Using Balanced cables for unbalanced connections

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witchfeet
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Using Balanced cables for unbalanced connections

Post by witchfeet » Thu Sep 23, 2010 1:21 pm

I'm building a small analog studio at my place. All my equipment is unbalanced. Old Tascam m312b mixer, Otari mx5050 mkIII 8, Tascam 32, ProCo unbalanced patchbay, mostly unbalanced outboard gear.

I'm in the processing of buying all my snakes and I was wondering if using TRS balanced 1/4" cables for an unbalanced 1/4" input would matter. FYI the other side of the cables will be XLR but the ins and outs on the Otari are unbalanced XLR. The reason I ask is that there are much more balanced XLR to 1/4" trs snakes available than there are XLR to 1/4" ts unbalanced snakes. I'm just wondering if it matters if I use the balanced snake for unbalanced gear?

kslight
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Post by kslight » Thu Sep 23, 2010 4:12 pm

Shouldn't matter. Plus it's always better to buy balanced now if you decide to get new equipment later.

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-3db
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Post by -3db » Thu Sep 23, 2010 4:32 pm

You might introduce hum into the signal path depending on how the grounding inside the boxes is.
Um excuse me, these headphones aren't working...

witchfeet
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Post by witchfeet » Thu Sep 23, 2010 6:20 pm

kslight wrote:Shouldn't matter. Plus it's always better to buy balanced now if you decide to get new equipment later.
I was thinking this as well. Might as well not buy snakes twice. Although the hum comment is also a little worrisome.

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