way. Most balanced connections are wired with pin 1 as the ground, pin 2 hot(+) and pin 3 inverted (-), but some (including my accuphase amp) have pins 2 and 3 wired in opposite fashion. If they do not match up, your system will be out of phase unless you get a custom made xlr that's wired appropriately for both ends.
 
PrestigeWW said:
There is one thing to definitely watch out for - make sure the pins on your pre and your amp are wired the same way. Most balanced connections are wired with pin 1 as the ground, pin 2 hot(+) and pin 3 inverted (-), but some (including my accuphase amp) have pins 2 and 3 wired in opposite fashion. If they do not match up, your system will be out of phase unless you get a custom made xlr that's wired appropriately for both ends.
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Actually, it wouldn't be, necessarily.

Both channels would still be of the same polarity which is by far the most important.

It is arguable that they might be wrong with respect to absolute polarity but then again some gear doesn't maintain absolute polarity anyway. Further, there is no guarantee or standard for source material to all be of same absolute polarity.
 
whoaru99 said:
It is arguable that they might be wrong with respect to absolute polarity but then again some gear doesn't maintain absolute polarity anyway. Further, there is no guarantee or standard for source material to all be of same absolute polarity.
Click to expand...
I find it amazing that after over a century of audio industry design & recording they still haven't sorted this one out.
 
House de Kris said:
I'll second the suggestion to build your own. That will help ensure you don't end up accidentally with expensive cables, something you don't believe in.

Virtually every cable I've seen (and I haven't seen them all) as off-the-shelf store-bought XLR cables have the ground connected at both ends. In my opinion, this is absolutely the WORST way to make XLR cables for anything other than microphones. Chose one end to be ground free, and stick with this scheme throughout your system.
Click to expand...

yes, you only want 1 ground connected preferably on the in side of the cable according to Rane and their diagrams are the only ones I have used to eliminate hum.
 
whoaru99 said:
Actually, it wouldn't be, necessarily.

Both channels would still be of the same polarity which is by far the most important.

It is arguable that they might be wrong with respect to absolute polarity but then again some gear doesn't maintain absolute polarity anyway. Further, there is no guarantee or standard for source material to all be of same absolute polarity.
Click to expand...

I think this is wrong. If you're going to run balanced connections and the pin wiring is different, then you need to check with the manufacturer to ensure you're not creating a phase issue. The source material will likely just make it further out of phase.
 
Actually, I don't see a thing wrong with what whoaru99 wrote. And, to go further, the phenomena you are describing here is indeed polarity, not phase, which whoaru subtly injected.

Going further, if the pre and power amp don't agree with pin 2 polarity, then it would be easier to merely swap the speaker leads, instead of seeking out a special 'crossover' cable.
 
If you're on a cheap budget, you might be able to find old microphone cables with good XLR ends in a surplus/used goods outlet. Since microphone signals are low-voltage/fine signals to begin with, these often have surprisingly good wire in them, and can make decent interconnects. Quality can vary, but some of them have very good connectors, too. I've picked up some nice cables this way, although it's about as easy to just buy the parts from a "pro" gear supplier and solder up your own, thus avoiding the risks that the older/used wires might be affected by corrosion, etc... or may not be appropriate for your application. It's just a suggestion for those inclined to try it, whether for reasons of budget or just curiosity and the joy of tinkering.
 
Well, I never knew there were so many issues to consider with XLR cables. Maybe I should just stick to single ended unbalanced connections. I know I can't possibly screw those up!

Build my own? Not sure if I have the time for the web research and YouTube "how to" videos. Thought it would be simple to just buy some from Monoprice. Maybe I'll still give it a shot and see how it turns out.

Thanks for everyones input!
 
Peter Walker said:
I find it amazing that after over a century of audio industry design & recording they still haven't sorted this one out.
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Actually they have, back in 1995 or so. It was quite the nightmare before that.


To the OP, anything using Neutrik connectors, Belden, Mogami,Canare cable is a good indication of a quality end product.
Just stay away from anything made in China or anything audiophile approved and you should be good:D
 
House de Kris said:
Actually, I don't see a thing wrong with what whoaru99 wrote. And, to go further, the phenomena you are describing here is indeed polarity, not phase, which whoaru subtly injected.

Going further, if the pre and power amp don't agree with pin 2 polarity, then it would be easier to merely swap the speaker leads, instead of seeking out a special 'crossover' cable.
Click to expand...

Swapping the speaker leads will not fix the situation. As I implied before, it will only make your system further out of phase/polarity.

If you don't believe me, call the manufacturer of your amp. That's what I did at least. I had a feeling the engineers at Accuphase had a better understanding than I did.
 
PrestigeWW said:
Swapping the speaker leads will not fix the situation. As I implied before, it will only make your system further out of phase/polarity.

If you don't believe me, call the manufacturer of your amp. That's what I did at least. I had a feeling the engineers at Accuphase had a better understanding than I did.
Click to expand...

Um, yes flipping the polarity on both of your speakers will flip the polarity 180 degrees. If the hot and cold are flipped on one of your units, then flipping the polarity on your speaker wires will restore absolute phase, assuming absolute chase was correct in front of the XLR's. The relative 'phase' (more appropriately polarity) will be equal.

To the OP, just try some of those off the shelf 'mic' cables. It's cheap, they'll have a locking connector, and XLR's are much better than RCA's if you have to hot insert/remove a connector.
 
To answer some of the original question, yes, there can be differences between microphone and balanced audio connections.

Mic cables are made to not break down with much greater movement, use and abuse. Normally are rubber jacketed and wire strands using materials that last longer with regular movement. Also usually will have a more carefully done shielding as they are made to handle a way lower level of audio through them.

Audio cables on the other hand can be made without the same concern for durability and movement needs. The materials of the jacket, the shielding, the dielectric and even the audio wire will differ from mic cabling.

So just because the pinout is the same and can be used in a interchangeable fashion, doesn't mean they are exactly the same. And as a point of interest, in a comparision once, a difference between balanced audio cables used to connect preamp to power amp, a difference could be heard.

A very nice Belden rubber jacketed mic cable made up with Neutrik connectors was compared with a Straightwire Audio balanced and a third that the brand escapes me at the moment. Three of us listened through the 3 different cables and then compared our thoughts. All of us had the same thought...the Belden was clearly gritty sounding and the worst of the lot!! Going to the spec's...the mic cable uses something like copper clad steel for conductors. Need to look that back up to be sure what it was, but the materials were a big part of why it didn't sound as good! It sure changed my expectation of balanced cable at line level having little sound of its own and the quality looking cable being able to hold it's own audio wise!!

EV3
 
Belden wouldn't, afaik, make a cable for mic duty using copper clad steel. That's virtually only intended for RF applications (although sometimes used elsewhere). It's very common for CATV coax.

Belden 1800F is a fairly popular cable to use for balanced interconnects. I assure you there aren't any copper-plated steel conductors in that stuff, but maybe you had something different.

I do agree though from a practical matter the cable construction could be different for something specifically intended to be a mic cable vs. just any old STP that might be used to construct a balanced cable. As to the sound, well, that's a completely different topic of opinion and experience. I don't detect any difference between the generic XLRs I've used nor ones made from either Mogami 2549 or Belden 1800F. I am currently using the nice set of 7 I made from the Belden in my HT setup, the set of 7 Mogami are in the cable drawer since my back room 2-ch rig is currently set up with all components having unbalanced connections. There, sometimes the gear mix is balanced from DAC to preamp and from preamp to power amp. The generic ones are generally relegated to the garage for my pro sound gear just because they tend to get dirty and such.
 
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When 3 different people came up with the same feeling about the sound quality of the cable, I think were talking about factual differences here. I mean three. That just doesn't happen by accident.

So, I'm off Belden now. I thought it was good, but I didn't have data like this before.










:D
 
Jon_Logan said:
Um, yes flipping the polarity on both of your speakers will flip the polarity 180 degrees. If the hot and cold are flipped on one of your units, then flipping the polarity on your speaker wires will restore absolute phase, assuming absolute chase was correct in front of the XLR's. The relative 'phase' (more appropriately polarity) will be equal.
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Again, I think this is incorrect. You are sending a +/- signal to the -/+ connection on your amp. This does not mean that simply switching the connections to the speaker terminasl will correct the polarity and correct the phase. You're simply reversing the polarity a second time, which basically is doubling the problem.

At least this is how it was explained to me by the engineers at Accuphase. I assumed the very same thing you did, but it was clear from Accuphase that this would just make things even worse. Imaging would be even further off center and bass could be more flabby than before.

Maybe they are wrong. Just passing the info.
 
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