this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It reduces noise from interference.

An unbalanced cable has two wires. A ground and the signal. The audio is the difference between the two. A guitar cable is unbalanced.

A balanced cable has 3 wires. A ground, a signal (+ hot) and a signal with opposite polarity (- cold). The receiver will flip the polarity of the cold signal and add the two signals. The result is that any interference that happens in the cable is also flipped on the cold signal and thereby cancels the interference on the hot signal.

Put in like math: let's say your audio is 3x and noise is 0.5y An unbalanced cable would deliver 3x + 0.5y =noise being added to the output.

A balanced cable would deliver "hot" 3x + 0.5y and "cold" -3x +0.5y. The receiver flips the cold resulting in 3x+0.5y +3x -0.5y =6x + 0y. This can then be divided by 2 resulting in the correct 3x and no noise.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

the guitar input is unbalanced?

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, a guitar output is a mono unbalanced two wire 1/4" TS jack.

Of course there are people who make guitars with custom wiring, but the standard is TS. 2 wires: tip and sleeve.

You can use a stereo/balanced TRS jack with 3 wires,? (Tip, Ring Sleeve) but only because those are sort of compatible with TS. It won't actually be balanced.

[โ€“] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

so whyd you start off with saying it's balanced if it's unvalanced andbwhy dont guitars come balacned

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I said it would be better for guitars to use XLR, because XLR are balanced.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

ahhh, but quarter inchs jacks can be balanced too? also why dont they use xlr then