Hey all, can someone please give me a brief explanation of the difference between balanced lines and regular rca's. just bought an Audison vrx and want to put it in my Maxima running off an Alpine in dash dvd, sorry don't know the model, and running Focal Utopias. Thanks for any help, Steve

 

Unbalanced. An interconnection between audio components in which there are two conductors, signal and ground. The 'unbalanced' aspect of this connection is that, since ground is the reference, each of the two signal leads has a very different (unbalanced) impedance relationship to to the reference. This is of no consequence unless there are noises or hum potentials in the grounding of the interconnected components.

Balanced. A method of interconnecting audio components using a three-wire cable in which there are two signal wires and one ground wire, all of which may be inside a cylindrical shield that is also grounded. The two signal conductors both have the identical impedances to the common ground terminal, hence the name Balanced. Because of this such interconnections are highly immune to ground-originated noises and hum. It is widely used in professional audio systems which routinely have very long cable runs and very complex interconnections of signal and power grounds.

regards, Mark

 

Damn, beat me to it. My 2 years of telecommunications is is going to waste!