XLR or Jack leads (1 Viewer)

[Pantone247]

from a mic to a mixer, will XLR give me better sound

and what's all this balanced/unblanced guff, are all XLR's balanced?

huh?

 

[egg_]

from a mic to a mixer, will XLR give me better sound

and what's all this balanced/unblanced guff, are all XLR's balanced?

huh?

All XLRs are balanced, yep
Balanced is less prone to noise
A lead with an xlr plug on one end and a stereo jack on the other is probably balanced - mono jack on the other end is probably not

 

[eoin5]

Yes, its a noise reduction technique. Normal cables have a sleeve that protects from noise, it works especially well for high range hoise (hiss basically) but dont protect against hum so well, the balanced cable uses the sleeve as well but instead of just having one cable to send the signal it uses 2 signal wires, one being the original signal and one with its phase inverted(so +1volt would be -1volt, -0.5v would be +0.5v), so the recieving hardware only has to look athe the voltage difference between the wires to work out the audio signal. Because noise will most likely affect both wires equally then there wont be any change in the 'difference' of the two wires.

 

[aoboa]

Also, on the input to a mixer you've got two choices of input - line/mic (there are others like tape etc but these are basically line inputs too).

Line is normally a 1/4 Inch Jack input.
Mic is normally XLR.

A Mic is not a line level device. If you connect it to the line (jack) input you'll have to crank the gain to get an audible level.
The Mic input (xlr) uses a pre-amp before the gain stage to bring the mic up to line level.

 

[Pantone247]

The Mic input (xlr) uses a pre-amp before the gain stage to bring the mic up to line level.

Got it all sorted so, XLR is wwwaaaayy better then the jack, a huge improvement. It's mad that you can be obsessed with spending $$$ on cash, and something this small can make such a difference.

Best bit was setting it all up last night, and wondering where the strange bubbling noise was coming from... and realising it was the 57 picking up the radiator behind me filling up...

mmmm... gain...

thanks for the help

 

[aoboa]

Cool.

 

[aoboa]

BTW: Most line inputs on mixers are balanced too even though they use 1/4 inch.

Mixers are designed to work with line levels - tape machines, outboard fx, keyboards, pre-amps etc.
Any non-line level equipment needs to be brought up to line level so it can interface properly with the desk and connected equipment.
Things like mics, electric guitars, most types of pick-up etc all need to be pre-amped to bring their levels up.
This is especially important on digital systems where low recording volume leads to poor resolution recordings.

 

[eoinbox]

BTW: Most line inputs on mixers are balanced too even though they use 1/4 inch.

Mixers are designed to work with line levels - tape machines, outboard fx, keyboards, pre-amps etc.
Any non-line level equipment needs to be brought up to line level so it can interface properly with the desk and connected equipment.
Things like mics, electric guitars, most types of pick-up etc all need to be pre-amped to bring their levels up.
This is especially important on digital systems where low recording volume leads to poor resolution recordings.

sound advice. sorry.

 

[Jimmy Magee]

spending $$$ on cash

A most felicitous transaction