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Can you plug an unbalanced cable into a balanced input?
You can — with some caveats. If you use unbalanced cable that doesn’t carry the inverted signal, the initial signal is still carried across the cable, so it will work. It may just be noisier and the level may be lower than if you used a true balanced connection.
Is mono output balanced?
A balanced audio cable, such as an XLR or TRS, is a mono cable. For devices with balanced input/output jacks, you will need two balanced cables to achieve stereo — this would look like “Audio Input Left & Right” (or Audio Output Left & Right.)
Can you plug a TS cable into a TRS input?
Can I use a TRS cable as a TS cable? Unbalanced TS cables should be used with unbalanced input and outputs. TRS cables can occasionally be used instead of a TS cable, but the signal is still unbalanced.
Can a stereo cable be plugged into a mono jack?
You can also plug a stereo cable into a balanced mono jack, but there’s a caveat here: if you send mono signals, the L and R channels will exactly be cancelled by the common mode rejection, so you should pan anything you send hard-left. (If that’s not a problem, you should also pan hard-left for stereo->unbal.mono,…
Do you need a TRS socket for TS-mono?
TRS-balanced to TS-mono is where things get murky. “Converting” an unbalanced signal into a balanced one by plugging a TS-mono plug into a TRS socket for symmetrical signals is what this scheme supports. For the reverse conversion, the connections are not reliable enough. To make this work, you need an actual TRS socket.
What happens when you mix stereo and mono?
If it’s unbalanced mono, the result will come out only on the left channel; if it’s balanced it will come out L/R in opposite phase. Neither is usually acceptable, that’s a major reason why hardly any professional device has stereo inputs.
How are stereo headphones different from mono headphones?
A mono signal uses only 1 audio channel while a stereo signal uses two audio channels (left and right). Stereo signal simulates “natural” hearing by creating the impression of sound coming from different directions. This is accomplished by the separate audio channels producing sound in two different speakers (or stereo headphones).