Balanced Or Unbalanced Instrument Cable

A common question we get is are guitar cables balanced or unbalanced the short answer is guitar cables are unbalanced but dig in a little deeper to understand some basic principles in order to grasp what this truly means.

Balanced or unbalanced instrument cable.

The diagram above shows how the cable works. This is especially true if it needs to be used in an environment where there s a lot of lights and other stuff that could cause interference. Unbalanced ts mono cables quarter inch guitar cables are unbalanced cables that are mono. Trs cables can occasionally be used instead of a ts cable but the signal is still unbalanced.

Unbalanced cables work great for connecting a guitar to an amp for instance but because they are not very good at suppressing noise from outside interference unbalanced cables should have a maximum length of 15 20 feet 4 6 meters especially when used in noisy environments and with signals that are low level to begin with such as those from keyboards guitars mp3 devices and so on. Connecting a keyboard with unbalanced ts outputs to the unbalanced input on a di box or the instrument input on a mixer. Most unbalanced music instrument cables have two conductor wires. The main difference comparing balanced vs unbalanced cables is a balanced cable has 1 additional conductor.

One wire carries the signal and is referred to as the hot line. Of course things are rarely so simple and straightforward in the audio world so a little more detail is in in order. The balanced cable will have 1 hot 1 cold and a ground shielding. Balanced vs unbalanced cables.

Use balanced cables for balanced equipment and unbalanced cables for everything else. The balanced cable conveyed a tighter cleaner sound that made the mix from the unbalanced cable seem soft and unrefined in comparison. Unbalanced ts cables should be used with unbalanced input and outputs. The structure of a balanced audio cable is similar to an unbalanced cable with one addition.

A typical unbalanced cable like a 1 4 instrument cable has 2 conductors. With regard to balanced versus unbalanced instrument cables the simplest way to explain it is. The other is the ground wire that s connected to to an insulated wrap and is also called the common ground earth or shield. A balanced audio cable has a ground wire but it also carries two copies of the same incoming audio signal sometimes referred to as a hot positive and cold negative signal.

Hi hats and cymbals were a lot crisper and. I m surprised to say that i did indeed hear a difference. It wasn t huge but noticeable enough to consider upgrading my own cable.