question balanced unbalaced connection

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what's the difference between balanced and unbalanced connections?

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unbalanced is like a normal jack-jack connection - one of the wires in ground and the other carries the signal.

balanced has an additional wire, which carries the inverse of the signal. the difference of the voltages on the two wires (inverse and in-phase) gives the signal.

balanced connections have higher immunity to noise and common-mode signal problems like ground loops. they're often used for longer connections like microphone cables for this reason.

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Balanced is a pair of wires that carry a + and a - signal, idential except they are 180 degrees out of phase, with a shield. This keeps noise interference to a minimum and allows long runs (think hundreds of feet) with no audible loss.

Unbalanced is a single + lead sharing a shield/-. It is far more subjectable to noise interference, will be 6db less gain than the same balanced signal, and past 15-20 ft length will lose fidelity.

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