An unbalanced wire is a two conductor wire--one hot, the other ground. Balanced is a three conductor wire--one positive, one negative, the other ground. Sometimes, instead of positive and negative, you might hear the terms hot and cold. Balanced wire and XLR (mic) are synomonous. With a mic it is obvious on why, you are cutting noise and trying to shield RF signals. Even at that, moving a mic cable you will get some noise. Now, most guitar cables are unbalanced, hence plug it into the guitar and amp, move the cord, get lots of noise. Many mixers have balanced mic jacks AND balanced line jacks (1/4") so that long cables (used on stage, right?) won't pick up unwanted noise. This is even more important in the studio, but in home studios and project studios where alot of cable is ten feet long or less it isn't so vital. Now before all the studio dudes with money gasp and say how wrong I am about balanced cables in home/project studios let me say in my own defense that the issue of balanced cable gets important when you surround that cable with lots of processors, power inputs, and other cable (we all know that our wives or girlfriends think our music room is a mess because of the wire). Balanced will help prevent the noise again. On 1/4" cable, a balanced wire has male plugs that look like a stereo headphone plug, also called a TRS jack(tip, ring, sleeve) while and unbalnced 1/4" male plug looks like the jack on a guitar or speaker cable (TS jack, tip/sleeve). The female jack (on the mixer or amp) looks like a standard jack. look inside and if you see two metal "slip clips" it is an unbalanced plug--see three "slip clips" and it is a balanced jack. As for which is better--the balanced, of course. But balanced 1/4" (TRS) ends are not a common cable. I keep hearing that they are, but I rarely see them in music supply catalogs, not even in the recording section. And forget finding them at Radio Shack. Maybe at your better music stores, though the ones close to me don't carry it, even on mic cable with 1/4" ends. XLR cable is the only balanced wire I have found. Solution, buy three conductor wire from an electronics repair shop and get stereo plugs from radio shack and make your own cable. That or get XLR cable, cut off the ends and replace it with stereo ends from radio shack. Maybe someone out there has a good supplier with great prices.
Peace, Jim
