I just came across this website and wanted to pass it along! Balanced cables. Unbalanced. Tip-Ring-Sleeve. XLR. Quarter inch… It can be really confusing. Start throwing in RCA cables, iPods, DVD recorders, and it’s enough to make your head hurt.

The basic idea is that you should use balanced cables as often as you can, especially for longer runs. Any interference that penetrates the cable will still be rejected, even if it gets past the shield. (How that works is so cool. I’ll save it for a future post though). Note that if your signal is going from an unbalanced output (iPod) to a balanced input (XLR input), DO NOT connect anything to pin 3 (the negative connection) on the XLR.