Balanced vs Unbalanced Audio | Do Balanced Cables Sound Better? 

Thanks, Adrian! I’m still striving to find the right balance there - you’re exactly right.

@@AudioUniversity mandatory "ba dum tss!"

Constructive comment. Nice !

I agree, Kyle's doing a good job hitting that "sweet spot". You don't want to bore the people who know some or all of it already, while making it interesting enough for those learning it for the first time. Hard to do that, but wonderful when you can.

Mk

These are great tips, Lee! Thanks for sharing your experience with us!

Unbalanced doesn’t need to lose high frequencies. The only reason why that happened on old gear is because the connection was poorly designed, for example on passive electric guitar pickups. The signal there is high impedance and reactive. A 20 m cable would sound shockingly dull compared to a 2m one. This is a design flaw that balancing wouldn’t fix. A low-impedance line-level unbalanced signal will not lose high frequencies any more than a balanced signal. It will, however, get very noisy over longer runs, which is why balancing is necessary. This is even worse for small signals such as those of microphones, which can often be over 100 times quieter.

@@distortingjack old fashioned curly lead acts as a choke inductor, loses some high frequencies: popular with strat and tetcasters to take the edge off like Jimi Hendrix

Do you want to stretch cables around your house?

Thanks, Curtis!

Curtis I see you in everywhere.You're a versatile man !

I used to work for Tara Labs building speaker cable. This was a great video on balanced versus unbalanced cable. Thanks Kyle. 😎

Wow! It’s a huge honor to read this validating comment, especially considering that I fell victim to this myth not too long ago! I hope this is truly THE Bill Whitlock writing this comment! Thank you, if so.

@@AudioUniversity the topic of a balanced cable has not been fully disclosed, since there are balanced wires for headphones, there are also balanced audio DACs, they work on a different principle, to the topic of noiseless sound, I would touch on the optics pluses and minuses, as well as a modern Internet cable that modern DJ consoles use and digital sound amplifiers, this brings us to the topic of digital sound and sound processors, which also have a lot of types, for a car, for films, for pop acoustics, for microphone feedback protection, for phase correction and room correction and other useful things)

From one Ham to another, thank you, and 73. DE K6JSC

@@jasoncary7957 Thanks for your kind words!

As most interference induces an emf voltage, why aren’t there audio interfaces based on current, with a high output impedance and a low input impedance? I understand that transatlantic analog cables work this way. Or are there caveats? Or is it that most (all?) sound sources/sensors are, just as the EMI sources, voltage sources with a low output impedance? Which would require active devices to transfer the voltage into current.

I second your statement. Spent 12 weeks in the communications chapters of my schooling and cancellation hasn’t been explained that clear the entire time I was in college. Even after I’ve been in the field the last 12 years and understand the concept completely, it was the clearest and to the point example I’ve seen.

it only seems super clear because you already know what he's talking about. I for one don't exactly understand how the differential device operates. and why was it unbalanced on 1+2 and balanced on 2+3?!

@@jazzochannel it’s balanced on 2 and 3 because you have a differential pair that connects to those two ports. Where as on the unbalanced you have a single line that drives the signal on port 2 and a ground on port 1. The differential signaling is what makes it balanced

i always see engineers being surprised by basic information... I work in IT and I just had to educate a computer scientist about first hop redundancy protocols... like wtf are you guys studying? your degree is worth nothing

This is exactly why electronics engineers and all other engineers should spend 2 years in the field before they graduate.

I waited to hear somethin but nothing

тема не раскрыта, так как есть балансные провода для наушников, принцип действия немного иной

I believe you are thinking of the TL072. While you do occasionally see an 82/84, the 72/74 is far more common. That being said, they are only common for the low price, performance isn't amazing unless you need a high input Z. Otherwise, an NE5532/4 will typically preform much better for a little bit extra cost(but not much!)

the fun thing about op amps is, the power supply to them comes in 2 flavors too, either balanced/dual (vcc+ and vcc- are both required), or unbalanced (just vcc+) since DC cannot pass into the negative without having an actual supply that provides negative voltage, on the unbalanced opamps, their zero DC offset point is shifted to half the input voltage instead. you'll have to create half the voltage by making a little 2-equal-resistor short circuit and add that voltage to the input signal in order to dc bias it properly prior to sending it to the unbalanced opamp that will be used as preamp. otherwise all of the negative phase of signal on the AC input side will be negated, it can not go or see under 0, so they'll end up multiplying by zero, which is nothing, so they have to be that way you basically divide your maximum amplitude by 2 compared to the balanced ones that have their zero point at exactly 0 volts, this perfectly illustrates why balanced outputs are 6db hotter, they have exactly twice the amplitude headroom/double the voltage range and obviously it's a bit less clean since you're just recycling the same vcc+ signal, rather than have a clean seperate negative signal coming from the supply, you'll notice if the supply is dodgy, amplifiers are really only as good as their power supply. this is how many guitar stompboxes on 9v blocks work, but they don't have noise issues with dirty power supplies as they run off their own batteries, they're seperated from the grid the resistors on the AC input side will keep the signal from flowing back into the instrument as the path of least resistance is to the opamp input, and ofcourse the DC portion on the output signal has to be filtered out with a condenser/capacitor on the end of the output side, so it only lets the AC signal through too.

Thanks, Frank!

Hello. I don't know if you have fixed your problem completely, but just wanted to let you know that I had a similar issue and it turned out to be a router that I had near my XLR cables. The router's antennas were picking up radio signals and transferring them to the cable. Hope that helps in any way to you or anyone else reading this.

@@FrangellGaming wouldn’t a balanced XLR cable reject the router noise as mentioned in the video?

This is for you or for anyone who is reading comments, as demonstrated in this video, balanced ones could cancel interference noise, but also a more expensive cable which has excellent shielding, like a $50 cable could shield your sound from such interference; if you have allot of devices, or devices close to your cable at any part of it, buy a more expensive xlr cable~ The difference in shielding between a $5-$40 is small, but $50 and above is huge, as an example~ I do recommend watching a video or reading on which cable does shielding the best~ If you put what this video is showing together with what I've said then you want an expensive Balanced XLR Cable to help you with this or such issues~ Hope this helps someone~

@@CelestialMelody Cost isn't everything! I'd advise looking at the actual specifications instead, as there are many expensive products that are vastly inferior to cheaper alternatives.

@@anzetal9586the geometry doesn't work out perfectly if the router antenna is almost touching the audio cable or the cable is right against a very radio-reflective surface (concrete wall or floor). Often times buzzing noises is from power supplies, the big old magnet with lots of wire wound around it is beaming out EM waves and the electrical wiring in the power outlet like to pick that up and ruin the proper ground for the rest of the house. Putting wall-wart adapters on little extension strips usually helps, so does rotating the freezer just a little bit until the speakers stop popping every time the freezer compressor switches on.

Glad to hear that, @American Made! I appreciate you taking the time to watch and comment!

Well, audiophiles think that expensive ethernet cables make a difference in audio quality, so I'm not entirely surprised that they think that balanced cabling magically gives you better audio quality.

noisy and probably over a long cable.. I wonder, being a "phile" of something, will you ever enjoy the content rather than looking out for issues!

Very good point! To exploit an xlr cable the source and the receiving gadget must be constructed balanced! P.s why do the hifi fanatics not use gold, which is the best leader!?

@@GeirRssaakthey do . Gold plated connectors exists

@@StormbreakerYT what do you think goldplated means?what about purer gold or silver!?

Thanks for sharing this additional info, Jim!

Telephone lines are balanced and run a lot farther and we’re used way before that.

Glad it was helpful!

Sounds like you’ve got a really great system, @Music man! Thanks for sharing! Also, thanks for watching.

I think I was experiencing this so called ground loop and it was only after I routed my subwoofer power cables to the same socket as my audio equipment that the noise finally been eliminated!

Thanks for sharing this extra information, Fred!

Glad to hear the video is helpful! Thanks for watching, Jake!

Thanks, Dan! I’m glad to read this!

I noticed these presentation-related items too. HONESTLY they contributed _greatly_ to my deciding to stay with the presentation, once I "checked in" . Dan- Thanks for mentioning these things. To AU- please heed these things mentioned here. These are VERY important to making an effective presentation, and are often overlooked by other Y-T Presenters not aware that they can have a real effect on the receptiveness of the intended audience to the material being shared. And AU & Dan- THANKS to both of you ! - C.

Thank you, Chuck and Dan.

I was cringing as I awaited the "remember to like and subscribe and check out our patreon etc etc" cliche RU-vid segment. I was pleasantly surprised when it never came. Just a quick tag at the end. Well done.

Thanks, Timur!

Thanks, Chris! I’m glad you liked it!

I'm very happy to read this, Matthew! You're not alone. I struggled with this concept for a long time, too.

@@AudioUniversity I've got a bunch of little empty spaces in my engineering/electrical audio knowledge, so I'm glad to have found you!

You must me a genius then or have much experience in the topic. I am mega dumb and am very confused now

Glad to hear that, Chi Sena! Thanks for watching!

I agree. Short and to the point.

Correct.

You have some small noise in signal. But most of the time you don't hear it. But If you have more noise, when you have more cables running together - power cables, audio cables and so on - then balanced is the best thing since sliced bread ;) That's why all computer network cables are always balanced. They are Balanced Twisted Pairs. Remove the balance, and from 1Gig network you will only get 10Mbsp (or lower), due to noise.

@@benjimenfranklin7650 No. Most cables are shielded. There is a processing part to balanced signals on the receiving side. Balanced cables use two signal wires; both carry a copy of the signal, but the two copies are sent with their polarity reversed. If you sum two signals that are identical but are reversed in polarity, the signals cancel out, leaving you with silence. So it's a nice signal processing trick to eliminate the noise.

@@Wordsalad69420 Shielded cables are more expensive and unwieldy than unshielded cables but offer increased protection against electromagnetic interference (EMI) that can slow down or disable electrical systems. Unshielded cables are easier to install and maintain but are not protected from EMI.

Thanks for saving my time

Thanks, @Only A Northern Cyclist!

Well said, Josiah! Thanks for watching and sharing your appreciation for the tech behind the art!

Thanks for helping me refine my understanding of the subject, @satoriusrock! That was very helpful.

In homes, the cable runs are usually quite short - 15’ or so. Unless you’ll be running line level signals over a longer distance, unbalanced connections are far less important.

True, but if you notice noise with unbalanced connections, chances are high they disappear when using balanced connections

It depends. In a home system, balancing is primarily done for sound quality benefits, where on the pro side, its done for more practical reasons like noise and cable length. The most important thing to keep in mind is there's more than one way to implement balancing in an audio circuit. Balancing on equipment like we're dealing with here is balanced from connection to connection. What that means is a component generates a single ended signal and sends it to the output. The signal at output is then converted to balanced. When the balanced signal reaches the downstream component, it gets converted back to single ended. This isn't the best way to do it, but it does provide real benefits. On most high end home gear, its done differently. The best way to do balancing is to make the component itself balanced, and not convert the signal at all. But Its very expensive. You need to double up on all the components in the signal path. The easiest way to visualize it, is you need to provide a path for the extra signal conductor that a balanced circuit requires. When the whole system is fully balanced, that's when you start to notice a difference in sound quality. The reason fully balanced components are rare in the pro audio world, is the cost can be extremely high. On a home system, you have 2 channels going through a few components. Balancing something like a studio mixer that can have over 4o or 50 channels, makes it too expensive to be practical. Please keep in mind that this post is just to give a basic explanation. This topic can get more technical, but it would be too long to put it all in a post. But the overall concept is correct.

Well depends upon which devices you have near the cable

in home recording, you absolutely want a balanced load whenever possible. your entire circuit breaker is nothing but pure noise.

Thanks, Jolox!

Thanks, Lorenzo. I hadn’t thought of it that way. I appreciate you taking the time to share this info.

@Google user Fair enough!

High-quality noise rejection does require that the impedances of the two lines are well matched. In the case of a long cable, for example, where the two conductors were mismatched by 1 ohm in their end-to-end resistance, the noise rejection would be limited to 40dB at best, assuming a typical 100 ohm driver impedance and a noise source near the receiver end.

Thanks, Supplemental Seminary! I use Adobe Illustrator.

Thanks, Sam!

@@GladeSwope The signal is + and - at a balanced output. When the signal arrives at a differential input: the + input is non inverting, the - input is inverting thereby canceling any noise on the balanced line

Great idea, James! Thanks!

Thanks for sharing this extra info, Bob!

@@AudioUniversity You're certainly welcome! Basic understanding of things like this acts as building blocks for understanding other more complex things. If you can grasp the details of whichever parts you do know, there are fewer new things to worry about.

For cable runs beyond 15’, I would always recommend balanced connections. For anything under that, it depends on the noise environment, but it probably won’t make much of a difference.

Thanks, Marin!

There are TS speaker cables. Both conductors have equal impedance. However, it’s not the cable that is balanced. It’s a combination of one device’s output, the cable, and the other device’s input

Yes. It’s called UTP. It’s used for network cabling.

@@AudioUniversity in fact, you could say that a bridged amplifier has a balanced speaker output, and is unshielded.

The traditional analog telephone system has been using unshielded twisted pair cables for more than 100 years.

Thanks for writing this, Kevin. I’m glad to help!

It is not so much dependent on the type of cable or connector that is used. It is more so dependent on the type of output and input on the interfacing devices. If you need to convert an unbalanced signal to balanced, you can use a DI box.

@@AudioUniversity Thanks Kyle. My interface device output is TS and speaker takes TS, so in this case if it was XLR output in interface device and speaker with XLR, will this improve the sound quality or will it reduce the noise appearing due to other electrical devices placed in the vicinity of cable route?

If the outputs of your interface are TS, there would be no advantage to using a TS to XLR adapter or a TS instrument cable. However, it’s likely that your interface has TRS outputs. In this case, you could make a balanced connection with a TRS to XLR adapter. You might find this video helpful: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-m4hy63fEgA0.html

Thanks, Anthony! I’m glad you’re enjoying the videos!

I’m not sure if HDMI cables use balanced pairs or not. That’s a great question!

It might help with the buzz in the DI signal, but I don’t believe it will affect the signal to the amplifier.

@@AudioUniversity thanks for the response! I appreciate it!

Bass (and guitar) amps don't have differential inputs, so they won't cancel the noise. Pickups on basses are wired so their coils and magnets are out of phase so it already cancels out the hum getting picked up (flipping the magnets is what puts the wanted signal back into phase so it isn't canceled out.) I think some boutique basses do come with balanced outputs, but it's very rare. Also, the jacks on basses use TRS jacks that so that they can disconnect the battery when you unplug them. If you were to add a balanced output, you'd need to have a separate on/off switch for the battery because the reversed phase would take the part of the jack used to turn on the battery.

Thanks for sharing this information, @Skippii Kai Tollkuhn!

Yes. My understanding is that an amplifier to a speaker is a balanced connection.

amp connector cables are just twin core heavy duty cable-but unsheilded.

That won't work. The video misses one important point in that the input device has to combine the + and - signals by inverting the polarity of the - signal. Without this polarity inversion, the noise imprinted on the - signal wire will not cancel with the positive. You would essentially just be doubling the noise. Amplifiers to speakers are unbalanced connections. The only way to convert the signal to a balanced connection is through the use of a transformer or active circuitry.

Welcome aboard!