XLR - Hot, Cold, and Ground?

[sjaguar13]

On an XLR cable, what is the prong on the left hot, the middle top one ground, and the right one cold?

 

[Tom Cram]

Pin 1: Ground
Pin 2: Hot (+)
Pin 3: Cold (-)

If you are looking at the male end it reads from left to right.

Top left pin: 1
Top right pin: 2
Bottom pin: 3

If you are looking at the female end it reads from right to left

Top right pin: 1
Top left pin: 2
Bottom pin: 3

TRS correspondent:

Tip: Hot (+)
Ring: Cold (-)
Sleeve: Ground

Some older gear and some european gear may be different, but this is now pretty much standard.

Tom Cram
dbx Senior Technical Support
(801) 568-7530
tcram@dbxpro.com

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."
-Thomas Jefferson-

 

[Harvey Gerst]

On all XLRs, there are numbers next to each pin (on the front and the back of the plug or jack). Pin 1 is ground, Pin 2 is the positive signal, and Pin 3 is the negative signal. The negative signal is a mirror image of the positive signal, but with the polarity reversed.

 

[Light]

Tom is of course right. Unfortunately, not all companies follow the standard for pins two and three, and they are reversed (Pin 2 cold, pin three hot). The good news is that this almost never matters, because the human ear can not hear the difference.

Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi