How does a balanced out/in circuit handle an unbalanced cable?

B

BeeDice

New member
This is super technical so maybe not the right forum, I apologize...

Say I plug a TS cable in my mixer's balanced outs, or my monitor's balanced ins. How does the circuitry handle this scenario? After all, a balanced out implies you've got two signals (the raw and the inverse), but an unbalanced cable only accepts one signal.

Basically I'd like a SUPER dumbed down version of this wiki. I'm not an electrical engineer, and high school physics was oh so long ago. On the other hand I did get an A so I feel like I should be able to figure this out!
 
Most balanced i/o is impedance balanced, which means there is no signal on the "cold" side. So it just works as normal, but without the noise cancelling benefits. If you aren't getting noise or interference, you are good to go.
 
Yeah, the simple answer is that in most cases with gear made since at least the 70s, it just works. You probably won't notice much difference in noise unless you have some other problem. You might lose up to 6db in the process, but that's easy to make up.

The slightly longer answer is that the unused ring conductor is shorted to the shield which is usually ground. For most inputs, that means nothing but possibly a loss of level. For most outputs it's about the same thing. A very poorly designed output circuit could malfunction or even burn from this, but almost everything nowadays is built to be safe when shorted.
 
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