Common types of audio cables and their uses. Analog Balanced / Unbalanced & Digital

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A bite-sized animation showing the most common types of audio cables. We'll explain both balanced and unbalanced analog connectors, as well as digital connectors.

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[arbitersofsound]

If you have any specific questions about your cables and connections, leave us a comment, or ask us on Discord 😃

[GaricsPeter]

Your channel for audio is like Apalapse's for photography. Perfect explanations with simple, understandable illustrations.

[VOTECHGURU]

This is a great channel. You got a new sub. ;-)

[AnujeetGhosh]

Sir, Please try to make a video on AES/EBU, AES50 & MADI.... The way you explain is very easy to understand.... Thank You So Much🙂

[wisteela]

I wasn't aware of DB25s being used like that.

[AsiAzzy]

I play with old amps, turntables, reel to reel, etc and a lot of them have DIN connectors in several variants. Most have 5pin crown DIN where middle is ground and two leftmost are signal. On a vintage EQ has the input and output on same 5pin DIN plug, where two leftmost are inputs middle is ground and two rightmost are outputs from EQ. Then there is the centered rose pattern of 5pin DIN for headphones.. no luck finding a suitable connector.. i've 3dprinted a center section of a normal 5pin crown DIN, and reused the housing and metal parts, and glued the pins in the 3dprinted center part that makes the pattern.

Also on digital conector there are also those funky combo 3.5mm jack with optical reader in the back. There are optical cables with the head shaped like the 3.5mm jack but lights at the end and has optical fiber. (usually a normal TRS 3.5mm jack is wired as well.. the optical version just has a plastic spade looking like a normal jack not making electrical contact.)

[vitamin]

Is there a way to tell the difference between balanced trs and unbalanced trs cable just by looking at them?

[mh]

I have an old logitech twin desktop speaker with bass with both single 3.5 input and a dual aux input. Can I plug my projector into the 3.5 input for sound, and have my desktop computer plugged into the dual aux, (to use separately) without their being any complications? Thank you.

[ristyp]

What about USB? My headphone amp has both USB, coax and optical connections