Balanced or Unbalanced?

[Vlad Drac]

Hey All.
Quick question: I have the Event ALP5 monitors plugged in with 1/4" balanced cables direct from my DIGI001. Sounds great!
Now, I'm thinking about purchasing the Event S100 subwoofer to get a 2.1 setup, but the input/through jacks are RCA unbalanced. I'd have to go out of that RCA to the unbalanced RCA of the ALP5s.
Is there really that big a differene in the project studio environment?
Any feedback or opinions for both setups would be appreciated.
Thanks.
-Vlad

[Barnabas]

Unbalanced should be fine as long as you keep it under 20 feet.

[TheLEM]

I agree, use good cables, gold plugs. Switch Craft makes some nice ones.

[Mr.BossPlaya]

JUST A SIDE NOTE...

Actually Gold is a poor conductor when compared to other metals; the reason why gold is preferred is because it has a long self life. It does not tarnish, corrode, and break down as easy as other metals. For the most part gold will be sufficient but you might want to consider others if you need.

[Barnabas]

It's best to keep like metals together. If the piece of equipment has gold connectors on it, then gold connectors on the cable is best. Dissimilar metals can react with each other and corrode causing a bad connection.

[Vlad Drac]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I'm sure I can't afford any specialty metals, so I'm gonna get some monster 6 footers or something similar.
-Vlad

[Mr.BossPlaya]

scrap the monster cable and grab mogami.

[mindnoise]

It's best to keep like metals together. If the piece of equipment has gold connectors on it, then gold connectors on the cable is best. Dissimilar metals can react with each other and corrode causing a bad connection.

sorry,

but this yould make sense if the cabel itself was gold, too. the TRS jacks are just gold plated
100th fraction of 1mm thick and the soldering is still tin/pewter and the cable is copper usually.
so adding Gold would be detrimental, wouldn´t it?

BTW
Jacks are Gold plated for the purpose of not corroding while being plugged in a long time,
like the connections of you HiFi stereo, where the jack is plugged in for years in a row.

In the studio, or e.g. with a patchbay, where cables are often removed, the jack and pluges are
virtually selfcleaning because of the usage. So the anti corrosion benefit from the Gold plated jacks is reduced (at least on the front side)
Corrosion is quite an issue depending on the quality of the pureness of metals used, the parts exposed to air and air moisture etc.


BTW.
if going from balanced to unbalanced jacks it´s recommended to use mono/unbalanced cables,
so the balanced output would not assume the connection is balanced.

I turned to making all my cables myself, I use Neutrik jacks and cable with low capacity
microphone cable, shielded. the cheapest way if you have the time and the soldering skills.

my 2cents
regs